"must have" utilities

[gryphon]

I think I have a version 5 here somewhere . ...

And Kylix could be an alternatieve for Win-Delphi ?

[jacobdouds]

Also,

Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Win32dasm

[Gobalopper]

::)

Did you even go to the link?

[Hadaken]

Naw, if you need to do some programming, go for Visual Studio 6 Enteprise edition, its great for database work. If you cant afford VS6 Enteprise, go for professional, its fairly cheap. And for images, use PSP7. Its expensive, but it does an awesome job. Hmm... heres what else:-WinAmp-Norton AntiVirus 2002-Windows 2000 (its a great OS, most stable Win32)-IE 5.5- http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com (If you dont know, you NEED to go there)-Windows Media Player 8 (Videos, RealOne bites)-WinZip and WinRAR (Yes, because WinZip really sucks with RARs and CABs, and WinRAR is really bad with ZIPs and TAR files)-ZoneAlarm (Pro or Free)(If you got broadband, use this!)-Microsoft Office 2002 (AKA XP, How do you guys forget such an important piece of software?)-AdAware (kills bad bad spyware)-NO FILESHARING UTILITIES! (these things are like the black plauge security and virus wise)-Norton Ghost (If you need to make backups)Get a large capacity storage device, like CDRW or peerless. I love my peerless drive, its saved my stupid file erasing paranoid ass more than once.*** Anti-Software Pirating / Warez Statement ***I personally hate warez, its a good way for companies to lose business, and if you get caught with it, you can be prosecuted. Its not worth the 10k fine PER INSTANCE (so, if you have 2 warez programs, you get slapped with up to 20K in fines). Also, it robs developers (like me) of hard earned money. Unless you write software, or websites, you can't honestly say that developers didn't earn and deserve the money for the business that was stolen. Copying HTML code from a site without the authors permission is STEALING! And is just as bad as software pirating.So, kids, just dont do warez, and keep Hadaken happy!

[jacobdouds]

Hmm, we did forget the obvious ones. But, I might make a few changes:

Windows XP

IE 6

You'll find that ghosting is very good, it is very time consuming, and large, when you can just copy the setup files, important docs, and a few settings.inis to a CD-RW

[gryphon]

No, not XP. .. . use 2K.

Just to confince you, a simple qoute . . .

"But, I reinstalled XP, found some weird options, worked around with MSConfig in safe mode, and look, im on the internet, normally, every 6 mins, literally, XP would crash."

[Hadaken]

The reason i recommend ghosting is because it is a pain to re-install your OS, when using Norton Ghost i can have a completly loaded OS with important things (like drivers, M$ Office, SiSoft Sandra, etc) already installed in less than 15 mins (using a SCSI backup device like Peerless or Jaz, its a little longer if you use CDR/Ws). I have saved countless hours of headaches just poping in my backup cartridge and loading a complete fresh copy that works, without installing programs and OSs. I like IE5.5 because it is more secure than IE6, and it also uses fewer resources.

[Desert_Eagle25]

DROP ZONEALARM RIGHT AWAY!!

ZoneAlarm got sued a while back for selling customer info with their spy ware

Here's my List:

-Master-TWEAK 2.0[gives u TONS of options to tweak all WINDOWS operating systems]

-WinAmp

-Norton AntiVirus 2002

-IE 6.0

- http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com

-Windows Media Player 8 (Videos, RealOne bites)

-WinZip and WinRAR (Yes, because WinZip really sucks with RARs and CABs,

and WinRAR is really bad with ZIPs and TAR files)

-BlackICE firewall[best 60 bucks u could spend for protection]

-Microsoft Office 2002

-AdAware (kills bad bad spyware)

-And of course, YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM!! [i suggest WinXP Home or Pro]

-

[jacobdouds]

By XP would crash, I meant windows, XP is faster to type.

And my earlier versions of windows crashed far more often.

