Pro's Favorite Things

[Prometheus]

Here is a list of recomended tools/website that I think everyone should try out. Everyone always asks me what to do what with. So here it is.

Not in any specific order

1.Adaware (removes spyware)
2.Spybot Search and destroy (removes more spyware)
3.Spyware Blaster (prevents most spyware from getting on the computer)
4.www.techwarelabs.com
5.www.astalavista.net
6.Cracksearcher A legal program that is semi hard to find that finds cracks and downloads them to your computer.
7.Nero (cd burning utility)
8.Alchohol 120% (BASIC cd burning utility)
9.Daemon Tools (for CDrom drive emulation)
10.MIRC for chatting and file sharing
11.Limewire PRO Downloads files from ALL networks
12.Firefox browser-Opensource browser that works better than IE in most ways.
13.Norton System Works (good for cleaning and Anti Virus)
14.Zone Alarm Pro (Allows only wanted traffic into and out of your computer)
15.Trillian Pro (Great chat client that includes all chat clients (aim MSN etc))
16.Run Clone (Creates a copy of run prompt can be run ANYWHERE)
17.Clone CD
18.Net Stat Live(monitors incoming outgoing traffic)
19.Google.com
20.Froogle.com
-Will update as new things come along

[Jason425]

agree with all except:
spyware blaster (well it's good but it makes you .. pay for updates..)
astalavisa.net: i'm not nerdy enough (in tha tway)to be a leet haxor enough to go there..
daemon - never herad of it
mirc=public IP's and never really got into it
firefox - works better than ie, but it's alot slower.. contrary to it's main advertising point.. :/
trillian - I like the clicking on one thing to go straight to hotmail.. :/
runclone.. never used it and sounds like I don't need it..
netstat - cool and all.. but I have enough network junk..


what do i like? winamp5.. streaming music and videos... 'nuff said..

[Aemon_]

spyware blaster (well it's good but it makes you .. pay for updates..)
i've never seen anywhere that you had to pay for updates. although i haven't updated in a few weeks.

yeah, i use the spybot/spyware blaster/adaware tri-fecta. keep the ole system pretty clean i must say. oh yeah, norton helps too.

later

[Prometheus]

For anti hacking and virus prevention Kaspersky works best i forgot :P

[Jason425]

for new versions it makes you pay.. so i just re DL it..

[james]

hmm, IE might be faster to load, but it renders more slowly. that said, i prefer mozilla suite to firefox.
i don't need adaware tools b/c i use smart cookie blocking and don't install things like limewire that put spyware on my puter. When in doubt, use OSS and you don't have to worry about that crap.
i've decided i don't have a need for antivirus. I've never gotten a virus, the only time i will get a virus is when there is a worm that attacks an unprotected flaw, i.e. antivirus wont' be helpful (note, i don't recommend this to people who have a happy mouse finger (like a happy trigger finger))
mIRC is alright .. but XChat is my fav chat client.
Trillian is pretty good, but i'm a GAIM user now. I think in the end, it's a better program, though there are definitely trade-offs b/w the two to be made.
Alcohol 120 actually has some pretty advanced ripping/burning options, maybe even more so than Nero. Daemon tools is redundant to both Alcohol 120 and Nero. 120 probably has the best mounting capabilities as far as getting around backup-protected media. You really only need alcohol, nero might be nice to keep around, daemon-tools is obsolete compared to those two programs at this point.
nytimes.com read the news people, know what's going on in the world.
news.bbc.co.uk see above
economist.com not actually an economics magazine. just like Time or Newsweek, but for grown-ups (i.e. people that actually read news instead of pretending to)
arstechnica.com some damn good techies there, probably the best collection on the net (not to hate on techwarelabs, but, y'know, we're not in the bigtimes...yet)
do any of you write?? wordperfect is THE word processor. word/OOo/Koffice/AbiWord have nothing on the perfect word processor.
if i'm downloading, i'm either using ftp w/ filezilla or command line or gftp (depends if i'm in linux or windows) . . also use sftp if i need it to be secure, no commandline goodness there with windows though or i'm using DC++ as my p2p. but i only trade with a small group of friends. no massive Kaaza type copyright violations for me.
for music playing, i'm an ENORMOUS fan of foobar. It takes up like 5 megs of memory, plays any audio file in the world, and you can make it display files in an endless number of ways. skinnable, kinda, but not lots of skins. but really, this program does anything you want it to. I miss it in linux.
in case you have ever felt guilty about pirating photoshop (i know people here do it), really try out GIMP. It's OSS and does everything you need to do (and, to my own surpise, sometimes better).
adobe acrobat pro is some damn good stuff despite being bloated if you work a lot w/ PDFs. If you just need to create them, see Wordperfect, it's got you covered there.
for coding/basic text editing, i use Scite. Alright, back to work for me. I think people might be happy trying out some of the programs I use. Trillian users might have trouble transitioning to GAIM, but once you do, i think you'll be happy, but i think it has a lot to do w/ personality and how much you like eyecandy.(trillian has major eyecandy over gaim)

[Prometheus]

lime pro has no spy ware

ill bet anyting jason has at least 1 spyware object on his comp

[Jason425]

I almost always do when I scan with ad-aware.. seems that from where i visit, I always accumulate naughty cookies.. spybot rarely finds stuff except from bad software, which I avoid..

[Dragon]

shockingly, ive looked at almost alll these and can say that Daemon tools is a very good program, especially if youve got a big HD and not enough CD drives.

would like to Recommend AVG 6.0 Free addition. very nice virus scanner. but, i havent used those listed above, for the record.

[james]

shockingly, ive looked at almost alll these and can say that Daemon tools is a very good program, especially if youve got a big HD and not enough CD drives.

daemon tools does an alright job, but alcohol does a better job. it supports mounting like 3 times more drives than daemon can. now, if daemon mounts enough drives for you needs, then that's fine, i'm just saying, it's short on power compared to alcohol.

ill bet anyting jason has at least 1 spyware object on his comp

did you mean me or jason, since i'm the one w/o anti-spyware?? i'll take you up on that bet though, last time i did, i won $20. not a single registry key or cookie found. by adaware or spybot. and i've mostly been using linux on my box since then.

[Dragon]

[downloads alcohol]

¿why does that not sound possible?

[Aemon_]

for new versions it makes you pay.. so i just re DL it..
i just downloaded the new version yesterday (spywareblaster) - its still free. to use autoupdate you have to buy it, but to update manually is still free.

later

[Jason425]

Oh it's possible dragon...

yea I did that too aemon