Updated: 18th January, 2010
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The Brighton Computer Club has compiled this selection of software for your personal use. Everything on this list is classified as "Freeware" and has been scanned for viruses.

Additional help is available as follows:
  • How to Get the Software

  • How to Install the Safe Way

  • How to Stop 'Running' Programs

  • How to Set a System Restore Point

Security Section

Panda Cloud Anti-Virus  Requires registration
AVG Anti-Virus
Avast Anti-Virus Free

CAUTION - Install only one of the above three

SUPERAntiSpyware
MalwareBytes-Anti-Malware
Adaware   New Version
Norton Removal Tool   New Version

Graphic Section

IrfanView
Image Analyzer
PhotoShop Album
Picasa Web Albums  New Version
FastStone Capture

Utilities Section

Acrobat Reader
7-Zip
Directory (folder) Printer
Replicator (Backup)
VB 6.0 Runtime (for two above)
CCleaner
CCleanerPortable for USB memory sticks
Eraser
What's Running
MemInfo
DK Finder
Open Office
AbiWord
Revo Uninstaller
WordWeb
CutePDF Writer
AShampoo Burning Studio 6
Smart Defrag  New Version
Skype New - See BCC website, Show Time, Skype Oct 27, 2009 for help.
Eco Font New - See BCC website Info, Questions & Answers, Oct 27, 2009 for installation help.

Internet Section

Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird  New Version
Google Chrome
RoboForm
Internet Explorer

Miscellaneous Section

Belarc Advisor
Shoot the Messenger
NoteTab Light
FastStone Capture

MS Office Viewers Section

Word Viewer 2003
Excel Viewer 2003
Access Viewer2003
Powerpoint Viewer 2003

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Disclaimer

The information provided on this page comes without any warranty whatsoever. Use it at your own risk. Just because it is listed here or has a good review does not mean that the Brighton Computer Club endorses all of them. Some are recommended by our members. All the other standard disclaimers also apply.


AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

NEW! LinkScanner® Active Surf-Shield checks web pages for threats at the only time that matters – when you’re about to click that link.

  • Award-winning antivirus and antispyware
  • Real-time safe internet surfing and searching
  • Quality proven by 80 million of users
  • Easy to download, install and use
  • Protection against viruses and spyware
  • Compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP
AVG AntiVirus Free Edition is only available for single computer use for home and non commercial use.



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Adaware

With behavior-based threat detection and integrated real-time monitoring, Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition focuses on core consumer security needs.
Instead of adding layers of bells and whistles--thereby slowing your computer and scans down--we have decided to focus on what really matters.
Anniversary Edition provides advanced threat protection, and is significantly lighter and faster than our previous versions.
Numerous changes in Ad-Aware Anniversary Edition include: Behavior-based heuristical detection; Ad-Watch Live! integrated real-time protection; Customizable Profile Scans and full integration with Windows Security Center.

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Acrobat Reader

This software lets you view and print Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF) files on a variety of hardware and operating system platforms.
The new version of Acrobat Reader provides a host of features that enable you to submit Adobe PDF forms created with fillable form fields in such applications as Adobe Acrobat 6.0 Professional and Adobe Form Designer.
Play back a variety of embedded multimedia content, such as QuickTime and MP3 files. Read and organize high-fidelity e-books.
Activate search and accessibility capabilities built into your PDF files, and display Adobe Photoshop Album slide shows and electronic cards.

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7-Zip

The main features of 7-Zip:
* High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression * Supported formats: o Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR o Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS * For ZIP and GZIP formats 7-Zip provides compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip * Self-extracting capability for 7z format * Integration with Windows Shell * Powerful File Manager * Powerful command line version * Plugin for FAR Manager * Localizations for 63 languages

Uses for 7-Zip:

* Distributing files on the Internet: Only one download is required to obtain all related files, and file transfer is quicker because the archived files are compressed. * Sending a group of related files to an associate: When you distribute a collection of files as a single Zip file, you benefit from the file grouping as well as compression. * Saving disk space: If you have large files that are important but seldom used, such as large data files, simply compress the files into a Zip file and then unzip (or "extract") them only when needed.

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IrfanView

IrfanView is a fast and simple image viewer and editor that supports all major graphic formats, including BMP, DIB, JPEG, GIF, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, multipage TIFF, and TGA.
In addition, it features drag-and-drop support, directory viewing, TWAIN support, slide shows, batch conversion, and modifications, such as color depth, crop, blur, and sharpen.

