What are your must have apps for Windows?

[benz]

I love to install software everday, its just amazing the amount of stuff released everyday on the internet and the uncountable challenges to break some protections, during all of my years as a computer lover, whenever i reinstall windows, or switch to a new box, these are a list of must have apps, at list for me, post yours!

Avast antivirus - free , great, it wont lag your box like norton

Foxit reader - free, better than heavy acrobat reader, open pdf files in 0.01 secs

Google toolbar for ie - free, simple, perfect

Bulk rename utily - free, great for mass rename files , i love it because i take thousands of pics and this help me to keep everything organized

Itunes - owner of an ipod? I tried ephod and poddox, both sux, just give it another chance to apple and you will end loving itunes, just like i did, the other ones mentioned are not flawless.

pdffactory pro - simple & great to make convert anything into pdf on the fly

picasa 2 - google's image software, this is PERFECT for those who are not experienced with image managing, just like me - ps: you cant use this one to modify pictures of getbig members

adobe photoshop - great app, still learning how to use it - i used this to make the infamous candidizzle pic where hes being analed

winamp - music player, simple & fast

skype - lnd calls, great one, i love it when im travelling around the world! - also great to stalk people

drivecrypt - got some info such as paedophile pictures? roid suppliers? business data? this program is great, most of my valuable info is protected with this and believe me, not even the nsa can break this due the algorythm and the way it works, auuuuuuuu and could you imagine i spent 3 years of my life hanging around with the guys from the distributed.net project?

there are many more but i guess those are pretty good enough for everybody here, post up your favorites!

[Hereford]

Limewire.

Free porn.

 

[MB_722]

VLC player, plays anything.

[wavelength]

Anapod: uses iPod like a harddisc. I just can't stand a software requiring an IP connection to apple just to use my iPod (=iTunes)

Avira, Hijackthis, Ad-Aware, Tiny Personal Firewall: free Antivirus and other security software

CCC + CoreAVC: movie codecs and players

Far: Norton Commander like file manager

TrueImage: for backup and restore

CompuPic Pro: best picture viewer IMO

Firefox with Gestures Plug-In: simply better than IE

[BayGBM]

I gave the Mac version of the must have app list here 

http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?topic=219159.msg3057005#msg3057005

[wavelength]

VLC player, plays anything.

VLC is great, especially for partially corrupted files, but the built-in H.264 codec is just too slow for HD movies.

[MB_722]

VLC is great, especially for partially corrupted files, but the built-in H.264 codec is just too slow for HD movies.

yeah I can't play HD movies either. have to upgrade

[wavelength]

yeah I can't play HD movies either. have to upgrade

I recently did. It's not that easy to get everything working perfectly, but it's a whole other experience, especially if you have a HD projector.

[benz]

VLC player, plays anything.

to be honest i like wmp over vlc, dunno why 

Anapod: uses iPod like a harddisc. I just can't stand a software requiring an IP connection to apple just to use my iPod (=iTunes)

Avira, Hijackthis, Ad-Aware, Tiny Personal Firewall: free Antivirus and other security software

CCC + CoreAVC: movie codecs and players

Far: Norton Commander like file manager

TrueImage: for backup and restore

CompuPic Pro: best picture viewer IMO

Firefox with Gestures Plug-In: simply better than IE

i like adaware, you might wanna try ccleaner with it too.

firefox...not really my choice

[MB_722]

to be honest i like wmp over vlc, dunno why 

i like adaware, you might wanna try ccleaner with it too.

firefox...not really my choice

switch over you will like firefox. WAY way way better that IE. VLC is good to, haven't used anything else in years.

[wavelength]

firefox...not really my choice

Now that IE has the tabbed view, they're pretty equal. I like the FF search engines and one-click bookmarks. The new FF also has a new render engine which is alot faster.

[benz]

switch over you will like firefox. WAY way way better that IE. VLC is good to, haven't used anything else in years.

