Main Area and Open Discussion > General Software Discussion

FreewareMission.com: 94 Great Freeware Programs For A Freeware Only PC

<< < (3/5) > >>

mouser:
great to have you visit us Johnnny, and keep up the fantastic work on your site  :Thmbsup:

johnnykarpat:
I'm visiting quite often but so far I've been undercover :)  8)

Steven Avery:
Hi Folks,

Johnny, nice to learn about your blog and efforts.

That "Software Informer" program is actually quite impressive, normally I bypass those "update" programs but it is surprisingly helpful and solid, a bit like the Belarc of program version and update info, the way it simply loads an excellent web page. (Not that Belarc should be on your list, for various reasons it is borderline with lots of competition, however its web-page interface is very simple and pleasant and informative.) Immediately I saw that I might want to update a couple of programs, and one I have to consider whether my license will take the update and what I want to do.

And fyi, one of the alternatives SUMo, the author got the folks on Wilders upset, that is in a KCleaner thread, having to do with an RK toolbar install, also I think may apply to SUMo. You can easily find the thread (11 pages long, the stuff starts in the latter pages) and decide whether his software should stay on the freeware list.  

Probably have a few more comments later, nice list, appreciated ! 

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Steven Avery:
Hi Folks,

Johnny, a few comments on the security section.

Under AntiSpyware, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware deserves at least a mention, it is almost universally applauded as a good free scan and removal tool, usually mentioned along with SuperAntiSpyware and ahead of Spybot Search and Destroy.  The toolbar problem with Spyware Terminator is major, I gather it links the Crawler crapware with some functions in order to have less opt-outs.  

Under AntiVirus, folks usually need the company name Avira, Antivir is the product and Avira would be consistent with AVG and Avast. (yes, minor quibble).

Under firewall, Online Armor needs a place at the table, plus Outpost recently has a decent free edition, newly released.  (There are one or two others, but those two softwares are looked upon highly by the Wilders' types.)  Zone Alarm is a surprising first choice, but I have no real objection to that aspect, there are some ways in which its working is more visual. And there are 3-4-5 or more good free firewalls, with personal style being a major aspect.  (e.g. Online Armor Free does not allow port configuration, restricting certain ports, which can blindside the user a smidgen).  So if one is working fine, kewl.

Note though that your articles saying just use a router firewall, you can ignore a software firewall, is dubious information, a router firewall generally does not have the function and configurability of a software firewall.  This is discussed at Wilders a lot.

Plus Online Armor gives you some decent HIPS, a category missing where you might also find some other products (changes to .exe files or sensitive registry entries or windows folders or startup are the types of things that HIPS will monitor and generally this type of real-time protection is not in your three categories).

A separate worthy category would be startup managers, with WinPatrol, Chameleon, Started and Anvir Task Manager having freeware editions. WhatinStartup (Nirsoft) and Autoruns also being among those worthy of consideration.

Shalom,
Steven Avery

Darwin:
Hmm... I use 8 of the programmes on the list - more than I anticipated. Note that ProcessTamer is listed as the BEST FREE PROCESS MANAGER.

Thanks for compiling this and welcome to DC, Johnny! Hope to see more of you around DC  :Thmbsup:

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page