The latest version features a host of updates, including the option to sort thumbnails using EXIF data or using image width and height, a new save option for TIFF files, a new batch option (you can apply changes to all TIFF-image pages), and a new TIFF option (you can edit multipage TIFFs: Menu->View->Multipage images).

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MS Word Viewer 2003

This program is for users who don't have Word; it allows them to open and view Word 97, 2000, 2003 and XP documents.
With the Microsoft Word Viewer 2003, Microsoft Word users can share documents with those who do not have Word and users without Word can open and view Word documents.
This product also allows users who wish to post rich-formatted Word documents on the Internet to expand their online audience to people who might not have Word; and the viewer also allows users to view and print documents created in the Word native file format, even if they do not have Word.
Users are allowed to zoom, outline, or view page layout, headers/footers, footnotes, and annotations.
The viewer does not allow users to edit files. However, it allows them to copy information from a document to other applications.

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MS Excel Viewer 2003

The Excel 2003 Viewer lets users view and print Excel 97, 2000 and 2003 spreadsheet files, in addition to other Excel for Windows® (versions 2.0 and greater) and Excel for the Macintosh® (versions 2.2a and greater) spreadsheet files.
This small, freely distributable viewer gives users the flexibility to view page layout, copy and control cell sizes, and access the zoom and AutoFilter features.
This viewer also supports OLE DocObject, as well as the ability to view any Excel file.

Note This viewer may open some spreadsheet files created with later versions of Excel.
Note The Excel 97/2000 Viewer is recommended for use with a stand-alone computer that does not have Excel installed.

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MS Access Viewer 2003

The Snapshot Viewer enables you to view a report snapshot without having the standard or run-time versions of Microsoft Access 97 through Access 2003.
* This program works with the following Office applications:
o Access 2003
o Access 2002
o Access 2000
o Access 97

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MS Powerpoint Viewer 2003

The PowerPoint Viewer 2003 allows people who use PowerPoint to share their presentations with people who do not have PowerPoint installed on their computers.
When you post presentations on the Internet, you can include the PowerPoint Viewer to expand your online audience to people who might not have PowerPoint, or to those with different versions.
You can use this viewer to view files created in both PowerPoint for Windows® and PowerPoint for the Macintosh.
This program is for users who don't have Microsoft PowerPoint®; it allows them to view PowerPoint 97, 2000, and 2003 presentations.

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Image Analyzer

Advanced image editing, enhancement and analysis software.
The program contains both most image enhancement features found in conventional image editors plus a number of advanced features not even available in professional photo suites.
Features: * Automatic brightness, contrast, gamma and saturation adjustment * Build-in conventional and adaptive filters for noise reduction, edge extraction etc. * Deconvolution for out-of-focus and motion blur compensation (see below) * Easy red-eye removal * User specified filters in spatial and frequency domain * Resize, rotate, crop and warping of images * Scanner, camera and printer support * File format support: Read/write BMP, ICO, CUR, WMF, EMF, PNG, MNG, GIF, PCX, JPEG and JPEG 2000 images Read RAS, PNM, PGM, PPM, HIPS and Matlab files * Morphological operations * Color model conversion: RGB, CMY, HSI, Lab, YCbCr, YIQ and PCA * Distance, Fourier and discrete cosine transformation * Math expression module for creating and transforming images and advanced "pocket" calculator with equation solver * Plugin system for adding more specialized features. See below for available plugins

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PhotoShop Album

Adobe® Photoshop® Album 2.0 software has everything the casual photographer needs, all in one easy-to-use product. Quickly share your photos with family and friends, fix flaws in seconds, and view all your photos in one convenient place.
E-mail right-sized photos Avoid overloading e-mail inboxes — Adobe Photoshop Album automatically resizes your photos so they send and open quickly, and look great.
Tell your stories in entertaining slide shows Share the excitement of any event by creating a slide show in less than five minutes. Bring it alive with captions, transitions, and music.
Get the most from photo paper Fit more photos on a page with templates that let you print multiple photos on one sheet of paper.

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Belarc Advisor

Builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.

