Overall best programs
 

I have a laptop. With shitty bundles software [I know I've mentioned that before in other threads] And I've been reading a lot of the threads here and became somewhat enlightened by a slew of programs I've never heard before, that are supposedly the best.

What is the best anti-virus program?

Threads here claim NOD32, I guess I'll give it a try.

What is the best firewall?

Will I be needing a firewall program? I've never bothered with it at home, but considering I'll be in NYC with a wireless laptop.... uhh, I guess it's pretty important.'

What is the best AIM?

I currently use AIM 5.2 with deadaim. The reason I've never updated is because deadaim doesn't store conversations with anything higher than 5.5. I've never tried trillian and all of those other programs, but I'd like to know which is the best. Plus, I NEED for it to save convo's which is the best feature I've ever come across on a chatting program.

Any other general programs I'm missing? Some definite must-haves that you can't live without? Some programs I've added are the kazaa-codec pack [the only one I need], xvid, photoshop, office 2003, utorrent, winamp, AIM, deadaim, flashfxp, mozilla firebird, etc.

Use CCCP instead of the K-Lite Codec Pack. Please. I'm begging you, your computer is begging you. It's not just the right thing, it's the only thing. Seriously K-Lite is broken.

I certainly don't recommend the official AIM client (even with plugins) after using Trillian.

Give Sygate 5.5 a try for a firewall.

You could also use OpenOffice instead of MS Office which is suck and $$

I prefer to use Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/) for AIM and MSN. It's really fast, and has a great log saving feature. I've used Miranda, Trillian, Dead Aim and others, but I still think Gaim is the best. Give it a try~

Thanks for the responses. I don't want to be a dick, but can you guys shed some more light on why the programs are good. Especially Sygate 5.5. I can learn only so much from their website, but I'd like personal anecdotes and opinions on the program, since that's usually the best.

Does Trillian have a log saving feature? I think I'll check out Gaim. Currently my AIM setup is pretty perfect. But I'm just trying the 'grass in greener on the other side' philosophy. Usually when I attempt to expand my resources and use all of these supposedly 'better' programs, I always find one thing I don't like and I immediately go back to what I was using beforehand. I remember Trillion giving me horrible file transfer speeds, which is a must for me.

Antivirus - AVG or NOD32.
Firewall - Why? If you're behind a Router its hardware firewall is a million times more effective than any software firewall could ever be.
IM - I also reccomend GAIM. Trillian's not bad but feels a bit bloated at times.

vlc will play just about anything out there, that or ffdshow would make a good replacement to the k-lite pack.

k-lite pack/cccp = teh suxor

Please install decent video playback codecs/software. The two best options are Media Player Classic + FFdShow, or VLC Player. These are the most option filled, easiest to use, and least system f-ing up video solutions to install. You can usually find Media Player Classic bundled with the newest versions of Quicktime Alternative as well.

I use AVG Free for anti-virus. Why? 1) It's free! 2) It is easy to setup to self-maintain/update. 3) It's free! 4) It works well and is made by a reputable company. 5) It's free!

I don't care much for codecs and all of that stuff. I can get anything to play rather well, so I'm pretty satisfied with that.

I tried Gaim out, but it just felt so bloated. I'm on a laptop, and I need everything to be minimalistic.

NOD32 is pretty good. I did a deep-scan and was impressed at how... deeply it scanned. Other than that, I don't know wtf NOMAN is and all of this other stuff but I'll assume it's helpful.

I'm really debated about firewalls though. I'll probably get one, but I'd want to know more about my choices and about Sygate 5.5 in particular.

How was Gaim feeling bloated? The big-ass icons and stuff that the buddylist showed, or the actual way the program runs? There's options inside the program to make everything look tiny and clean. Also, when you install it, you were asked which skin to use. Which did you pick?

As far as antivirus goes, AVG is free antivirus, with free updates-- so why not?

since you said you're going to be on public wireless networks, I'd recommend zone alarm for your firewall, since you can get it for free (or so I've been told :\ )

spybot search and destroy is good for the fact that it lists all your processes and can tell you what process is for what, and it is antispyware.

I'd recommend windows defender, since that's free antispyware too.

