Programs that are a must

[Nicholas H.C]

Can anybody recommend me some good programs like whats a good music player, whats a good fire fox addon,etc

[sparty]

Really depends on what you're planning on doing.

I use iTunes because I like how well it manages all my media and media purchases. I've used a lot of other players / managers like Napster2Go, Rhapsody, and Songbird.

Songbird looks great, kind of like iTunes but sleeker looking. It's still in beta or alpha though so the memory hit is huge. But it's a nice alternative if you're not using iTunes Music Store already to buy your music.

I use the following 3 programs religiously though:

CCleaner
Handy little program cleans up all the junk that Windows doesn't clean up on its own. The first time I ran it on my work PC I had 24 gigabytes of temp files laying around (I do video editing though...so that's not unreasonable). At home, It finds from 80 - 120 megabytes on a regular basis though!
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Auslogics Disk Defrag
Windows Disk Manager told me my PC was 3% fragmented. Auslogics found it was 48% fragmented (3 years on the same hard drive will do that!). I immediately found my pc performing better.
http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

Eraser
Securely delete files permanently with up to 25 times write-over which is beyond the Department of Defense standard. Though not supported any longer this little tool is handy if you store sensitive data on your computer like bank information, receipts from online purchases, etc. that you may want to permanently remove. The best thing short of degaussing your harddrive!
http://www.tolvanen.com/eraser/

I also do the following to improve system performance:

Reduce the reserved size of my recycle bin:

1. Right Click on your Recycle Bin
2. Select Properties
3. Click the "Use one setting for all drives:" radio button
4. Drag it down from 10% to around 2%.

You just freed up a lot of hard drive space! Keep in mind that that percentage is of your total hard drive space. So on a 100gb drive 10% is 10 gigabytes...I don't know anyone who needs that much storage in their recycle bin!

Disable eye candy animations that take up processor to run:

1. Click Start
2. Right click on My Computer (or right click on it on your desktop)
3. Select Properties
4. Click the Advanced Tab
5. Click Settings in the "Performance" area (1st box)
6. I disable the following:

- Animate Windows when...
- Fade or slide menus into view
- Fade or slide ToolTips into view
- Show shadows under menus
- Show shadows under mouse pointer
- Slide open combo boxes
- Slide taskbar buttons

7. Click OK

The computer may take a second here to make your changes. Note that these changes can be reversed at any time by checking the boxes again. I will add however, that you probably won't miss any of these things. I was nervous at first about it because I like my eye candy, but I can hardly tell and the improvement in menu speeds and animations is incredible.

8 Click OK again to close out the System Properties

Finally here are some Firefox Tips:

If you use Gmail or Yahoo! mail then get a mail notifier:
Yahoo! - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1264
Gmail - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1320

Greasemonkey is really popular and lets you basically customize websites. There are a ton of premade scripts that do everything from skin Google to giving you different print options...it's staggeringly cool what people have come up with for this thing.
Greasemonkey - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/748
UserScripts (for the scripts for it) - http://userscripts.org/

ForecastFox is fun if you work in a cube with no windows...you can check out the weather... https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/398

If you do web design like I do then there are 3 you MUST have:

Firebug - http://getfirebug.com/
The BEST website troubleshooting tool and it can even help you troubleshoot nasty little AJAX interactions which is pretty handy!

MeasureIt! - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/539
A ruler to measure graphics, etc.

ColorZilla - https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/271
Loved that websites banner color? Find out what it is!

Hope that helped!

[Miraj]

Utorrent.

It's all you need.

[Nicholas H.C]

Thanks guys, I am really intrested in eraser and Auslogics Disk Defrag, il'l make sure to check those out. What is a good media player to listen to music?

@Miraj: I use utorrent, its excellent

[Saturn]

If you can't afford photoshop GIMP is always a nice thing to have for graphic editing.

[sparty]

Audio players:

iTunes is my favorite. A little slower than other choices but I like it's integration with iTunes Music Store which is where I get my music from.
http://www.itunes.com/

Songbird - Built on the Mozilla Platform. This one looks really promising.
http://getsongbird.com/

Winamp - The oldie but goodie. Doesn't feature as many tools or library organization tools as the others but it's lightweight.
http://www.winamp.com/

Not sure what other ones are out there you might want.

Windows Media Player comes bundled wth Windows of course. Version 11 is okay and links you into a number of different online stores like Napster2Go & Urge from MTV Networks.

Real Player, but honestly...who uses Real Media any more? Not to mention this thing is bloat / ad-ware city.

[Wheelchair]

For video and audio I use Jetaudio, its very good

[Strelok]

CCleaner (Mentioned), also check ISS Log Files and Tray Notifications Cache
CleanUp! - Another cleaning utility, clears more than CCleaner
A-Squared Free 3.5 - One of the best malware/spyware scanners
Anti Vira! - May have some problems with certain Operating System's, but it works well and is pretty light weight!
GIMP (Mentioned): I used it to make some signatures, efficient and reliable
Spybot Search & Destroy 1.60 - Always use the Windows/IE/Firefox Immunizations for maximum security. The new version scans pretty fast. The best
3DMark 2001-2006 - Compare your scores to those of similar hardware.
Fraps - Monitor's FPS and records. A lot of people know of this
Object Dock - Not a must, but it can be configured to use a low amount of RAM. I don't use it, it's like the special app launcher / icon holder that a Mac has.
Open Office - Can use the same text format as Microsoft Word, low weight, doesn't have thousands of registry keys, and it's much, much better.
Foxit Reader - Like Adbobe Acrobat Reader, but is more light weight and is much better.
Reg Supreme - Reliable and safe registry cleaner and compactor. For the tweaking enthusiast (Me!!!)
Notepad ++ - Advanced version of Microsoft Notepad, it has TABS!
NTREGOPT - NT Registry Optimizer. Works on 2000/XP/Vista. It compacts the registry size. Safe, reliable, and just works.
Pidgin - Instant Messenger. Supports many such as AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, MSN, etc
(This will be updated!)


