Full Version: The Best Thread (Sticky)

From: SMD [#1]
 19 Sep 2004
To: ALL

This is the underrated, underused and frankly under edited "Best" thread. Named thus because no-one can think of a better name. You suggest a program that you either can't live without or one that you think deserves adulation, a few months later I'll stir from my lazy, Arabic, university student slumber and act on my pangs of guilt. Simple really.

By the by, if you think I've missed out a category or one is redundant, just say. Right now I'm only going to put up a few types of software to get things going:
 
OS Type Things
BART-PE:
Basically it's a mini-OS on a CD (bootable, natch) that has lots of nifty features. These include:
- Inbuilt file browser
- Can read FAT, FAT32 and (ye gads!) NTFS volumes
- Inbuilt text editor for on-the-fly editing of system files
- Network support

And lots of other stuff. A great disk to have around when Windows has a spafe attack or when a particularly nasty spyware program refuses to be deleted.
 
Antivirus
McAfee AntiVirus Corporate
It's small, inexpensive, and is McAfee's bread and butter so they make damn sure it works before they release a new one. It doesn't look pretty, but it does what it should and nothing else.
 
Firewalls
Kerio Personal Firewall:
It works, has plenty of options, and is free for home use.
 
Browsers
Mozilla Firefox:
Small, light, hugely configurable, tabbed, free, fast.
 
Media Players
Media Player Classic:
Small, light, free, fast, intuitive. Plays all yer files, and DVDs to boot.
VideoLAN:
Small, light, free. Often manages to play even corrupt or incomplete files. Can do fancy streaming things if you ask it nicely.
Zoom Player:
Does what you might expect, but DVD-bits aren't free these days. Skinnable. Lighter than WMP.
 
Filesharing
I am empty, add something here!
 
Torrent clients
Bit Tornado:
Traffic light! Throttling! Speedy-downloads! (doesn't do multiple torrents in one window, though. But you can minimise it to tray, so that doesn't bother me.)
…[Message Truncated]

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EDITED: 25 Aug 2005 by SMD

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From: Radio [#2]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

Not exactly in any of those categories, but I'd put IrfanView in there - I think pretty much everyone here uses it, or has used it at some point.
Its great because it has a small footprint, loads quickly and has a very uncluttered interface. It will also recognise almost every image format under the sun, handily renaming any files that have incorrect extensions.
Oh, and its free.
www.irfanview.com

For filesharing, I don't know if its the best, but I use Shareaza. It plugs into emule, bitTorrent etc. and has a nice, easy to use bandwidth throttler.

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From: dave (DAVE3) [#3]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

Or, alternatively, just a link to EnglishPaul.tk.

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From: SMD [#4]
 19 Sep 2004
To: dave (DAVE3) [#3] 19 Sep 2004

But that doesn't cover as wide a range as I'm aiming. Nor does it explain them.

And he's too busy boning his woman to update it often.

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From: Wayne (SCOREZ2000) [#5]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

I'm wanting to buy a new ADSL router at the minute.

Preferably:

at least 4 ports
firewall
wireless.

Anyone recomend?

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From: Rowan [#6]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

Browser
Media Player
Torrent Client
Image Viewer

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From: Dave!! [#7]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

Well, I'd put Firefox in for browser, I've recently been converted to Azereus for BitTorrent cos it's very nice and fast. Plus it's open source. I also use eDonkey and SoulSeek regularly too. For media player, I actually use Winamp 5 for audio and Media Player Classic for video. Other people will prefer Media Player 10 for both together.

AVG is my current Anti-virus software cos it does the job without hogging resources, plus it's free. Finally, I don't use a firewall cos my router has one built in.

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From: steve [#8]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

Best IM client;
Trillian Pro (or just vanilla-trill).

Best program to automatically make playlists from certain keywords and launch Winamp with them all in one click;
SmurfAMP Launcher by STEVE

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From: [LST]Daniel (MODGE2K) [#9]
 19 Sep 2004
To: Wayne (SCOREZ2000) [#5] 19 Sep 2004

I don't know if it's the best seing as it's the only one I've used, but we just got a D-Link DI524 which meets all those criteria.

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From: steve [#10]
 19 Sep 2004
To: Wayne (SCOREZ2000) [#5] 19 Sep 2004

Currently sitting on the floor with my iBook, WIRELESSELY using a Linksys WAG54G. It also has four ports on the back. Lots of pretty lights. Great config-thing. And is really really good!

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From: Wayne (SCOREZ2000) [#11]
 19 Sep 2004
To: steve [#10] 19 Sep 2004

Went for one of these in the end.

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From: steve [#12]
 19 Sep 2004
To: Wayne (SCOREZ2000) [#11] 19 Sep 2004

It's not blue, has few lights, and no cute little legs. YOU MADE A BAD DECISION!

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From: bohman75 [#13]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

quote:
The Best Thread


meh... I've seen better

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From: bohman75 [#14]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

Antivirus
Norton

Firewall
osX's included firewall

Browser
Safari
Mozilla

Media player
iTunes
Quicktime
MPlayer
VLC

Filesharing
Poisoned

Image viewer
Preview
iPhoto
Photoshop 7 (I know, not a "viewer", but love it just so much)

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From: SMD [#15]
 19 Sep 2004
To: ALL

MINI REVIEWS PEOPLE!

(not in anyway directed at anyone. Nope. Nuh uh. No way.)

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From: Dave!! [#16]
 19 Sep 2004
To: bohman75 [#14] 19 Sep 2004

I've never really liked Norton. Always found it far too much of a resource hog. A case of "Your PC will be free of virii, but it'll run like a 386 :P :P " etc.

EDITED: 19 Sep 2004 by DAVE!!

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From: bohman75 [#17]
 19 Sep 2004
To: Dave!! [#16] 19 Sep 2004

For the mac, there aren't alot of anti-virus choices... I no longer like norton for the utilities... and I'm thinking of TechToolPro for the utilities... what other antivirus mac choices are there... maybe steve would be a good one to ask...

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From: bohman75 [#18]
 19 Sep 2004
To: steve [#8] 19 Sep 2004

On your mac... what anti-virus software do you use?

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From: Racoon [#19]
 19 Sep 2004
To: SMD [#1] 19 Sep 2004

I'm looking for a very little and aesthetically pleasing yet fully featured laptop at the moment... Apple iBook 12" currently winning but a PC might be better if they weren't all so ugly, and either huge of missing cd drives etc.

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From: SMD [#20]
 19 Sep 2004
To: Racoon [#19] 19 Sep 2004

What about Vaio? They seem to do a lot of fully functioned tiny laptops.

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