Avast Anti-Virus

Anti-Virus software is one of the most important programs that every computer user should have. Avast Anti-Virus provides frequent updates, e-mail scanning in a package that is less bulky and bloated than the leading commercially sold anti-virus programs.

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Spyware Removal Utilities Ad-Aware/Spybot

Spyware isn't just a pain in the butt, slowing down computers and send people dozens of pop-up ads, it is also a threat to your online privacy. Spyware programs monitor your Internet surfing habits and sends that information to marketing companies. Ad-Aware and Spybot search and destroy are the leading spyware removal utilities and they are both free. Using one of these programs is good but using them both is better. Both programs will catch things that the other program misses.

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Mozilla Firefox

Just because Internet Explorer came with your copy of Windows doesn't mean that there aren't better web browsers. Millions have discovered what Mozilla Firefox offers that Internet Explorer doesn't Firefox features a built in pop up ad blocker, tabbed browsing, not to mention greater online privacy and security due mostly in part to Firefox will not run ActiveX controls and visual basic scripts that load your computer with spyware, worms and viruses.

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Mozilla Thunderbird

Just as Firefox has made the web a less dangerous place to be, the Mozilla Foundation also has an e-mail client that provides tools that help people deal with the nunances of e-mail such as spam and e-mail viruses. Thunderbird has an adaptive bayesian filter that identifies spam by the ways spammers compose their e-mails. Thunderbird doesn't spread e-mail viruses because it won't run visual basic scripts that allow viruses to spread like wildfire on Microsoft's Outlook and Outlook Express.

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Open Office

Word Processing, Spreadsheets, Presentations, and Databases have been mainstay applications for years. Paying hundreds of dollars for Microsoft Office is often not in the budget for most home users and many Small Businesses. Open office provides a powerful alternative that is also free. Even the most experienced Microsoft Office user can get up and running quickly. Many featured within Open Office are very simular to those found in Microsoft Office. Be warned, the Open office download is over 80 MB and isn't something that should be attempted with a dialup connection.

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The Gimp Image Editor

The software that comes with most digital cameras and scanners may be good for colour correction and removing red eye but can often leave a lot to be desired. There are powerful image editing tools with far greater capibilities but can be very expensive. I've seen copies of Adobe Photoshop selling for as much as $1300. The free alternative that comes from the open source community is called the Gimp or Gnu Image Manpulation Program. The Gimp contains many that are found in the most expensive image editors, such as layers and built in TWAIN support.

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NVU HTML Editor

Programs such as Microsoft's FrontPage and Macromedia Dreamweaver are probably the most well known programs for creating web pages but for the regular home user who wants to make a personal home page these programs can be overkill and expensive. There are plenty of HTML editing progams available for download but most of them often come with constant nagging for money. Nvu is straight forward easy to use HTML editor and best of all, The feature that sets NVU apart from other HTML editors is that NVU can directly upload HTML files and pictures within the program eliminating the need for a separate FTL client. And best of all, it's free

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Yahoo Messenger

Instant messaging has become one of the most popular ways to communicate with people online. In the three years that I've been using Yahoo Messenger, I've never encountered the the Spim (Spam over Instant Messenging) or viruses that plague users of other Instant Messaging programs. In addition to chatting to each other users can also use voice chat and video using inexpensive web cams.

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Audacity Audio Editor

Recording music on records, cassettes and 8 tracks on the computer is a great way to preserve old favorite songs which is getting more and more popular. Audacity is a program that will record sound and clean it up so that it can be burned onto CD or saved as MP3 for playing on a portable player.

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 CD Burner XP Pro

The top end CD burning programs have a lot of capibilities such as editing video for burning Video CD's and DVD's that a lot of home users will never use. Windows XP does have basic CD burning functions but many users are not satisified with it. For users who don't like the CD burning function built into Windows XP or those people who don't use Windows XP (Despite the XP in the name, CD Burner XP Pro does work with Windows 98, Millennium Edition, and 2000) CD burner XP Pro burns Music CD's and Data CD's

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