[Hadaken]

The only reason i dont like blackice is that for the most part its features are not compatible with win2k, elsewise i'd use it :P

[Desert_Eagle25]

oh...ok. and, if u can go download InoculateIT...it scan for viruses and stops u before u open anything infected...it's saved my butt tons of time when i was about to open HUGE irus folders...it should be at download.comIt's freeware, but u gotta register at the site...dont worry no credit card or nuthin...i gave them my neighbors address....hehehe

[killinator]

-Zone alarm PRO (blackice doesn't let you moniter

outgoing internet activity}

-Music Match jukebox PRO

-Microangelo is pretty simple and fun (it lets

you create icons so easy a monkey could do it

-Emperor Battle for Dune :P

-Kaza Lite is Kazaa without all of the spyware and

worthless junk. Great for file swapping where

not prohibited by law of course ;)

-WindowBlinds completly changes the way your

windows looks (nt based only i think)

-TMPGEnc for all of your mpeg encoding needs

-Partition Magic 7 (for those of us with one

zillion gig hard drives}

-Divx 5.0 Pro codecs

-all Nortons 2002 pro stuff

-ad aware by Lavasoft (I know thats been mentioned

but it deserves to be mentioned again cause

it rules)

-Dremples if you have the system resources to

spare (ok, its not essential, but it sure is

pretty)

[Desert_Eagle25]

zonealarm is OK. but it's annoying. and i can't mention it enough times, they have sold customer information to companies with their spyware and hae been sued before. and why would u want to moniter whut YOUR doing? look, my friends are haX0r and they hae taught me the ways of the NuKeR. I think, and they think BlackICE is one of the greatest firewalls ever.

[jacobdouds]

You only know about who gets caught, BlackIce, and most companys do very similar things.

Otherwise what is the point of those survays anyway.

But, even though they sell details in the past, if they got sued, they probably don't anymore.

If hitler hadn't killed all those people, he would have been the best ruler ever, he brought Germeny out of depression.

If ZoneAlarm hadn't sold useless information to other companys, they would have been the best firewall ever.

etc

You get my point.

[Desert_Eagle25]

yes, but i dont trust em. I'd use it, but its so annoying, eery 3 minutes a popup will come up asking meeh this crap.

[jacobdouds]

Ever heard of Options? Or preferences?

You can turn alerts off, and anyway, it's good that it gves you the program wanting access box,

1) It stops spyware

2) It gives you choice in what does and doesn't access the net.

[Desert_Eagle25]

yeah...i guess thats ZonAlarm Pro is good. But, where would i get the dough ;D

[Nyarlathotep]

Man o man, no wonder some of you have problems with their pc's :O

Just look at all teh stuff that's been posted (and you keeping me busy ;D)..

Seriously now, I see some of you post Norton. My opinion, Norton is good for my trash can (and keeping it clean :))..

Never has one program costed me so much hassle and headaches. I since then installed Mcafee and have not had any (knocks on wood) problems what so ever (that was a couple of years ago)..

All the other stuff you guys posted, you wil not find it on my system (hence why mine keeps running without problems ;D)..

What does interest me is the discussion about Blackice and Zone alarm.. This calls for a poll ;)

[killinator]

Ever heard of Options? Or preferences?

You can turn alerts off, and anyway, it's good that it gves you the program wanting access box,

1) It stops spyware

2) It gives you choice in what does and doesn't access the net.

Also, some hackers will put stuff on your pc that will send them info on what keys you press (passwords, credit card #s, etc...). If one of the lowlifes makes it past your defense, theres still a chance you can catch them trying to get back out.

Docs got a good idea about the poll.

1 vote ZoneAlarm

[Gobalopper]

Give me a list of firewalls and I will make a poll. ;)

[Nyarlathotep]

The most comon I have seen are Mcafee, Zone Alarm and Blackice and Norton will probably will have one. But I bet there are more out there, so post here if you use any other..

[Desert_Eagle25]

I have mcaffee...I like to test alot of my protection software on my "dummie" computer. I put it mcaffee and sumother lame firewall...I was able to hack(my friends showed me how) the the perimeters, and send the 'Black Angel Hard Drie Killer 5.0' and mcaffee didn't even catch it.

[gryphon]

Are there any people here who have ever worked with "Raptor" or know of it ? ;)What's wrong with Norton, unless you have XP or a 2K server I havn't got any problems with it. But them I wouldn't install much of the other programms mentioned here. . .Ok, here it goes, if I remember them all. [ well, most of the consumer firewalls should be there. And I left out Raptor because [ almost, if not ] no one here will use that one. ]ZoneAlarmTinyKerioMcAfeeOutpostLookNStopConsealNortonBlackIceWinrouteAtguardPrivate FirewallSygateKerioNetbarrier [ Mac ]Doorstop [ Mac ]iptables [ Linux ]

[Apollyon]

Notepad =)