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Must Have Apps
Mozilla Firefox
 Firefox is a must have on any desktop. Available for Windows, Linux and Mac OS, this little IE killer is quickly becoming the browser of choice. Far more secure and advanced than IE, it shows pages using real Java unlike IE's imposter called ActiveX. Some of the features include: Popup Blocking, Tabbed Browsing, Built in Google search tool bar, downloadable extensions and a neat and individual control over history, passwords, downloads, cookies cache and more. Give it a try, you'll never go back.
"Beware of spyware. If you can, use the Firefox browser." - USA Today
"Better than Internet Explorer by leaps and bounds." - FORBES
Free download.
Mozilla Thunderbird
 Thunderbird is Firefox's mail application. It works just like Outlook but just like Firefox it is much more secure. Since Outlook uses IE to display html e-mail content, it utilizes ActiveX. Thunderbird, just like Firefox, uses real Java and has many similar options to its brother. It also comes with a very powerful spam filter with a special learn option which is in many ways better than Outlook's. Optional extensions are also supported as well as many customization and neat look and feel. Startup time is only a 3rd of Outlook and hard drive space needed is roughly 20MB compared to 150MB of Microsoft's bloatware. If you are a home user, you will be more than happy with Thunderbird. Available for Windows Linux and Mac OS.
Free download.
Nod32 AntiVirus
 One of the best antivirus software available today is Nod32 from eset.com.
Unlike many popular antivirus software such as Norton Antivirus or MacAfee Antivirus, which take over and slows down your system, Nod32 Antivirus takes a small 4% of your total system resources.
It also has a history of 100% virus recognition since 1998 on Virus Bulletin and can detect viruses such as the Sober.L virus with the heuristics engine before definitions are available.
Viruses are inconvenient and unfortunate but there is nothing worst than having to wait for an antivirus program.
Nod32 Antivirus does what it is supposed to do and stays out of your way.
Nod32 product awards.
Available for Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/2003/XP, MS Exchange Server, Linux Mail and File server RedHat/Mandrake/SuSE/Debian/FreeBSD/ and Novell
Retail $39.00
IZArc file compression
 IZArc
is the ultimate archive utility supports many archive formats like: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. With a modern easy-to-use interface,
IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, converting from one
archive type to another, view and write comments and many more. IZArc has also build-in multilanguage support.
IZArc is the most complete archive utility available today.
Free download.
Apple iTunes
 iTunes is one of the best and simplistic music and mp3 player/ organizer/ burner. It comes built in with Apple's music store, streaming radio and music videos as well as radio charts for most major cities in the US .Available for Windows and Mac OS.
Free download.
PGP
 PGP stands for Pretty Good Privacy. It is based on public and private set of digital keys which allow for superior data encryption and verification than any other method. PGP provides options for any data encryption as well as secure data wiping. Freeware version is also available for non-commercial use. Hint: uncheck all option boxes when installing if you only want the basic PGP installation.
Free download.
DivX
 DivX is the new internet standard for motion video. With video quality comparable to DVD and file size 1/10th of that, this new technology based on mpeg-4 is the first choice for video files on many internet web sites. Free version of DivX comes with a decoder only and its own player. Available for Windows Linux and Mac OS.
Free download.
DVDshrink
 DVDshrink is a DVD backup tool. Ever you wish you could backup that expensive DVD box set before you kids scratch very bit on the disk? If your DVD player gets stuck with that DVD inside or you just hate going thru those commercial previews every time you put a movie on, this program will save you all the trouble and more. DVDshrink rips, compresses, removes unwanted audio and/or video tracks and burns it on to a blank DVD. If you have a large collection and own a DVD burner, this one is a must have. DVDshrink can also be downloaded from here as well as just by doing a simple Google search. For Windows only.
Free download.
Norton Ghost 9.0
  Symantec Norton Ghost 9.0 is the easiest, fastest and best way to make a full image of your entire computer's hard drive. Forget about tape backups, today's hard drives are so big there is only one media to save a complete image of your system and that is another hard drive. The new version will backup your drive inside of Windows, over the network or external hard drive all while you continue to work without any interruptions. Compressed on level "High" the image can be half the size of used data on your drive and when needed, it can be restored in less than 10 minutes. Norton Ghost comes on a bootable CD with Windows XP like interface. It allows you to browse saved images to recover single files or just to see what is inside. It's a shame this program is only available for Windows.
Retail $69.95
ZoneAlarm
While Zone Alarm is a great software firewall solution for a standalone PC on a high speed connection, there is nothing like having a router instead.
All routers have NAT (Network Address Translation) and stateful packet inspection built into them and work efficiently as a hardware firewall without having to run anything on your system.
In fact, any company selling "hardware firewall" devices are simply using standard routers and fancy wording on the packaging to get you to believe that you need their "hardware firewall" solution.
The only missing firewall function from a router is the monitoring of outgoing traffic.
However, this is more of an annoyance than a useful function.
Most viruses and trojan horses which might potentially infect your computer disable your software firewall before accessing outgoing traffic anyway.
Beware of UPNP (Universal Plug n Play) built in to most routers.
It is a function which automatically allows programs to disable the incoming traffic inspection.
Be sure to disable that function and configure your router manually if you need such a purpose for specific programs.
Even if you have only one computer connected to the internet an inexpensive router will create a better protection than any software solution available.
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