Suzi’s Blog

I’ve been looking through some of the programs I’ve downloaded over the last few months and want to share my favourites. All of the programs listed are free (most with optional premium features), unless otherwise specified. More to come soon.

Security
ZoneAlarm Firewall – Best firewall I’ve ever used with the added bonus of being free. Can customise every program that wants access to outside your connection, as well as blocking things trying to come in that shouldn’t.
AntiVir – A very good free AntiVirus solution. One of my favourite features is that it scans in realtime so you don’t have to wait until full-scans to get rid of some of the nasties that try to infect your machine.
Ad-Aware SE Personal – This was my first adware removal tool and it works well at removing tracking and advertising cookies, aswell as deleting old lists (latest things opened within programs).
Spybot – Search and Destroy – Extensive search for spyware infested on your machine. Very good, although it does tend to find some things that aren’t dangerous and are needed for certain programs to run.
Spyware Blaster – What seperates this program from others is that it prevents potentially dangerous cookies or activex based software from installing on your computer in the first place.
Microsoft AntiSpyware – Nice program that has real time scanning and alerts you to changes made on your system so you can scan for malicious content or block certain nasties from opening.
Registry Cleaner – Should be used with some caution if you don’t know your way around your Registry. This program can find and delete obsolete or bad entries, aswell as let you customise what programs your computer starts up with.

Instant Messengers
MSN Messenger – MSN Messenger is one of the most popular instant messengers available. It can be touch and go whether it will sign in or not, but its webcam feature is perhaps the best available for IM’s at the moment.
MSN Plus – This is an add-on for MSN Messenger so you need to have that installed to take advantage of this. It expands what you do with MSN Messenger with some fun and useful features. Now I’ve experienced MSN Plus I think it would take me a while to go back to MSN Messenger without it. I’d recommend anyone to get File Transfer Plus with this as it speeds up downloads between users and has the ability to pause and resume later.
Yahoo! Messenger – One of the features that Yahoo does better than its rivals is its offline messaging. Some IMs don’t support this at all, and others will only send the offline message when the person who sent it has logged on at the same time as the person receiving it (which really defeats the purpose in my opinion). It also has an inbuilt music station (Launch!), games and other interactive features not available elsewhere.
ICQ – I think ICQ has improved a lot since I first used it as they have added a lot more features and caught up with their competition. I’d use it more if it weren’t for some of the odd characters I’ve met on there.
AIM – I don’t use AIM much anymore, but it’s worth a mention. I like that you can now have more than one account running at the same time. Yahoo can manage profiles, but this is somewhat different as the accounts are seperate with AIM. A very useful feature if you want more than one account name but want to use them both at the same time.
Skype – Although I think MSN has better file transfer speeds, Skype is miles ahead with its voice abilities. You can use Skype for free for text and voice chat between computers, and can also make very reasonably priced calls from Skype to worldwide landlines and mobiles. The newest feature is that for a small fee you can have your own number so you can be called from a landline / mobile whenever you’re logged on to Skype.
IMVU – This is a very novel chat program in that it’s completely in 3D. It works on its own or in tandem with other messengers. The idea is that you create an avatar, customize him or her, and put them in a room with other avatars you chat to. Unlike somewhere like Habbo Hotel, you don’t have to mingle with strangers but can choose to interact with people you know providing they also have IMVU. This program is free to use, but for added features (extra rooms, clothes and looks for your avatar, actions they can do, etc.) you need to pay.
Paltalk – Although this can be used to chat privately or with people using other messengers, the main focus of this program is the chatrooms (you can create your own for private or public gatherings). The main use I’ve found is for people to play songs to others in the room or to sing karaoke. Personally I’m not much of a public singer, but I do like to join in by playing a few of my favourite tracks.

Email
Thunderbird – Although Thunderbird can be used as a News or RSS reader, I mainly use it for Email. I find it better than Outlook Express. As you’d expect it lets you use it for POP or IMAP accounts, however it differs in that the POP accounts can have their own folders instead of being stuck together in your Local Folders. It has plenty of features to keep anyone who likes to use an Email Client busy, but one of my favourite features is the colour labelling for instant email sorting, aswell as the click button for read and unread emails. Simple features perhaps, but I appreciate being able to use them.
Gmail Notifier – Only useful if you have a Gmail account (but it seems more people have one than don’t). Sits in your system tray and alerts you when you have a new message to your Inbox. Even gives you the subject and first line of the email you’re being alerted to, and if you have several it will go through them one by one.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 14th, 2005 at 11:46 pm and is filed under Software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.