Computer Basics: Windows applications personal review.
This page is about common
Microsoft Windows computer applications, that I use myself, mostly for years. It contains a description of
the software, information where you can download it, as well as what you have to pay attention to, when installing and configuring it. All this, based on my personal
experience, i.e. not reviews written by an IT professional, nor by a member of any software vendor, developer or distributor company, but the
more or
less subjective impressions of an every day computer user. The applications at the review pages are marked with
colored stars, that
have the following meaning:
| Red star | "Must have" software |
Application, that I consider as "simply the best" and that every computer user should have installed on their machine |
| Orange star | Great freeware application |
Great application, that is free of charge (and that you may use in replacement of similar build-in or commercial software) |
| Yellow star | Great freeware (limited) |
Great application, that is the limited functionality freeware version of commercial software |
| Blue star | Good freeware application |
Freeware application, that I use myself, without wanting to say, that there aren't better free alternatives |
| Cyan star | Good freeware (limited) |
Limited functionality freeware application, that I use myself, without wanting to say, that there aren't better free alternatives |
| Black star | Commercial software |
Application, that you have to pay for, if you want to use it |
| 1. |
System and security software. |
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7-Zip |
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File archiver with high compression ratio and opening more or less any existing archive format. |
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Avast Free Antivirus |
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One of the best rated antivirus programs in all major software reviews; gives me protection for years. |
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Malwarebytes Free |
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Powerful virus removal tool, that you can use beside your real-time scanner, to stay protected from viruses and other malware. |
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Password Safe |
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An excellent, reliable, and easy to use password manager, created by leading security expert Bruce Schneier. |
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Q-Dir |
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Quad-Directory-Explorer, allowing file management in a 4-tabs-window; lots more functionalities than Windows File Explorer. |
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ZoneAlarm Free Firewall |
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One of the best rated firewall programs in all major software reviews; gives me protection for years. |
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| 2. |
Network and Internet software. |
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| 3. |
Home and office software. |
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Foxit Reader |
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Small, fast, and feature-rich PDF Reader, including document annotation and signing. |
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Freelang |
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Offline dictionary application, with a multitude of word lists for from/to English, from/to French and from/to Spanish words translation. |
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LibreOffice |
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Complete, full-featured freeware office suite, as replacement for Microsoft Office. |
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| 4. |
Multimedia. |
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AIMP |
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A spiritual successor to the once famous WinAMP: Music player, tag editor and music converter. |
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GIMP |
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Toolset for high quality image manipulation, as replacement for Adobe Photoshop. |
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IrfanView |
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One of the most popular graphic viewers worldwide, including really easy to use image editing features. |
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VLC player |
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For me personally, the best video player ever. |
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| 5. |
Educational software. |
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| 6. |
Programming software. |
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| 7. |
Web-development software. |
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| 8. |
Gaming software. |
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| 9. |
Utilities. |
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Notepad++ |
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The most complete text editor that you may find, including highlighting for some 90 programming languages or similar. |
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