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Shoot the Messenger

Allows any Windows NT/2000/XP user to easily stop and disable the unnecessary Messenger Service running in their machines.
Since the first release of Windows 1.0, people have never stopped complaining about how slow and resource-hungry Windows is to boot and operate.
It's things like leaving unneeded, unwanted, and never used services running — exactly like Windows Messenger — that tie up RAM, burn CPU cycles, and consume other system resources.
It adds up to slowing everything down.
Turning off unneeded services and not running unnecessary programs is always a good idea. As you can probably see . . .
Even if your Windows 2000 or XP machine is safe behind a personal firewall or NAT router, shutting down the Messenger Service is a good idea. Does not have to be installed. Just copy to your computer and run it.

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Mozilla Firefox

Popup Blocking:  Stop annoying popup ads in their tracks with Firefox's built in popup blocker.
Tabbed Browsing:  View more than one web page in a single window with this time saving feature.
Open links in the background so that they're ready for viewing when you're ready to read them. Find out more...
Privacy and Security:  Built with your security in mind, Firefox keeps your computer safe from malicious spyware by not loading harmful ActiveX controls.
A comprehensive set of privacy tools keep your online activity your business. Smarter Search:  Google Search is built right into the toolbar, and there is a plethora of other search tools including Smart Keywords (type "dict " in the Location bar), and the new Find bar (which finds text as you type without covering up anything).
Live Bookmarks:  RSS integration lets you read the latest news headlines and read updates to your favorite sites that are syndicated. Find out more...
Hassle-Free Downloading:  Files you download are automatically saved to your Desktop so they're easy to find. Fewer prompts mean files download quicker.
Fits Like a Glove:  Simple and intuitive, yet fully featured, Firefox has all the functions you're used to - Bookmarks, History, Full Screen, Text Zooming to make pages with small text easier to read, etc.
S, M, L or XL—It's Your Choice:  Firefox is the most customizable browser on the planet.
Customize your toolbars to add additional buttons, install new Extensions that add new features, add new Themes to browse with style, and use the adaptive search system to allow you to search an infinite number of engines.
Firefox is as big or small as you want.

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Mozilla Thunderbird

Mozilla Thunderbird is a free, open-source and cross-platform mail client and news reader for most modern operating systems including, but not limited to, Windows, Linux and Macintosh.
It offers some advantages over other mail clients, including junk mail classification. Built from Mozilla code, Mozilla Thunderbird uses Gecko, the most standards-compliant rendering engine in existence.
Smartest Way to Stop Junk Mail:  Mozilla Thunderbird removes spam and helps keep your Inbox clean.
Tired of spam and annoying advertising in your Inbox? Mozilla Thunderbird provides the most effective tools for detecting junk mail.
Our tools analyze your e-mail and identify those that are most likely to be junk.
You can have your junk mail automatically deleted or put in a specific folder.

To activate the Junk Mail filters, go to Tools > Junk Mail Controls..., click the Adaptive Filters tab and check the Enable adaptive junk mail detection option.

Mail, the Way You Want It:  We've added a new three-column view to access your e-mail.
View your e-mail the way you want it. Choose between three unique message views.
Select your toolbar layout. Customize your toolbar buttons, and use Mail Views to quickly sort through your e-mail.

In the end, all these possibilities make you more productive and efficient, which is what Mozilla Thunderbird is all about.

Built-in Spell Checking:  The intelligent spell checker keeps your mail professional.
There's no need for third party spell checking software.
Mozilla Thunderbird comes with an integrated spell checker developed by the Spellchecker Mozdev Project.

Safe and Secure:  Mozilla Thunderbird provides enterprise and government grade security features such as S/MIME, digital signing, message encryption, support for certificates and security devices.
Unlike many other products, Mozilla Thunderbird doesn't allow scripts to run by default. This results in a more secure product than other mail clients on the market and helps stop the spreading of worms and viruses on the Web.

Unlimited Functionality through Extensions:  How powerful mail client do you want? You decide.
Mozilla Thunderbird is already packed with great features like IMAP/POP support, support for HTML mail, labels, quick search, a smart address book, return receipts, advanced message filtering, LDAP address completion, import tools, powerful search, and the ability to manage multiple e-mail and newsgroup accounts.
In addition to this, Mozilla Thunderbird lets you add additional features as you need them through extensions. Extensions are powerful tools to help you build a mail client that meets your specific needs. Take a look at the various extensions available.

Personalize with Themes:  Just about any part of the interface can be changed with themes.
With themes, you can change the look and feel of Mozilla Thunderbird. A theme can simply change the toolbar icons or it can change every piece of the application appearance.
You can download and install themes with just a few clicks.

