Recommended Software
Last edited: October 2, 2005
Here’s a list of software I have personally used and recommend. I’ll be reviewing some of these programs over the next few months. Review links appear to the right of the product name. A dagger (†) after an entry in this list means the program is currently installed on my main working system.
Digital Music and Media
- Album Art Fixer for WMP and MCE
- eMusic Tag Editor †
- FLAC Frontend
- mkw Audio Compression Toolkit †
- QuickTime Player
- RealPlayer 10
- Snapstream Beyond TV 3.5
- Windows Media Player 10 †
- Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005 †
Digital Photography and Image Editing
Internet and Web Apps
- FTP Voyager †
- Laplink Gold
- Maxthon Browser
- Mozilla Firefox †
- Mozilla Thunderbird 1.0
- NewsLeecher
- TightVNC
Security and Privacy Tools
- AnalogX SuperShredder
- Microsoft Baseline Security Analyzer 2.0
- Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware Beta
- Norton Ghost 9.0 †
- Password Corral
- PurgeFox [review]
- PurgeIE
- SnadBoy’s Revelation v2
- Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2005
- Windows XP Service Pack 2
Really Useful Tools
- Active Words
- AI RoboForm †
- AI RoboForm Adapter for Mozilla/Netscape †
- BitTorrent
- ClipCache Plus
- ClipMate †
- CmdHere Powertoy for Windows XP
- Copernic Desktop Search
- Diskeeper Professional Edition
- Dymo LabelWriter Software †
- eFax Messenger 4.0 †
- FileSync †
- FileTargets
- FinePrint †
- Google Toolbar (Internet Explorer and Firefox versions) †
- Nero 6 Ultra Edition †
- Powermarks 3.5
- Printer’s Apprentice
- Registrar Lite 2.00
- Startup Control Panel
- SnagIt 7 †
- SyncToy †
- TaskTracker
- Tweak UI †
- VMWare Workstation 5 †
- Weather Watcher †
- WinRAR
- X1 Desktop Edition †
Blogging Tools and Web Feed Readers
Office and Its Add-ins
- ClearContext Inbox Manager for Outlook [review] †
- Microsoft ActiveSync 3.8 †
- Microsoft Office FrontPage 2003 †
- Microsoft Office OneNote 2003 SP2 †
- Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 (Service Pack 2) †
Dull but Useful
- Adobe Reader 7.0 †
- Java 2 Runtime Environment
- Microsoft Money 2004 †
Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1(Dull? What was I thinking? See the following section…) †- Microsoft IntelliType Pro 5.0
- TaxCut 2004
- Zinio Reader
Beautiful, if you’re a developer
You’ll find an excellent list of free software at Jim Eshelman’s Windows Support Center.
I also recommend Zaine Ridling’s Great Software List for links to reliable and useful Windows software.
Pingback: Ed Bott’s Windows Expertise » Blog Archive » Recommended Software list updated
I wrote Diskeeper to check about there BETA for Vista. And by golly they sent a link to me. I haven’t installed it just yet. But I’ll let you know how it goes.
You recommend the Diskeeper defrag in your many useful tools. May I ask?
Can I get any benefit from using the Diskeeper Pro-Premier I-FAAST or should I just get the Professional version as you mentioned and save $50.00?
Richard, good question.
I haven’t used the Pro-Premier version of Diskeeper, so I can’t say from personal experience. At least one commenter mentioned it in the discussion under this thread. Me, I would find something better to spend 50 bucks on. For a server, maybe I could justify the cost, but I can’t imagine what this would do for a desktop PC that would be worth that much.
Thanks for your input. Just for the sake of it I will ask Diskeeper if it will be beneficial for me to get it. I will let you know what they say cause if I can get any improvement I don’t mind the $50. Maybe I am stupid but I like speed.
Sorry, forgot to post the link to the thread: Adios, Defrag display.
Also, do you expect Diskeeper to tell you that they don’t want you to spend an extra $50 with them? You might be better off finding an independent source!
Thanks for your input and you are right. Can you tell me the best way to get independent advice? I don’t know who to contact?
Hi Ed,
I got an answer from Diskeeper. I guess there pretty honest:
If you are running Diskeeper in a home environment, you won’t be able to notice a big difference in performance with IFAAST. I would recommend you purchase the Pro version.
Best Regards,
David An
Tech Support
dan@diskeeper.com
Ed,
If possible I would still like to have the best way to get independent advice? I don’t know who to contact for that if there is anybody?
If you know a way please let me know?
Not sure if you noticed, but Adobe Reader 8.0 is out. You might want to correct your link.
Hi Ed,
Why don’t you recommend an uninstaller program ?
It is well-known that most uninstallation routines are rather “crappy”, leaving remnants etc.
In the long run, it could do harm to Windows !