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1. Best Browser

Firefox hands down is my favorite browser, being safer than IE and highly customizable. Automatic updates, faster browsing, better pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, an integrated search bar, and live bookmarks are just some features of this browser. Another popular browser is Opera which includes many of the same features as Firefox.

FireFox
Opera

2. Best BitTorrent Client

Azureus is a java bittorrent client offering multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority systems (on torrents and files), start/stop seeding options and instant access to numerous pieces of information about your torrents. Azureus now features an embedded tracker easily set up and ready to use. uTorrent is a lightweight (Very) and efficient BitTorrent client that includes bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT.

Azureus
uTorrent

3. Best Multi Platform File Transfer Utility

Shareaza is a great program that connect to 4 P2P networks, EDonkey2000, Gnutella, BitTorrent and Gnutella2 (G2).

Shareaza

4. IP Blacklist/Blocker

Was going to put this under Security, but it's a MUST for anyone using P2P. PeerGaurdian integrates support for multiple lists, list editing, automatic updates, and blocking all of IPv4, TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc, making it the safest and easiest way to protect your privacy on P2P<. Lite version is made to consume as little CPU and RAM as possible. It has no UI or options and consists of a single tray icon.

PeerGaurdian
PeerGuardian Lite

5. Best FTP Client

Two amazing FTP clients that each include a great deal of features are FileZilla and SmartFTP

FileZilla
SmartFTP

6. Best Chat Program

Two that stand out are Gaim and Trillian, both are multi-platform. Gaim is compatible with AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks. While Trillain is a skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. Trillain also includes many features not included in those chat programs.

Gaim
Trillian

7. Best Phone/Talking Software

These programs allow you to call people for free and talk with them, all you need are headphones and a microphone. Skype adds encryption and has excellent sound quality, an addon, SAM, adds voicemail functionallity.

Skype
SAM

8. Best Download Manager

There are many, but the ones that work great are FlashGet, GetRight, and Free Download Manager. All split up files and increase the download by 100-600%, they can also resume broken downloads.

FlashGet
GetRight
Free Download Manager

9. Best Gmail Filetransfer

There are a couple programs that use that Gmail space of yours to upload your files and make backups of them.

Gmail Drive

10. Best Email Client

Another from Mozilla, Thunderbird, is a full-featured email client, that includes a spam filter, anti-phishing protection, enchanced security, and auto updates.

Thunderbird

11. Best Blogging Poster

w.bloggar is a great blogging tool that includes a template and post editor that works with many blogging sites, including Blogger. Unlike other blogging tools, this ione doesn't require you to have your blog on an ftp site, but can log in and post.

w.bloggar

----Security----


12. Best Anti-Spyware

A few stand out, mainly Spybot, Ad-Aware, Windows Defender, and Spyware Blaster. The first three are scanners each with their own special tools including realtime scanning, encrypted file deletion, and history erasor. Spyware Gaurd is more of a realtime scanner (Like Anti-Virus) of spyware while you're downloading. Spyware Blaster is different in not being a scanner, but prevents spyware from installing on your computer in the first place (Spybot includes a robust version of this). All four programs are recommended since each is not 100% efficient.

Spybot
Ad-Aware SE Personal
Windows Defender
SpywareGuard
Spyware Blaster

13. Best Anti-Virus

A few come to mind, but my favorite is AVG from Grisoft, which includes updates, real time scanner, and an email scanner. Another good one is AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic which includes many of the same features. Do keep in mind that free anti virus clients are not up to par with paid ones according to testings.

AVG
AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic

14. Best Firewall

My favorite by far is ZoneAlarm which is simple for begginers and contains a barrage of features for more advanced users. Another option is Sygate Personal Firewall includes all the same functions for the same price.

ZoneAlarm Free
Sygate Personal Firewall

15. Best Anti-Malware

Ewido really helps stop hijackers, spyware, worms, dialers, trojans, and keyloggers. It includes a great scanner and realtime scanner. Some features are disabled in the free version, including the realtime scanner, auto updates, self-protection, and memory scanning, but all these are included in the 15 day trial which can be reinstalled.

Ewdio

16. Best Diagnostic Tool

Ultimate Boot CD is an amazing bootable CD to restore a crashed computer and can fix it.

Ultimate Boot CD

17. Best Disk Cleaner

I couldn't believe my eyes after I ran CCleaner, it removed around 1.5 Gigs in unused application data and internet cach (Which I thought I removed through the disk cleaner). This truly amazing utility cleans out your computer safely and even scans and removes obselete registry data, speeding up your system. You might want to turn off cookie deletion if you save your passwords on forums and such.

CCleaner

18. Best File Deleter

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.

Eraser

19. Best File Encrypter

Three stand out, GNU Privacy Gaurd, TrueCrypt, and Blowfish Advanced CS. GNU is a full replacement of PGP that is totally command line based, and not for beginnners. On the other hand, Blowfish Advanced CS offers multiple algorithms, efficient data compression, and safe key handling for content protection. TrueCrypt can create virtual encrypted disks, can encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a device, such as USB flash drive, and provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password.

Blowfish Advanced CS
TrueCrypt
GNU Privacy Gaurd
Guide to GNU Privacy Gaurd


----Digital Imaging----


20. Best Image Editor

A few stand out, mainly The GIMP and Paint.NET. GIMP is more like Photoshop and there is a seperate version that renames GIMP tools to the ones in Photoshop. Piant.NET replaces the simple MS Paint program and adds tons of features and includes many of the things Photoshop has. Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format

The GIMP
GIMP Shop
Paint.NET
INKSCAPE

21. Best Image Viewer/Editor

IrfanView supports many formats of images and includes some plugins that allow it to view many other formats such as videos, flash, and some audio formats. Picasa, on the other hand, differs in being able to edit photos and searches your computer for photos.