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NoteTab Light

NoteTab Light is the ultimate free Notepad replacement and a capable HTML editor.
A slimmer version of the award-winning NoteTab Pro, this slick application makes text editing a breeze.
Move quickly around a stack of large files with a simple tabbed interface. Format your text to your heart's content.
Write with the font of your choice, fixed-width or proportional.
Key Features:

* Open and edit many documents at once
* Capable of editing huge text files
* Text drag-and-drop editing
* AutoCorrect/Auto-replace mode
* Clip tool for quick and easy text insertion
* Capture text sent to Clipboard

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RoboForm

RoboForm is a free password manager and one-click web form filler with some serious Artificial Intelligence.
What it does: • AutoSave passwords in browser. • AutoFill passwords to login form. • Click Login button for you. • Fill personal info into online forms. • Save offline passwords & notes. • Generate Secure Random Passwords. • Encrypt passwords and personal data using 3-DES. • All personal info is stored on your computer only. • Take RoboForm with you on USB disk for ultimate portability. • Sync your passwords and notes to Palm or Pocket PC. • Backup & Restore, Print your passwords.

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Google PicasaWeb

PicasaWeb is a photo editing program that allows you to edit and organise your pictures on your computer.
You can add visual effects to your digital pictures, write captions, pan, tilt, zoom, crop, eliminate red eyes, change the contrast, colour and enhance them.
Other features include the ability to create slide shows, upload your photographs to your blog or website, burn them to CD or DVD, make a desktop image, create a screensaver, etc.
The software is available for Windows and Linux.

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Karen's Directory Printer

No more fumbling with My Computer or Windows Explorer, wishing you could print information about all your files. Karen's Directory Printer can print the name of every file on a drive, along with the file's size, date and time of last modification, and attributes (Read-Only, Hidden, System and Archive)! And now, the list of files can be sorted by name, size, date created, date last modified, or date of last access.
Despite its name, the Directory Printer doesn't always print. If asked, it can save the information it collects in a disk file. Later, this file can be printed by a word processing program, archived, or e-mailed to a different location. The file can even be imported into a spreadsheet or database, analyzed, and used to prepare reports or statistics. What does this file look like? It's an ordinary text file so a program like Windows' Notepad can display its contents. Take a look, and you'll quickly see each of its lines of text begin with one of four words: COMMENT, FILE, FOLDER or TOTAL. Lines beginning with COMMENT reveal the date and time the file was created, and the user ID of the person who ordered the creation of the file. Other COMMENT lines disclose the computer, drive, and folders whose information is recorded within the rest of the file.
As you've probably guessed, FILE lines contain information about a single file. Depending on your selections, you may see a file's name, size or attributes. At your command, the file's date of creation, last access and last modification can appear too.
If Karen's Directory Printer does not work on your computer, please go to her homepage and download the Visual Basic Runtime file required. Follow the links to Directory Printer.

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Karen's Replicator

Automatically backup files, directories, even entire drives! Karen's Replicator copies selected files from one drive/folder to another. Source and Destination folders can reside anywhere on your network.
Options include repeated copies at intervals as short as a few minutes, or as long as several months, copy only files that have changed, and the replication of file deletions.
New features allow you to specify which files should not be copied, and also which days a file should be skipped!
If Karen's Directory Printer does not work on your computer, please go to her homepage and download the Visual Basic Runtime file required. Follow the links to Directory Printer.

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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.



CCleaner Portable

CCleaner Portable is for use with USB memory sticks. The software has been added to the memory stick. Do 'Run' from the memory stick if you wish to run CCleaner on your PC or "Save" it to the memory stick you want CCleaner on.

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Avast Anti-Virus Free

Avast! 4 Home Edition is a full-featured antivirus package designed exclusively for home users and non-commercial use. Both of these conditions should be met! Our company offers the Home Edition free of charge, since, in our opinion, it is possible to avoid global virus spreading by efficient prevention; however, many users are not able to or do not want to pay for antivirus software. This page will show you the most important features of this program.

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FastStone Capture - only on club memory stick

FastStone Capture is a powerful, flexible and intuitive screen-capture utility. It allows you to capture anything on the screen including windows, objects, full screen, rectangle regions, freehand-selected regions and scrolling windows/web pages. It has innovative features such as a floating Capture Panel, hotkeys, resizing, cropping, text annotation, printing, e-mailing, screen magnifier and many more.

