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.
Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack
By installing the Compatibility Pack along-side of Microsoft Office XP, or Office 2003, you will be able to open, edit, save, and create files using the formats that are used by Office 2010 and the 2007 Office system. Google "Microsoft Office Compatibility Pack" to find the file.
Word Viewer
Word Viewer lets you view print and copy Word documents on a computer that does not have Word installed. Google "Microsoft Word Viewer" to find the file.
Excel Viewer
Open, view, and print Excel workbooks, even if you don't have Excel installed. Google "Microsoft Excel Viewer" to find the file.
PowerPoint Viewer
Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer lets you view full-featured presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions. Google "Microsoft PowerPoint Viewer" to find the file.
Access Viewer
The Snapshot Viewer enables you to view a report snapshot without having the standard or run-time versions of Microsoft Access 97 through Access 2007. Google "Microsoft Access Viewer" to find the file
f.lux
f.lux changes the color temperature of your display to adapt to the time of day. Natural light is more blue, while most artificial light (including candlelight) is warmer.
Incandescent bulbs, which we're all used to, become more red in tone when you dim them. But newer LEDs and CFLs don't - this includes the backlight on your monitor.
Photographers want to make sure that their colors are perfect so there is an option to disable f.lux for 1 hour at a time (for example, while using Photoshop). This setting returns your screen to its normal settings.
CapsUnlock
Pressing the CapsLock key on your keyboard causes all your typing to be in uppercase.
The Insert key causes your typing to overlay your work. Usually not what you want.
Caps Unlock program prevents the accidental turning on of CapsLock and the Insert keys.
After installing Caps Unlock, if you wish to use CapsLock, there is an override option, allowing CapsLock to be switched on and off.
Hold down the left Shift key while pressing CapsLock. You can also disable CapsUnlock and disable Insert by right clicking the icon near the clock.
Java
Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. It is the underlying technology that powers state-of-the-art programs including utilities, games, and business applications. Java runs on more than 850 million personal computers worldwide, and on billions of devices worldwide, including mobile and TV devices. There are many applications and websites that won't work properly unless you have Java installed, If you surf to a website with a Java program, and you don't have Java, you will see an empty space.
Flash Player
The Adobe Flash Player is software for viewing animations and movies on your browser. The Flash Player is available as a plugin for Internet Explorer, Firefox, and other browsers. Google has integrated Flash support into the Chrome browser.
Microsoft Security Essentials (MSE)
MSE gives real-time protection for your PC.
It guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.
It was previously called "Windows Live OneCare" a paid for program, but now is free.
It is an easy to use anti-malware tool. Malware is caught quickly and it ranks consistently high in detection and removal of malicious software.
There is no paid version for home use, no need to register, and automatic up-dates are done in the background.
Windows Defender is stopped as its functions are included in MSE.
MSE works best on computers with 1GB of RAM or more.
After installing MSE, Windows may be set to Automatically up-date
LibreOffice
LibreOffice is the power-packed free, libre and open source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and GNU/Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. Support and documentation is free from our large, dedicated community of users, contributors and developers.
LibreOffice is user-friendly:
You get a simple-to-use yet powerful interface that is easy to personalize - Microsoft Office users will find the switch easy and painless, with a familiar look and feel.
Compatible with all major competitors' file formats. You can easily import files from Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint and many other formats, and can easily save to Microsoft Office and other formats when needed.
LibreOffice is supported by a big worldwide community: volunteers help newcomers, and advanced users and developers can collaborate with you to find solutions to complex issues.
Desktop iCalendar Lite
Desktop iCalendar Lite is a free desktop calendar for Windows. It allows you to manage your events, to-do list on desktop. It allows subscribing public Google Calendar, such as holidays, election or NBA. It is full customizable. A build in skin editor makes it easy to set the skin by your own taste. Desktop iCalendar is full compatible with iCalendar standard, and can work with the calendars created by Apple iCal, Thunderbird Lightning, Sunbird
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Fastone Capture
Fastone 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.