IrfanView
Plugin/Addons
Picasa

22. Best 3-D Modelling/Animation/Rendering

Foreget Maya, Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.

Blender

23. Best Color Capturer

Color Schemer ColorPix is a useful little color picker that grabs the pixel under your mouse and transforms it into a number of different color formats. You can use the built-in magnifier to zoom in on your screen, click on a color value to copy it directly to the clipboard, and even keep ColorPix on top of all other apps and out of the way. Also, it doesn't require installation and is a tiny program.

Color Schemer ColorPix

----Multimedia----


24. Best Virtual Drive

If you ever wanted to run that .iso or any other CD image without having the CD or DVD in the drive just use DAEMON Tools. Do not install the adware toolbar!

DAEMON Tools

25. Best DVD Descrambler

Well the name says it all, DVD Decrypter allows you to copy DVDs to your hard drive and re-encode them to MPEG1 (VCD) or DivX. DVD Decrypter can also write most types of CD / DVD images via its 'ISO Write' mode.

DVD Decryptor

26. Best DVD Compressor

ratDVD takes a full featured DVD-9 movie and puts it into a highly compressed .ratDVD container format file of about 1.x GB in size - while preserving all the features of the original DVD.

27. Best CD/DVD Burner

CDBurnerXP Pro and DeepBurner are two fully featured DVD and CD burners and can create .iso's from them. Both are amazingly fast and meet all your needs.

CDBurnerXP Pro
DeepBurner

28. Best Video Player/Codec Pack

Basically, the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack will play every video file on this planet.

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
K-Lite Codec Pack Full (Less features)

29. Best Audio Player

Winamp and foobar2000 comes out on top as the best audio players. ml_ipod is a plugin that uses Winamp to support your iPod. Winamp DSP Enhancer increases the quality and depth of your bass and treble, but not just making them louder but by filtering out any distortions and other bad stuff. foobar 2000 s an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats. Not to mention it's tiny size.

Winamp
ml_ipod
DSP Enchancer
foobar2000

30. Best Audio Editor/Ripper

Audacity is a free and gull featured audio editor and recorder. As for grabbing audio from CDs , Exact Audio Copy is the solution, although it's not for beginners.

Audacity
Exact Audio Copy

31. Best Audio Converter

Often called the Swiss army knife of audio, dBpowerAMP is able to convert your audio files to convert between audio formats whilst preserving ID Tags.

dBpowerAMP Music Converter

32. Best XviD/DivX Converter

AutoGK is an amazing program that converts Xvid and DivX formats of video to many others, at the same time compressing them and it includes many other features.

AutoGK

----Computer Tools----


33. Best Hard Drive Analyser

JDiskReport is an amazing program that provides many different graphs and information on what's stored on your computer.

JDiskReport

34. Best Software Collection

TheOpenCD includes many freeware programs and open source programs that are essential to anyone.

TheOpenCD

35. Best HTML Editor

Based off the firefox source, NVU, made by Linspire is a great HTML editor that is amazing for its price, much unlike the expensive Dreamweaver and Frontpage.

NVU
NVU Features

36. Best Desktop Searcher

There are many, but my favorite is Google Desktop Search, with a plethora of features. Such as searching (Duh?), news, maps, notepad, gmail notifier, and many other features.

Google Desktop Search

37. Best Compression Tool

Although there's many, a few stand out, mainly 7-Zip and IZArc. 7-Zip supports: 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB. IZArc supports many files including: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. Both also include many other features.

IZArc
7-Zip

38. Best Benchmarking Tool

EVEREST Home Edition is a freeware hardware diagnostics and memory benchmarking solution for home PC users. It offers the world's most accurate hardware information and diagnostics capabilities, including online features, memory benchmarks, hardware monitoring, and low-level hardware information. Sadly, this free version has been discontinued, since they want to make some money on their corporate version (Which is understandable).

EVEREST Home Edition

39. Best Office Suite

The best one out there is OpenOffice.org. It includes many of the same features as MS Office and more.

OpenOffice.org

40. Best Process Viewer

Process Explorer is a incredible program that shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.

Process Explorer

41. Best Coding Tool

For those computer programmers, PHP Designer 2005 and Notepad++ are great programs that include syntax highlighting and syntax folding. PHP Designer supports: PHP, HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, Java, Perl, JavaScript, VB, C#, Java & SQL. Notepad++ supports C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, Javascript, RC resource file, makefile, ASCII art file (extension .nfo), doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS source files, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python, Lua, TCL, Assembler, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Properties, Diff, Smalltalk, Postscript and VHDL. And that's the tip of the iceberg for both programs, they contain tons of features.

Notepad++
PHP Designer 2005
Other good ones (That also work with AutoIt scripting):
Crimson Editor
SciTe
PSPad
TextPad

42. Best .pdf Reader

Foxit Reader is small (the download is less than 1MB), so it downloads quickly. It doesn't need any installation, so you can start to run it as soon as you've downloaded it.

Foxit Reader

43. Best Linux

Ubuntu and Kubuntu are two of best and most well known linux distros out there and include a barrage of programs. Another good one is Damn Small Linux, which is 50mb and can run off your USB flash drive.

Ubuntu
Kubunu
Damn Small Linux

----Desktop----


44. Best Dockbar

ObjectDock is the main program for this and can be highly customized. Another, Y'z Dock, has similar functions but was discontinued as a result of Apple's intervention.

ObjectDock
Y'z Dock

44. Best Widget Engine

Yahoo! Widget Engine is your solution to Windows widgets, it's highly customizable and there's thousands of available widgets.

Yahoo! Widget Engine

Labels: security software