Firefox should be your browser with the following plugins: adblock, fasterfox, and ietabs :) some people recommend opera, but I'm not at liberty to do so since I've never used it.

Gaim is the best multiprotocol/network client I've worked with. it does enable chat logging, the interface is nice and it doesn't feel bloated at all. I like it.

For productivity, I recommend open or star office either one over MS office if you're tight on cash because they do the same things as ms office for free. If you need to port your information to ms office you can just save your papers in .doc, your powerpoints in .ppt, and your spreadsheets in .xls format, and ms office will have no issues.

If you need a free photo editing tool, I've heard gimpshop is a nice free alternative until you afford the extorniate fees to use adobe's photo editing software but I haven't used it, so I can't vouch for it.

For overall good system maintence/performance, I would recommend system mechanic 6 (or whatever version is most current.) this thing does everything else not listed, securely deletes files, can do some limited file recovery, has an enterprise defrag utility, memory defragging/ frees idle memory, can do minor peformance tweaks, uninstall programs that just won't die, etc. however, this isn't free, but I can vouch for it-- it's excellent software.

hope this helps.

I don't follow your reasoning. All CCCP is comprised of is ffdshow, MediaPlayer Classic, Haali's Media Splitter, and vsfilter. Without the last two, you can't play back MKV, OGM, or anything softsubbed, and the first two are your recommendation anyway.

Agreed.

Really? As I have looked into it, CCCP seems to install multiple codecs onto your system. This is generally always bad, because uninstalling codecs that have been installed this way is often a nightmare. That's the reason FFdShow is so great because all the codecs are not installed seperately, but are decoders in the FFdShow filter.

If you are correct as CCCP ONLY installs FFdShow for decoding, then yeah, its a very nice pack. Haali Media Splitter and vsfilter are also great to have (i have them), so if you could verify this (with a link maybe?) that would be great info for me to have. Also, how can you know what versions/builds of MPC, HaaliMS, VSFilter, FFdShow you are installing?

I haven't looked into it much yet. I did change the options to make it look less cluttery and big, but what I wanted to do most was load my buddy list and settings that I had already saved. I guess I'll look more into it and a skin system sounds enticing.

About the firewall program though: Sygate or Zone Alarm?

I've heard more of Zonealarm and never really heard negatives about it... (if that info helps)

I can only speculate that may possibly have been the case in the earlier versions of CCCP, but as long as I have been a user it has going in a good direction, and has been using a lightly tweaked build of ffdshow as the main component of the pack.

EDIT: I believe the first entry in this outdated version of the FAQ might explain your skepticism. Please let me know what you think.

I agree entirely, which is what sets the current CCCP aside from other packs.

is constantly updated to reflect each new version of the pack. New versions are provided as needed. Each time there is a new release of one of the components, if it is deemed to be stable, and if the new features (if any) and bugs fixed (if any) are deemed to be of value to the pack, the CCCP staff usually add it to the pack quite quickly. I've been impressed by their work.

The current versions are listed in the FAQ to which I have linked above. Where the FAQ lists the installed components, it also provides the version number. Sometimes the CCCP version may be behind the current version by quite a bit, if the current versions are known to be unstable.

I hope that's everything that you need to know. ^_^

Found the page I needed....

http://www.cccp-project.net/wiki/ind...e=Advanced_FAQ

After seeing this, I can definitely recommend CCCP. I personally won't use it (because I'm a video tweaker that does more custom stuff) but for the general populace, this is a great and simple solution to video playback on windows PC.

:EDIT:
Thanks for the links Soluzar!

The best application for AIM is Miranda IM. It's so small you'll have to love it.

I second the suggestion for Miranda IM (it can also work with protocols other then AIM). The installation package is a lot smaller then both GAIM and Trillian, and you can download a lot of other plugins to customize it a lot.

-For movies and such I recommend you get KMPlayer, it comes with all of its codecs built in, so you don't have to download all of those codec packs.
-For music I recommend foobar2000, becuse Winamp is too bloated.
-Firefox is the obvious choice for a browser, but I've heard good things about Opera too.
-Foxit Reader is good replacement for Adobe reader.
-EasyCleaner for system maintence.
-SpeedFan for getting S.M.A.R.T. readings.