Reply to: Ten free apps to install on every new PC

[Spacecadet]

Off-topic a bit, but has anyone noticed MSPaint has been overhauled in Windows7?

yup, although the overhaul looks mainly cosmetic.

Calculator HAS been properly overhauled though, there are some nice features in it now

[d000hg]

I use Gimp for graphical work. Stupid Appropriate name for a powerful program with a stupid UI.

FTFY. Gimp is classic open-source... powerful functionality hidden behind programmer-created interface.

Off-topic a bit, but has anyone noticed MSPaint has been overhauled in Windows7?

[vetran]

Ps pad

Keepass

Virtual clone drive

wouldn't be a PC without them.

[gingerjedi]

Picasa 3: Free download from Google

Is a great photo organiser/editor, good set of touch up tools too.

[Sysman]

My client PC is all in German, outlook is all mad - what the heck is going on here?

At work we've got pooled PCs. Some have one version of Outlook for Web which isn't too bad; the others have a version which makes it difficult to find your out box. It's German all the way and finding my way around the latest version of Office is "interesting".

I take my (Mac) laptop in when I want to do some serious mail work (or do it from home).

[VectraMan]

I must be one of the last few remaining users of Pain Shop Pro (which I'm quite happy with)

I use Paint Shop Pro 7, though I did install Paint .NET recently because I couldn't work out (or remember) how to do alpha channels properly in PSP. I'm really very bad at learning how to use other people's software.

I use MSE on both machines. I've pretty much not been aware of it, which is good.

[FiveTimes]

Microsoft Security Essentials

So does this replace anti virus, spybot and ad-aware in one go ?

[C0ldf1re]

Since replacing IE browser with the free Firefox 3.6.3, my surfing is much faster. Download Firefox here.

[xoggoth]

I discovered one thing about Firefox today. If you accidentally use a path to a php script or whatever with \ instead of /, it will still work in ever major browser except Firefox. Well done Mozilla, only browser with the political sense to reject horrible lefty slanting separators where right slanting separators are required.

On free apps I find multipad most useful, the macros saves a lot of time.

[Durbs]

[*]Microsoft Security Essentials. Does anyone use this?

Yes, totally free, totally unobtrusive, whats not to like? I never used to bother with Antivirus apps until finding this and its now on all my Windows machines as its so hassle-free.

[dang65]

One program they don't mention is paint.net, best free application i've ever used.

Absolutely. Often install this on clients' PCs as well while waiting for them to go through the usual 3 week bureaucratic red tape for getting hold of Photoshop. An excellent substitute.

[voodooflux]

Not for me it doesn't. 14 days out of the country and you're blocked, sorry, invited to upgrade to Premium ion order to continue.

Have you tried a proxy?

For those interested, there was a major update to the Spotify client yesterday with a raft of new features added, including support for local media.

[NotAllThere]

iTunes on Windows is crappy, if you aren't using it for your iPod I can't see the reason to use it. On a Mac it's a totally different story, but on Windows I find Media Player is really quite good these days.

It works nicely in Windows 7 64 bit.

I use Gimp for graphical work. Stupid name for a powerful program.

[NickFitz]

Firefox 2 - every other browser should be erased with extreme prejudice.

As FF2 was EOLed in December 2008, no sane person would continue to use it: it's as much of a security risk as using IE6 on XP < SP2.

You may know a lot about HTTP, AtW, but if you still use FF2 then you sure as hell know **** all about staying safe on the web

[AtW]

Firefox 2 - every other browser should be erased with extreme prejudice.