I use firefox from time to time but still cant like it, same for vlc, not saying its bad software, i just dont know what is wrong with them

[ozman]

Orbit grabber

great for downloading vids from certain sites where there is no DL function

[MB_722]

I like FF because of the no squint feature and you can change the colour of many pages. plus it's faster.

[benz]

Ooops this one is awesome, specially when you use different outlook emails & passwords and cant remember them all!

its called maill passview and can be found at http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/mailpv.html

there are many other usefull apps over there, used sniffpass @ uni and it was fun

[windsor88]

VLC
Spybot SD
CCleaner
Mass Downloader
hjsplit

Adobe Audition
Guitar Rig 3

Running the Tiny Beast XP OS.  130 mb

[benz]

VLC
Spybot SD
CCleaner
Mass Downloader
hjsplit

Adobe Audition
Guitar Rig 3

Running the Tiny Beast XP OS.  130 mb

What is hjsplit and guitar rig 3?

[Tapper]

Daemon Tools
Power ISO
Peer Guardian

[benz]

Daemon Tools
Power ISO
Peer Guardian

What is peer guardian?

[Tapper]

http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/


Its a MUST if you use any torrents.

[benz]

http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/


Its a MUST if you use any torrents.

sounds good for a newbie, nothing that a simple firewall cant handle

[Tapper]

Not sure Benz, but Peer Guardian is different. The motion picture and music industry tends to track people who download music or movie torrents. This is how a lot of people are being sued for stealing copyrighted material. Peer Guardian blocks your personal information(IP address, ISP, time you were on, etc) from the torrent sites download logs which anyone can view(or something close to that). Not totally sure on its complete workings, but I think it differs a lot from a firewall.

The staff at Mininova say its a must if you download torrents. There's more info on their site.

[benz]

Not sure Benz, but Peer Guardian is different. The motion picture and music industry tends to track people who download music or movie torrents. This is how a lot of people are being sued for stealing copyrighted material. Peer Guardian blocks your personal information(IP address, ISP, time you were on, etc) from the torrent sites download logs which anyone can view(or something close to that). Not totally sure on its complete workings, but I think it differs a lot from a firewall.

The staff at Mininova say its a must if you download torrents. There's more info on their site.

It is your lucky day! I havent used that app you mentioned but unless its acting as a bouncer/proxy, you are surely not hiding anything. To make it clear: You are not hidding/spoofing/"blocking" your ip , and with that, your isp name.

From their webpage:
Can PeerGuardian replace my firewall?
No! PeerGuardian has been heavily optimized for what it needs to do and is _not_ a replacement for your firewall.

How PeerGuardian Works
PeerGuardian is an open source IP filter that is designed to block the IP addresses of certain organizations and corporations that may wish to harm a users privacy while using the Internet and peer-to-peer networks

You see? its just a set of rules mixed with a nice 32bit app that it make it easier for non experienced users. If you are living in usa and you are downloading communism (piracy) this is not protecting you at all. I would even use tor in that way, which is also logging (even though they claim the opposite) but i guess its a bit "better". Its not like fbi is checking torrents from their main office, this was abolished long time ago, for a simple reason: security.

What would i do? BNC. How? Buy a shell somewhere outside USA, problem solved 

[windsor88]

What is hjsplit and guitar rig 3?

hjsplit is a file splitter/joiner

guitar rig 3 is an guitar amp modeler for recording.  I play guitar so it is an essential one for me anyway.

[JasonH]

For me:

AdAware Antivirus - works great on XP, and works well on Vista too but I can't install any new updates. Still, with Vista's improved security I've never had any problems.

ITunes - good for the IPod obviously

Google Earth

DivX Player and Converter - my DVD player at home only plays copies of DVDs if I convert their format to DivX, so this is essential for me if I want to watch copied movies on my TV.

Limewire - p2p software, good for downloading music

Ares Galaxy - arguably better than Limewire because you can preview what you're downloading before finishing - great for porn and general movies.

Download Accelerator - made by Speedbit - works better for downloading files than anything Microsoft has automatically installed with Windows.