New desktop - what software?

electrodent

Hi All,

My 6 year old laptop is finally giving up on its life and so I've invested in a desktop. It's been a while since I paid attention to IT stuff so what do people recommend in terms of free software? Mainly looking for recommendations on security and utility software. I will be running Windows 7 and I think it has 8 gig of memory.

Also, dumb question, but is getting online just a matter of plugging in the ethernet cable or do I need any drivers? I'm on o2.

Thanks in advance for your help

bazster

Security: Microsoft Security Essentials, Google it.

Utilities: depends what you mean.

Getting online: assuming you already have a working internet connection and router then yes, just plug it in. Nothing will need installing.

Figment

Security: avast antivirus free version, and Malwarebytes (don't accept the free trial of the paid version.)

Utilities to do what?

Getting online: If it has a wireless network adapter, you will need the router's security key. If ethernet only, just plug a cable in to PC and router. In neither case will you need to install anything.

macman

CCleaner is always the first (free) utility) that I install (after an AV program), even on a new system.

Apreciar

Go to ninite.com, they show the most used free software and the choice you make from all that is available is installed automatically with no interaction from you, just set it up and go for a drink, it will install all your selected software for you.

electrodent

bazster wrote: »

Getting online: assuming you already have a working internet connection and router then yes, just plug it in. Nothing will need installing.

Great, thanks. Yes, should have said internet and router already there.

Figment wrote: »

Utilities to do what?

Sorry, should have said. I guess it's just general maintenance for the PC. So things like CCleaner. I have used Smart Defrag which I thought was pretty good and reg cleaners (although I guess CCleaner will deal with reg issues).

I'm used to editing my own hosts file in XP, does Windows 7 have an easily accessibly hosts file or is there a decent adblocker out there? What about firewall, I believe there is one with Windows 7, is it any good?

vale46_2

as above

1000's of free apps reviewed on Gizmos
http://www.techsupportalert.com/

depends what you need

Rainlendar

Libre office

imgburn

paint net

picasa

comodo firewall

PDF-XChange Viewer

VLC Player

networx

musicbee

slim drivers

7zip / winrar

bazster

If you use Google Chrome (and if not, why not?) AdBlock works great.

closed

How is the laptop giving up on it's life?

ccleaner
voidtools.com
avast free
malwarebytes free
macrium reflect free

Generally, pc's are best left alone - "maintenance" software is likely to cause more problems than it solves, and can turn a nice new fast machine, into something that looks like it came from the 90's

defrag is done automatically, and will not make any difference to the speed of your pc, neither will registry cleaners.

No need for 3rd party firewalls, there is one built into W7, and a router acts as one.

modified host files will slow down your browsing.

electrodent

bazster wrote: »

If you use Google Chrome (and if not, why not?) AdBlock works great.

Firefox at the moment. But it's been a while since I've enjoyed using it.

closed wrote: »

How is the laptop giving up on it's life?

It's best described as "old age". Everything takes so long - 10 minutes to boot up. 30secs/1 minute if you want to open up My Documents. There are also a couple of hardware issues (problems with the socket connecting the power).

But mainly the laptop isn't suitable for some of what I've bought my desktop for - i.e. photo editing. It doesn't have anywhere near enough memory or disk space, nor is the screen appropriate. I will reformat the laptop (presuming I can find my XP disk...) and that should give it a new lease of life.

closed

If the laptop is branded, it may have a factory restore partition, which (after backing up your data), will probably speed it up massively. Alternatively, follow the speedup sticky thread. Poor connections on power sockets can be repaired too.