I know you already have the essentials installed on your home or work computer or your travelling laptop; or if you are in my shoes, your studying machine. The basics include Office software (talk of the costly darling of many like Microsoft Office Suite or others that are slowly being favoured due to their open source nature and low pricing (or no charges at all) like Open Office, Libre Office, Kingsoft etc), PDF readers (Adobe Reader, Foxit etc), media players (a la VLC and the rest), some security software (Norton, AVG, AntiVir, Panda, Bit Defender & co.), a browser (hello Mozilla Firefox, Google Chrome, Opera and Safari) or even Skype.
What I don’t know is whether you have other softwares that are very essential but always overlooked by average computer owners and users.
Here are the 10 programs/apps that I am sure every computer should just have.
1. Internet Download Manager
Bullish as it looks: IDM has no match.
Now that I know you already have a browser installed, how do you manage what you are constantly downloading? The Internet Download manager or IDM as we all call it is the best in its class. I have used other download accelerators and managers like Orbit, FDM (Free Download Manager) and Download Accelerator Plus but of all those nothing comes close to IDM. It is simply the best. You can easily schedule downloads and resume downloads at a later time. It works by splitting the file into several bits thus increasing the download speeds without incurring any additional bandwidth. Setting up proxies when on protected networks is just easy. Even getting your hotfile downloads is a breeze with IDM.
2. TuneUp Utilities
TuneUp Utilities at work
TuneUp Utilities has several other competitors who in my opinion simply don’t match up. I am talking of the likes of Glary Utilities, Norton Utilities et al. TuneUp is the only software that I recommend for anyone to take control of their Windows PC. From being able to tweak your PC to get that gorgeous look (those who have seen my machine can attest to this) to being a task manager, rivaling Windows Explorer, cleaning your registry, deleting old shortcuts and filename paths that are no longer in use (yes those porn files you deleted yesternight left ugly tracks that need to be cleaned) to defragmenting your disk drives and switching your laptop to economy mode when running low on power. With this you definitely don’t need Speed Up My PC, CC Cleaner or Windows 7 Manager and all the other cleaners that you see being marketed online.
3. Daemon Tools Lite
Notice the clean look, no confusion with many unnecessary options and menus
It is not the best in this class since I have tried others like Ultra ISO and Power ISO with a lot of success but trust me you only need a stable and lightweight client for the tasks that programs like it perform. In fact you don’t even need to upgrade and get its Pro version; the Lite version does just fine. For mounting image files, this is the best anytime. Want to upgrade to Windows 8 (Release Preview) using the ISO you just downloaded? Just use Daemon Tools Lite. Unlike its competitors, the options are not cluttered and it’s easy to find your way around it. I know you’ll need this once FIFA 13 is released. Thank me later!
4. Primo PDF Converter
Just drag your word processed document here (to this icon/program shortcut)
Off all the programs I have listed here this is the only one that works without denting any of your system resources. Just install it and forget about it. You’ll only need it when you quickly want to convert your word processed document to portable format. You just drag your file into the Primo PDF Converter icon and voila!
Bonus
LastPass
LastPass is an application that will come with plugins for you various browsers (just like IDM). Many people seem amazed when I get to a login form when I am online and in their presence (which makes me feel insecure about directly typing my password) I simply click twice and I am already logged in. How is that possible? Here is the answer. LastPass manages passwords in a way you can never imagine. Never do you need to memorize your passwords or risk by writing them somewhere or mind who is snooping while you enter your password. Install the PC version (for plugins in all your browsers) or just get the plugin in the Mozilla or Chrome plugin repositories. I have used KeePass too but I like this one more.
Read the second part of this post here for the rest of the softwares I have listed.
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