New Year, New Resolution, New Apps!

14Jan08

I’ve noticed there’s a lot of PC out there are not optimized to run on top performance.

And some choose to go for pirated anti virus because of the mindset that ‘paid software are better than free ones’. Well for some case it is, but there’s plentiful of freewares out there today works as great as paid one, and some are even better than paid ones.

So in this brand new year, I really hope that the ‘bad habit of not optimizing your PC‘ and ‘paid software are better than free ones mindset‘ can be changed. I would like to recommend a few MUST HAVE free-for-life softwares (freewares) for your PC to be up and running at its top notch.

Here’s a basic list of what you should have:

1) Registry Cleaner – when you uninstall something, it leaves behind useless stuff in your registry that will make your PC slow if not removed.

2) Anti Virus – prevent and delete virus (view tips below if you want to install multiple antivirus)

3) Anti Spyware – prevent and delete spywares

4) Disk Defragment – defrag your hard disk so that your PC can access files faster

5) Firewall – prevent malicious/hacker attacks and to prevent virus from installing itself in the first place.

———————————————–

*all softwares below are FREE and award winning. Click image to link to its official website

Registry Cleaner – CCleaner

CCleaner is a freeware PC optimization tool.
It combines a system cleaner that removes unused and temporary files from your system and also a fully featured registry cleaner! CCleaner allows Windows to run faster, more efficiently and gives you more hard disk space.

http://ccleaner.com

Anti Virus – Avast, AVG & Avira

Top 3 free antivirus and my favourite. I had all of them installed in my PC, for extra protection. Please do not use pirated anti virus as (besides it is illegal) they will get expired, which means you don’t get to update your virus definition.

How to install 3 antivirus without slowing your PC?
Well it’s very simple. Just choose one main antivirus to run on startup and to act as ‘resident shield’ or ‘real-time scanner’ (resident shield will automatically scan your file when you start an application/open any file). During installation of your secondary antivirus, be sure to:

a) Choose CUSTOM installation and DO NOT install resident shield.
b) Delete its entry from start up

It is very important too to update your virus definition as often as possible. I would recommend daily.

http://avast.com
http://free.grisoft.com
http://avira.com

Anti Spyware – Spyware Terminator (with resident shield)

Spyware Terminator will scan your computer for known threats and report findings in a manner that is easy to read and interpret. Every entry is given a rating and a classification, which makes it very easy to decide if a detected item should be removed. Unlike some free software titles, Spyware Terminator will remove all threats for free.

Alternatively, you can try Ad-Aware (without resident shield) – a top Windows Spyware Remover by Lavasoft.

http://spywareterminator.com
http://lavasoft.com

Disk Defragmenter – AusLogics Disk Defrag

(faster and more efficient than Windows Disk Defrag)

Hard disks are by far the slowest component in your computer. CPU and memory work much faster than hard disks because they do not have moving parts. Therefore fragmented disks often become a bottleneck of the system performance.

Besides causing slowdowns, fragmentation makes the disk drive heads move too much when reading files which leads to freeze-ups and system crashes. It is important to keep your disks defragmented and optimized as much as possible.

Disk fragmentation leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow startups and shutdowns. Auslogics Disk Defrag® is designed for fast optimization of modern hard disks.

http://auslogics.com

Firewall – Comodo Firewall Pro

This is my FAVOURITE piece among all freewares. Well most software that ends with the name ‘Pro’ works greatly but comes with a price. But this, is one of the most powerful firewall, and yet it is completely FREE! Recently named PC Magazine Editor’s Choice Award, this superior firewall does it job better than any FREE Firewalls available and as good as paid firewall products.

At the beginning of the year 2008, it earned a no.1 spot for best free firewall and no.3 best firewall on the net!

Review at HERE.

http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com

———————————————-

Anyway, thats about all of it. I got more software to share but not really a Must-Haves…so I’ll post them next time! Have fun discovering freewares!

Feel free to comment if you got any Must-Haves freewares to share~