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Eraser

Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several tstyle="background: yellow"imes with carefully selected patterns. The patterns used for overwriting are based on Peter Gutmann's paper "Secure Deletion of Data from Magnetic and Solid-State Memory" and they are selected to effectively remove magnetic remnants from the hard drive. Other methods include the one defined in the National Industrial Security Program Operating Manual of the US Department of Defence and overwriting with pseudo random data. You can also define your own overwriting methods.

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Norton Removal Tool

The Norton Removal Tool uninstalls all Norton 2007/2006/2005/2004/2003 products from your computer. Before you continue, make sure that you have the installation CDs or downloaded installation files for any Norton products that you want to reinstall. Also, if you use ACT! or WinFAX, back up those databases and uninstall those products.

Click on the install icon below and follow the on-screen instructions. Your computer may be restarted more than once, and you may be asked to repeat some steps after the computer restarts.

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FastStone Viewer

A fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more.

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What's Running

What's Running is a product that gives you an inside look into your Windows 2000/XP/2003 system.
Processes - Inspect your processes and find all the relevant details that you need! Get performance and resource usage data such as memory usage, processor usage and handles. Also you get all details about what dll:s are loaded, what services are running within the process and what IP-connections each process has.
IP-Connections - Find out information about all active IP-connections in the system. Get a list of what remote connections each program have and find out what applications are listening for connections.
Services - Inspect what services are running and stopped, find the process for your services and inspect it's properties easily!
Modules - Find information about all dll:s and exe:s in use in your system. For each module you can find all processes that have loaded the module. Also you can find the full path and immediately open the folder where the file is located.
Drivers - Find information about all drivers, for running drivers you can inspect the file version to find out the supplier of the driver.
Startup Manage all your startup programs. Disable, edit, delete, create new easily. Manage startup programs regardless of source (registry or Startup folder).
System - information Show important system information about your computer, such as installed memory, processor, registered user, OS and OS version.

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MemInfo

MemInfo Displays the current memory (RAM or Page File) usage of Windows in the system tray. * With a small gauge graphic and the value updated in real time, MemInfo gives a fast feedback to current memory usage in Windows. * Highly customizable. Choose when MemInfo should warn you about high memory usage, show physical memory or Windows page file, show free or used memory, choose the font that looks better. * Built in memory Defragmenter to allow speed up your computer by maximizing the available free memory

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DK Finder

DK Finder is a fast desktop search tool Most of us need a good desktop search tool sometimes. Windows doesn't provide a good search tool - at least not the one that comes with Windows. And there really isn't a lot of good search tools available. There's Windows Desktop Search, which has its pros and cons. And, there are many commercial desktop search tools, but this is a freeware pick.
Luckily for those of you who don't want to spend money but want a desktop search tool as good as, or better than, those commercial desktop search tools costing $50, $60, or even $70, we've stumbled across one for you. It's better than most commercial desktop search tools.
It installs easily, builds its file/folder database extremely fast and once built, it updates it in an instant. When searching your hard drive it is blazing fast. It can find 5000 items in 0.6 seconds.

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OpenOffice.Org Productivity Suite

OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute.
OpenOffice.org is both the name of a software product - the OpenOffice.org Productivity Suite - and the name of the open-source project which designs, develops, maintains, translates, tests, documents, supports, and promotes the Suite - the OpenOffice.org Community.

Key points about the OpenOffice.org Productivity Suite:

OpenOffice.org provides everything most people need in an office productivity suite. It is stable, reliable, and robust, built up over twenty years' development. Unlike its major competitor, it was designed from the start as a single piece of software, which makes for higher quality software and a more consistent user experience. It is actively developed, with several releases every year.

    The main components of the OpenOffice.org Suite are:
  • Writer word processor
  • Calc spreadsheet
  • Impress for presentations
  • Draw for graphics
  • Base database

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AbiWord

AbiWord is rapidly becoming a state of the art Word Processor, with lots of features useful for your daily work, personal needs, or for just some good old typing fun.
Enjoy your favorite Word Processor on the operating system you like to use - be it Windows, Linux, QNX, FreeBSD or Solaris.
AbiWord has been designed to integrate perfectly with the operating system it runs on. It will take advantage of the functionality provided by the system, such as image loading or printing capabilities.
What use is a Word Processor when you can't share your documents with your friends? AbiWord is able to read and write all industry standard document types, such as OpenOffice.org documents, Microsoft Word documents, WordPerfect documents, Rich Text Format documents, HTML web pages and many more.