Firefox:

A) Addons:

NoScript (Blocks Scripts, disable the notification that pops up. Right click on the icon, and allow the appropriate script for a site to work)
Adblock (Self explanatory)

B) Tweaks:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_1.html

Type in the address bar: About:Config
Search: Pipe

Make: network.http.pipelining TRUE
Make: network.http.pipelining.maxrequests 8

Search: Max

Make: network.http.max-connections 48 or 96
Make: network.http.max-connections-per-server 32 or higher.

[mrmouth]

wow, Im surprised to see NTREGOPT, oldie but a goodie.

I actually like forecast fox advanced due to a little bit better radar image. Doesn't have as good reviews as the original though.

VLC media player is a decent music player, but really a must have for video.

Winamp is still my favorite music player. Shoutcast and winamp music rule.

[Simetrical]

B) Tweaks:
http://www.tweakguides.com/Firefox_1.html

Type in the address bar: about:Config
Search: Pipe

Make: network.http.pipelining TRUE
Make: network.http.pipelining 8

Search: Max

Make: network.http.max-connections 48 or 96
Make: network.http.max-connections-per-server 32 or higher.

These tweaks are less useful with Firefox 3. http.pipelining is already enabled by default and set to 4 (you mean http.pipelining.maxrequests, by the way). You probably aren't going to see a big jump in performance from setting them a lot higher than the default, although you can try.

The Firefox extensions I actually use are Tab Mix Plus, YesScript (for the few sites with annoying JavaScript), and (for web development) Firebug, and occasionally Tamper Data.

[Strelok]

wow, Im surprised to see NTREGOPT, oldie but a goodie.

I actually like forecast fox advanced due to a little bit better radar image. Doesn't have as good reviews as the original though.

VLC media player is a decent music player, but really a must have for video.

Winamp is still my favorite music player. Shoutcast and winamp music rule.

Ah yes, Tab Mix Plus, I had forgotten. Very customizable and I recommend it.

[Forvm Romanvm]

I recommend using Opera web browser! It is proven that this is the fastest and most secure web browser for Windows. For antivirus and firewall software I recommend Kaspersky Internet Security or Eset Security Suite. Kaspersky and Eset have been proven to be two of the very best antivirus and firewall software suites available for Windows. Nero is by far the most well known and popular burning software for Windows today, however it is also the most bloated one. Think a moment, do you really require all the components that come with Nero? Unfortunately, the alternatives for Windows are not that many. Cheetah Burner and DeepBurner are probably the most well known alternatives to Nero. CdBurnerXP Pro and the open source program InfraRecorder are also other alternatives.

WinRAR is the leading compression program on the market with it's well known RAR format. Alternatives do exists however, such as the open source 7-zip being able to support most known formats. uTorrent is the program of choice by most people to download torrent files. Many P2P programs have some form of Bittorrent client, Opera web browser have one, and even some media players support the Bittorent protocol. uTorrent does the job best in my opinion. Most leading antivirus and firewall suites have antispyware protection now. If you would like a seperate program then there are many alternatives, including Spybot Search & Destroy already mentioned.

The best antispyware programs are not freeware however, even if Spybot Search & Destroy is one of the best antispyware programs available. CCleaner is good for being freeware, but if you would like something better then I can recommend TuneUp Utilities 2008. There are many programs with similar names, yet a large majority of them are highly inferior programs. Many so called "tweaking" and "tuning" programs can even by destructive to your computer! They can make changes that can slow down or even damage Windows! The best tweaks of all for Windows are usually the intended ones, such as turning off visual effects to make Windows faster.

Media players are usually a personal choice, but there are some good advice to know, such as avoiding most codec packs! They can do more harm than good. Popular media players include Windows Media player 11, Media Player Classic, VLC Media Player and Zoom Player. I have a personal favorite - one which is from South Korea and not very known in Europe - KMPlayer! It is freeware and have many advanced options.

[Simetrical]

I recommend using Opera web browser! It is proven that this is the fastest and most secure web browser for Windows.

Try running your tests again for Firefox 3. I think the difference is probably quite a bit smaller. (But as I've measured myself, it's hardly nonexistent, at least for memory footprint.)

[Nicholas H.C]

Fovrvm Romanvm, I tried KMPlayer and i like it very much, thank you +rep.

[Freddie]

Your motherboards BIOS.

[Ummagumma]

Gimp, Blender, Wings3D, YafRay, PovRay, Cinepaint, Audacity, Apophysis, Jashaka/Gimpeon, Open Office, Crimson Editor/Notepad++, Python/LUA gubbinz.

[Roman Clone]

Advance Windows Care v.2.

[Saturn]

Adblock Plus is a must have add-on for any Firefox user.

[Simetrical]

Unless you feel that it's unethical to leech off sites that depend on ads for their revenue, hiding ads for yourself and letting other people pay the bills. Which works up until everyone else gets the same idea and the site collapses, along with the rest of the World Wide Web.

[sparty]

Unless you feel that it's unethical to leech off sites that depend on ads for their revenue, hiding ads for yourself and letting other people pay the bills. Which works up until everyone else gets the same idea and the site collapses, along with the rest of the World Wide Web.

This is the reason I don't use adblock.

While I HATE ads, I feel like the sites that I visit which are using them are doing so to help pay the bills. I'd hate for TWC to miss out on ad revenue because I don't like the ads they post!