Last week we looked at several programs I recommend to be good additions to a Windows system. They are either better than what comes on a PC or those applications may not usually be found on a new computer. Of course, the apps are free…you know me. From the responses I have received you want more. So here are some additional applications for you.
You need a good cleaner and CCleaner (piriform.com) is great. I have previously written about it in length so go check those older articles. CCleaner can speed up a slow computer and get it to start faster while cleaning up unneeded files. Well worth the $0.00’s.
Oh boy, now a biggie…antivirus software. There are several good ones to pick from. Avast (avast.com) and AVG (avg.com) always come to my mind first. They are closely followed by Avira (avira.com), Bitdefender (bitdefender.com) and Panda (pandasecurity.com). Take your pick. They are good and all have a free and paid version. You may even choose to stick with "Windows Defender" which comes pre-installed on your computer. It is really pretty good. Just make sure you run one of them, but only one at a time or they can interfere with each other.
Another good protection app you need is Malwarebytes (malwarebytes.com) which takes care of threats. The free version needs to be run manually by you; whereas, the paid version runs automatically.
How about the best video/audio player? There is only one and it will run on most anything you own, PC, iPhone, Android, etc. and that is VLC (videolan.org). The great thing about this app other than dependability and quality is that it can play every video or audio format you can put on it. That includes DVDs as well as Blu-Ray discs.
Now to online storage or cloud storage. There is really only one name in this area that I prefer, Dropbox (dropbox.com). It is solid, works flawlessly and also allows for quite a bit of storage space. There are others but for free, Dropbox does it for me. You have files that are important to you and Dropbox is dependable, enough said.
Now email apps. I personally like online email, mainly Gmail; however, you as well as a large percentage of people like an app to take care of email. Thunderbird (rd.dblclx.com/1ejd3ax) from Mozilla, the Firefox browser people is excellent. It is reliable, high quality and easy to set up if you pay attention to the instructions. I would also say the built in email program in Windows 10 is a good basic email app but there are not many advanced features. Also, with the Windows app you will be on your own setting up your email.
Next week a few more.