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Google Chrome

Google Chrome is a browser window that is streamlined and simple. To most people, it isn't the browser that matters. It's only a tool to run the important stuff - the pages, sites and applications that make up the web. Like the classic Google homepage, Google Chrome is clean and fast. It gets out of your way and gets you where you want to go.

Under the hood, we were able to build the foundation of a browser that runs today's complex web applications much better . By keeping each tab in an isolated "sandbox", we were able to prevent one tab from crashing another and provide improved protection from rogue sites. We improved speed and responsiveness across the board. We also built V8, a more powerful JavaScript engine, to power the next generation of web applications that aren't even possible in today's browsers.

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Revo Uninstaller

Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from "Windows Add or Remove Programs" control panel applet.
Revo Uninstaller is a much faster and more powerful alternative to "Windows Add or Remove Programs" applet! With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry keys so you can delete them.
With its unique "Hunter mode", Revo Uninstaller offers you some simple, easy to use, but effective and powerful approaches to manage (uninstall, stop, delete, disable from auto starting) and to get information about your installed and/or running programs.

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WordWeb

WordWeb is a one-click English (Canadian can be default) thesaurus and dictionary for Windows that can look up words in almost any program. It works off-line, but can also look up words in web references such as the Wikipedia encyclopedia. Features of the free version include:
Definitions and synonyms
Proper nouns
Related words
Pronunciations
150 000 root words
120 000 synonym sets
Look up words in almost any program
Millions of people from all over the world use this top-rated software.

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CutePDF Writer

Create PDF documents on the fly — for Free!
Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world. CutePDF Writer (formerly CutePDF Printer) is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a "printer subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button!


FREE for commercial and non-commercial use! No watermarks! No Popup Web Ads!

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SUPERAntiSpyware

Quick, Complete and Custom Scanning of Hard Drives, Removable Drives, Memory, Registry, and More!

Detect and Remove Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers and many other types of threats.

Trust items and Exclude Folders for complete customization of scanning

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Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - Malwarebytes.org

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is a surprisingly effective freeware anti-malware tool. It's a relatively speedy malware remover, with the quick scan taking about 10 minutes. The heuristics engine proved on multiple computers during empirical testing that it was capable of determining the difference between false positives and dangerous apps.

The application has some nice features rolled in, too. It supports multiple drive scanning, context menu options including a scan-on-demand for individual files, and the FileAssassin option under the More Tools section for removing locked files. The interface is simple, but pleasant-looking and well-organized. Tabs live just below the oversized logo, with few options per tab to keep down the clutter. The installation process was fast enough, but interestingly offered up the well-kept change log and an instant definition file update.

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Panda Cloud

Panda Cloud Antivirus protects you while you browse, play or work and you won't even notice it.
It is extremely light as all the work is done in the cloud.
Panda Cloud Antivirus provides you with the fastest protection against the newest viruses thanks to its cloud-scanning from Panda Labs' servers.
Panda Cloud Antivirus is truly install and forget. Don't worry about updates, configuration or complicated decisions ever again.
Quick, Complete and Custom Scanning of Hard Drives, Removable Drives, Memory, Registry, and More!

Detect and Remove Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers and many other types of threats.

Trust items and Exclude Folders for complete customization of scanning

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Internet Explorer 7 & 8

Internet Explorer 7 & 8 provide improved navigation through tabbed browsing, web search right from the toolbar, advanced printing, easy discovery, reading and subscription to RSS feeds, and much more.

    Features:
  • Tabbed browsing
  • Quick Tabs
  • Tab Groups
  • Streamlined interface
  • Advanced printing
  • Instant Search box
  • Favorites Center
  • RSS feeds
  • Page zoom

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AShampoo Burning Studio 6

Multi-disc file backup and restore on CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs; create compressed backup archives with powerful password protection; split archives automatically across multiple CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs; restore archive contents to their original locations; integrated Audio CD ripper store your audio tracks as WMA or WAV files; new option for setting the number of copies you want to burn (available for all disc formats); discs can now be verified immediately without being ejected first (if the drive supports this feature); numerous other small improvements that make the program easier to use and more effective; burn files and folders on data CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs; burn Audio CDs from WAV, MP3, FLAC, WMA and Ogg Vorbis files; burn MP3-CDs from your MP3 files; burn Video DVD, Video CD (VCD) or Super Video CD (S-VCD); create and burn CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc images; burn speed and other options can all be set automatically.