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" times 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.
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.
Fastone 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 slide show with
150+ transitional effects, as well as loss less JPEG transitions, drop shadow
effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
PDFCreator
A free tool to create PDF files from nearly any Windows application.
Key Features:
Create PDFs from any program that is able to print.
Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, or printed,
Digitally sign your PDFs.
Create PDF/A files for long term archives.
Send generated files via eMail.
Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS.
Merge multiple files into one PDF.
Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed.
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
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.
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
Internet Explorer
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
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.
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.
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
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.
VB 6.0 Runtime
This 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.
Mailwasher
- Check/delete email before you download
- Time saver for dialup users
- Prevent viruses and large attachments from getting to your computer
- Works with Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Gmail, Hotmail/WLM, Thunderbird, etc
- Works on one email account (paid version allows unlimited email accounts)
How to Get the Software
- 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.
- Do a search with Google or another search engine. Use the software title as a search argument.
- Find the "Free" version listed on the Owner's web site.
NOTE: In certain cases, the software is not offered online now. For these programs,
club members can get them on the club memory stick.
- Click on the program name indicated.
- A small window should pop-up asking for a location on your hard drive for the downloaded file.
- If clicking on the link does not work, right click and select 'Save Target As...'
- Make sure that the choice for the destination is the special folder that you use for downloading
such as C:\Down2008 mentioned above.
- 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).
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:
A - Set a System Restore Point in XP
- Click on "Start"
- Select "All Programs"
- Select "Accessories"
- select "System Tools"
- Click "System Restore"
- Click "Create a Restore Point"
- Click "Next"
- Type in a meaningful description i.e. "Installing Program X" and click "Create"
- After the creation message shows, click "Close".
Set a System Restore Point in Windows 7
- Click on "Start"
- Right click on "Computer"
- Click on "Properties"
- Click on "System Protection"
- Click "Create"
- Type n a meaningful description i.e. "Installing Program X" and click "Create"
- After the creation message shows, click "Close".
B - Stop the "Running" Programs
- Click on "Start". Click on "Run" and enter "msconfig" without the quotes, and click on "OK".
- If there is no "Run" type "msconfig" without the quotes, and hit "Enter".
- Now click on "Startup" tab and note the programs that are checked.
- Now click "Disable All" and "Apply".
- Click on "Services" tab.
- Click on "Hide All Microsoft Services" and then on "Disable All".
- Click "Apply" and "Close".
- If System Configuration box is displayed, click "Restart".
- If System Configuration Utility Window is displayed, click in the "Don't show this message" box, click "OK".
C - Install the software program
D - Restart the computer
E - Restart "Running" programs
- Click on "Start". Click on "Run" and enter "msconfig" and click on "OK".
- If there is no "Run" type "msconfig" without the quotes, and hit "Enter"
- Click "Startup" tab and click in the boxes you had noted in #2 above.
- Click "Apply".
- Click on "Services" tab. Click "Enable All".
- Click "Apply" and "Close".
- When System Configuration box is displayed,
F - Restart the Computer by clicking on "Restart"
Done!
Basic Computer Terms
Boot:
To start up your computer. If your computer is already on, reboot means to restart it.
Browser:
A browser is a program that you use to "browse" or "surf" the web. If you sit down at your computer and you get on the internet, you are using a browser. You cannot visit anything on the internet without a browser. Some examples of current browsers are Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Google Chrome, and the latest, Avant.
Desktop:
Like the top of your desk, the desktop on your computer is the part of the screen that contains folders, icons, etc. It's kind of a file system. There can be folders, icons, documents, and you can arrange them any way you like, or even toss them out, since there is a Recycle Bin (which is called a garbage can in my office).
Download:
When you download something, you are transferring data from another computer to your computer, usually over the internet. You are going to receive the data. On the other hand, if you want to upload something, you are going to give something from your computer to someone else's.
