Free Software

When I get my new laptop, what software would you guys recommend?

 

enable the thx trustudio software. get bfbc2. get google chrome. done thats it

 

Malwarebytes and Avast, both are free, very low overhead, and do a great job

 

should I get open office? or should i shell out some money and just get microsoft office

 

I'd rather suggest Microsoft Security Essentials, it seems to be doing a really good job. Only virus database I've seen that can compare with bitdefender's.

 

open office is fine.
also check some of these out for monitoring HERE

 

If you *need* office for things, like college, then I'd say see if you can get a good student license. If not, don't study it really. Everything else can be done with notepad, Notepad++, Wordpad and adobe reader (for .pdf files). Of course, since Open Office is free, no reason to *not* use it if you like it.

Oh yeah, get GPU-Z, HWMonitor, Steam, Skype, Firefox/Chrome/Opera (you choose, or get more than one), Lightscreen (GREAT screenshot taking program), Teamspeak 3... man I could list great free software forever.

 

I personally could never get used to Open Office, but it's a very good free alternative to office.

 

Open Office or Libre Office. Libre Office is great and free. I use it. And I use MSE AND Malwarebytes. Can't hurt having both.

 

which one is closest to microsoft office?

 

Well LibreOffice is just a fork from OpenOffice back when Oracle bought out the openoffice project. Oracle discontinued commercial support of Openoffice, so soon there won't be much of a choice anyway

 

LibreOffice="Free Office," lol

 

What exactly does THX trustudio do? I enabled mine and tried to use it but "no supported device connected"

 

hmm odd. its just an audio enhancing software that enables the subwoofer and enhances the audio presumably using eq filters compressors and limiters. try reinstalling.

 

You have to be registered for that.

 

Explain more?

 

You merely have to register the software on their website. Mine was simple enough since their was an icon on the desktop to do it.

 

Personal preferences: MalwareBytes, Spybot, Free AVG antivirus, Google Chrome.

For fun: Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Steam.

 

AVG is worthless and has a lot of false positives as of late. I really suggest Avast!, Microsoft Security Essentials or... uhh... that's about it otherwise.

 

What firewall should I use? I normally just keep mine off because its such a pain to allow programs past and what not.

 

I simply leave Windows Firewall on and use MSE, as long as you don't do anything stupid online, that should be fine. It has been for me for months.

 

Well I dont think ive had my firewall on for the past 4 years or so and my computer seems to be alright. Do you think this will be a good idea or should I turn it on for my new computer?

 

If you're behind a wireless router, then you've already got a hardware firewall. If you travel a lot though, a software firewall is a good idea as well- even if it's just the windows firewall (I personally run an IDS - intrusion detection system - at home on a server that keeps the whole network safe. But that's needlessly complicated and paranoid for 99% of home users)

 

Truth is, real-world-scenario = firewalls not very useful.

If you have important, sensitive data on your machine, and you travel a lot (or even if you're at home, but use things like VPNs a lot; basically as long as people *know* you have important data on your PC) then you should look into getting a firewall. Unfortunately, now that Bitdefender is the worst piece of software on the planet, I am unable to recommend a good one. But I'll tell you, don't hunt for the major brand names if you go looking/advice taking. If there's a ton advertising going on, and you see offers for free trials of the software when you buy stuff or download programs, steer clear. I don't see MSE/Avast!/Kaspersky/NOD32 adverts anywhere, and they're top-notch for antiviruses, whereas every 5 seconds McAfee is pushed down my throat (and it sucks).

That wall of text out of the way, the reverse is true. If your machine is personal use and there's not really much sensitive data on it, then you needn't worry about firewalling so much, and Windows Firewall will be activated by default (or it should be) so that'll be fine too. The most important part of all of this, of course, is to not do anything stupid on the net. If you don't call for trouble, it will rarely come visit.

 

thats what i was thinking. My laptop has been more or less virus free. I take generally good care of it and I do a virus scan every few weeks. Thanks

 

libreoffice!

 

and also microsoft security essentials

 

i still dont understand the difference between open office and libre office

 

1- OpenOffice is developed by Sun.
2- Sun is bought by Oracle.
3- Oracle are being jerks to Open Source, Java.
4- Oracle discontinue the OpenSolaris project.
5- Out of fear of Oracle taking control of the OpenOffice project, the people working on OpenOffice leave and create LibreOffice which is a fork of OpenOffice.

LibreOffice is the continuation of OpenOffice.

 

6- Oracle donates OpenOffice to Apache Incubator. So who knows what's next.

 

While this thread is in the totally wrong section anyway...

My moms ex boyfriend works for oracle. What should I tell him to sabotage?

 

Oracle Universal Content Management - oh wait - they already did.

 

This entire post made me laugh uproariously, simply because you have the LulzSec avatar as your profile pic. Aside from that, it's pretty informative.

 

That's kind of an awkward relationship lmao