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Smart Defrag

Smart Defrag beats the built-in Windows Defragmentation tool hands-down. It's faster, more thorough, more configurable, and easier to use. It's a must have for all Windows XP and Windows Vista users who are concerned about maintaining their hard drives and keeping fragmentation under control.

Every time you open a program and then close it, Windows does not always "put it back" where it was. So parts of the program get scattered all over your hard drive. So, the next time you open the program, Windows has to find all the pieces and has to "remember" where it put them all - this takes time and this causes your programs to open more slowly. The more fragmented your drives are the more slowly your programs will open. A badly fragmented hard drive can really slow down your computer.

Smart Defrag helps defragment your hard drives more efficiently than any other product on the market –– free or not.

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Eco Font

The font uses tiny circles placed in the characters to cut down on ink costs. It is estimated to cut down the amount of ink usage by approximately 15 percent or more.
For more see Show Time EcoFont - October 27, 2009

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Skype

Skype is a software application that allows users to make voice calls over the Internet.
Calls to other users of the service and, in some countries, to free-of-charge numbers, are free, while calls to other landlines and mobile phones can be made for a fee.
Additional features include instant messaging, file transfer and video conferencing.
See more in Show Time Skype - October 27, 2009.

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VB 6.0 Runtime

This is is a pre-requisite for Directory (folder) Printer and Replicator (Backup). You may not have this on your computer and if these two programs do not work you need to install this program.

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How to Get the Software

  1. For Brighton Computer Club members the software is found on the club memory sticks, available at our meetings. You may wish to download the software from the websites that offer it.
  2. Do a search with Google or another search engine. Use the software title as a search argument.
  3. Find the "Free" version listed on the Owner's web site.
  4. NOTE: In certain cases, the software is not offered online now. For these programs, club members can get them on the club memory stick.
  5. Click on the program name indicated.
  6. A small window should pop-up asking for a location on your hard drive for the downloaded file.
  7. If clicking on the link does not work, right click and select 'Save Target As...'
  8. Make sure that the choice for the destination is the special folder that you use for downloading such as C:\Down2008 mentioned above.
  9. You will be able to follow the download activity. When complete, the download window should disappear. You can then log off the web site and return to our Club site for more downloading (if required).
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How to Install the Safe Way

When you are installing regular programs, the following involved procedure is probably NOT necessary. This procedure however; is strongly recommended for "System" oriented programs such as Service Packs, or very large involved programs such as Microsoft's Office, Security programs such as AVG, etc.

To ensure a "safe" installation of these type of software programs, you should do the following steps everytime:
  1. Set a System Restore Point
  2. Stop "Running" Programs
  3. Install the Software Program
  4. Restart the Computer
  5. Restart "Running" Programs
  6. Restart the Computer

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How To Set a System Restore Point

  1. Click on "Start"
  2. Select "All Programs"
  3. Select "Accessories"
  4. select "System Tools"
  5. Click "System Restore"
  6. Select "Create a Restore Point" by click the radio button
  7. Click "Next"
  8. Type in a meaningful description ie "Installing Program X" and click "Create"
  9. After the red creation message shows, click "Close"
  10. Done this step
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How to Stop "Running" Programs

Here is Charlie LeBer's procedure to stop "running" programs in XP and Vista.
  1. Click on "Start". Click on "Run" and enter "msconfig" and click on "OK".
  2. Now click on "Startup" tab and note the programs that are checked. Some members use "Faststone Capture" to take an image of the settings.
  3. Now click "Disable All" and "Apply".
  4. Click on "Services" tab.
  5. Click on "Hide All Microsoft Services" and then on "Disable All".
  6. Click "Apply" and "Close".
  7. When System Configuration box is displayed, click "Restart".
  8. When System Configuration Utility Window is displayed, click in the "Don’t show this message" box
  9. Click "OK".
  10. Done this step
Install the software program.
Restart the computer.
Restart "Running" programs.
  1. Click on "Start". Click on "Run" and enter "msconfig" and click on "OK".
  2. Click "Startup" tab and click in the boxes you had noted in #2 above.
  3. Click "Apply".
  4. Click on "Services" tab. Click "Enable All".
  5. Click "Apply" and "Close".
  6. When System Configuration box is displayed,
Restart the Computer by clicking on "Restart", Done!



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