Font:
A font is the style and size of lettering. For instance, if you want to compose a letter that looks like it has been written in calligraphy, you might want to use a font like Monotype Corsiva, instead of the one I have been using here, which is called Arial. There is a huge selection of fonts that you can download for free off of the internet.
Hard Drive:
Simply put, a hard drive is where all of your files, pictures, videos, programs, etc. are stored. There are different sizes of hard drives, depending on how much stuff you want to have on your computer. For example, if you are a video editor, you need a very large hard drive (videos can be very big files). If you only use your computer for the internet and to do your taxes, you don't need a very big hard drive. When you hear about people "losing their hard drive" it means that they have lost all of the data that was stored on their computer.
Hardware:
Hardware is all of the physical stuff of your computer, like your mouse, your keyboard, your monitor, your printer, your stereo speakers, etc. Software, on the other hand, runs as the non-tangible part of a computer. Your anti-virus program is software. Data, files, images, and videos are all examples of software. You need both software and hardware for a computer and its parts to run.
Icon: An icon on your computer screen is a very small image that represents an object or program that you have on your computer. Some examples of icons:
This icon represents Internet Explorer.
This icon represents Windows Media Player.
This icon represents Microsoft Word.
Link:
When you click on http://www.worldstart.com, you have clicked on a link.
A link is the address of wherever you want to go. Sometimes the link can be to a file, an image, or a video as well as a website.
Operating System or O/S: "What operating system are you running?" Simply put, an operating system (or O/S) is the main program (software) that manages the hardware and software of the computer which allows you to use it. Current operating systems include Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP, Linux, Windows Vista, and the new Windows 7.
PC:
Your computer! This stands for personal computer.
Reboot:
This means to restart your computer. Often programs will ask you to reboot after you install them (Windows Updates is a good example of this). To boot a computer means to start it the first time.
Search Engine:
Sometimes when you ask someone about something particular they will tell you to "Google" it. What they are telling you is to go look it up on a search engine (in this case, it's Google). A search engine is a program that searches for documents with information based on the criteria it is given and returns the results. For instance, if I wanted to know why my HP printer all of a sudden quit and has a red blinking light, I could go to a search engine and type in "Printer stopped red blinking light HP" and the search engine will return pages of documents where I could go to see how to rectify my problem.
There are many search engines you can use, such as Yahoo, AskJeeves, or Altavista. If you want a list of search engines, you can go "Google" one!
Upload:
When you going to upload something, you are going to transfer it from your computer to someone else's, usually over the internet. You are going to give it to someone else. When you download something, you are transferring it from their computer to yours; you are receiving it.
Alert Boxes
You come across alert boxes all the time. You probably do every single time you use your computer, but you just may not know what they are. You probably call them something else, like a popup box, dialog box, message box, etc. All of those terms are referring to an alert box; it's just a more technical name for them.
An alert box is just a small box that comes up on your computer screen to let you know that your system is about to perform an operation or something similar to that. Some of the alert boxes are there to inform you that the procedure your computer is doing may have damaging consequences, so your system just wants to make sure you know what is going on.
An example of an alert box is when you delete something off of your desktop or when you delete files. A message always comes up asking you if you're sure you want to remove the items, just so you're sure of exactly what you're doing.
Another example is the Recycle Bin alert message. It always says, "Are you sure you want to permanently remove these items"? It gives you one last chance to say OK or Cancel, depending on what you really want to do with the items you place in the bin.
The alert boxes act as little reminders for you so you don't accidentally do something you didn't mean to do. If you're working on an important document and you for some reason forget to save it, an alert message will save you from deleting everything without even knowing it. A message will come up asking you if you want to save your changes before closing the program and I'm betting this message has saved several of you many times. I know it has for me.
The universal icon for the alert boxes is a triangle with an exclamation point in the middle. Other alert messages include illegal operations, shutting down your computer, any changes you make on your system and others. They're there to save you, so be thankful for them!
Thanks to worldstart.com
