Best of Breed Software?
 

New year, new toys. It's getting so that a typical nerd has to invest a lot more time into keeping abreast of software developments. As such, I have a simple request. I will name several categories, with applications that I am currently using. If you know of a much better or robust program, recommend them.

I have, of course, no preference for freeware over commercial software.

My current list is as follows:

1. Anti-Spyware - Windows Defender
2. Antivirus - Symantec Antivirus Corporate Edition
3. Audio Editor - Windows Sound Recorder, Audacity
4. Audio Player - Winamp, Windows Media Player (for wma)
5. Bittorrent Client - uTorrent
6. Direct Connect Client - DC++
7. Disk Defragmenter - Diskeeper
8. Disk Imaging - Norton Ghost 2003
9. Documents - Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe Acrobat 3D
10. Download Accelerator - Getright 7
11. DVD/CD Authoring - Nero Ultra Edition, Alcohol 120%
12. DVD Authoring - DVD Lab Pro, TMPGEnc Pro
13. DVD Ripping - DVD Shrink, DVD Decrypter
14. E-Mail Client - Microsoft Outlook 2007
15. EDonkey Client - eMule++
16. File Undelete - PC Inspector File Recovery
17. FTP Client - CuteFTP Professional
18. GBA Emulation - Visualboyadvance
19. Hard Disk Recovery - Spinrite
20. Machine Translation - Systran Premium
21. MIDI Authoring - Cakewalk Sonar, Finale (for sheet music)
22. IRC Client - mIRC (with Sysreset script)
23. Password Recovery - Passware, Snadboy's Revelation (for passworded forms)
24. Picture Editor - Adobe Photoshop CS2, Adobe Imageready (for animated GIF), Panorama Factory (for panorama stitching)
25. Video Editor - Virtualdub
26. Video Player - Media Player Classic, with Quicktime & RealPlayer Alternative, and Combined Community Codec Pack

I want to request:

Instant Messenger Client
Web Browsers

Well, I do have my reasons for not asking about those two.

As far as web browsers go, it's either IE or Firefox for us Windows users (and I use both!).

And for instant messenging clients, it really depends where most of your friends are. AIM is prevalent in USA. Yahoo Messenger is the norm in my country, while a lot of my Asian contacts use MSN Messenger (both are substitutes, since they have interoperability). Google Talk has a very low penetration, but you can talk to all Gmail users, and Jabber guys as well.

I only have Google Talk and MSN Messenger installed, since rumor has it GTalk will soon have interoperability with AIM.

Haven't really been keeping up with software, but there's a few things I have to disagree with in your list.

Antivirus - common sense, and use webmail or a more secure email client (and trend micro's online scan once and a while)
Audio Editor - anything that isn't Windows Sound Recorder
Audio Player - foobar2000
Direct Connect Client - StrongDC (multipart downloading = downloading same file from anyone = more speed = awesome. strongdc's default settings are fugly, but extremely customizable)
Disk Defragmenter - PerfectDisk

Disk imaging - Symantec Ghost Corporate 8.0 has more features than 2003.

Also seconding foobar2000 pretty emphatically.

Watch out, you're gonna piss off all the Opera users.

Haha, Opera.

So, Cam, russ. You consider foobar2000 more robust than Winamp? Would you recommend the latest version, or is there an optimal previous version that's better?

I second the vote for foobar2000, I used to be a Winamp guy, but, actually Cam's love for foobar made me try it out years ago. Stuck with it @_@.

And for FTP clients, I've tried everything but I keep coming back to FlashFXP. Being lazy, I just install the Scene Edition that you can find on 9down.

I don't do much audio editing, but when I do I've found Acoustica Mixcraft to be easy to use.

I'm sorry, but have you ever actually used any of these products?

Or more importantly, have you ever used a competing product? Something that would actually warrant you entitling these "best-of-breed"?

Phleg, I sure wished you read the opening paragraph before you excoriated me thusly.

Definitely Foobar for music, way less cpu usage.
Antivirus: AntiVir
Firewall: Kerio Personal Firewall (since i'm on a college network)
Torrents: uTorrent
Music download: mIRC/Soul Seek
Audio Editing: Protools
Video Editing: After Effects/ Premiere
Photo Editing: Adobe Photoshop cs2
FTP Client: Leap FTP
Video Converting: Yasa Video Converter (of course nothing does all formats)
Dual Monitor Utility: Ultra Mon

1. Anti-Spyware - Spybot Search & Destroy; LavaSoft AdAware.
2. Anti-Virus - AVG Free Edition
3. Audio Editor - N/A
4. Audio Player - Foobar2000
5. Bittorrent Client - uTorrent
6. Desktop Enhancement - N/A
7. Direct Connect Client - N/A
8. Disk Defragmenter - Windows built-in defragger.
9. Disk Imaging - N/A
10. Documents - OpenOffice.org 2.1
11. Download Accelerator - FlashGet, DownThemAll! 0.9.9.7
12. DVD/CD Authoring - Nero 6.6.0.3 Ultra Edition
13. DVD Authoring - N/A
14. DVD Ripping - DVD Decrypter.
15. E-Mail Client - Mozilla Thunderbird.
16. EDonkey Client - I'm much of the sames opinion as Acer on this.
17. File Undelete - N/A
18. Firewall - Kerio Personal Firewall 4.22
19. FTP Client - FlashFXP
20. GBA Emulation - N/A. I use a flash cart.
21. Hard Disk Recovery - N/A. Never found a use for this software.
22. IM Client - Windows Live Messenger, AIM.
23. Image Viewer - IrfanView.
24. IRC Client - mIRC (with Sysreset script)
25. Machine Translation - N/A.
26. MIDI Authoring - N/A.
27. Password Recovery - N/A. This kind of thing is a liability.
28. Picture Editor - JASC Paint Shop Pro 9
29. SNES Emulation - ZSNES
30. Video Editor - Virtualdub.
31. Video Player - Media Player Classic, with Quicktime & RealPlayer Alternative, and Combined Community Codec Pack
32. Web browser - Firefox 2.0
33. Widgets - N/A

Other indispensible software for me:
Japanese Word Processor - JWPce
Bulk Renamer - Ant Renamer
Checksum verification - QuickSFV

Audio Editor: For straight-up waveform editing, (as opposed to putting together songs, or other complex tasks) nothing in my experience even comes close to Cool Edit Pro 2.0. I use it quite frequently as a part of my job, so I should know. The way everything is set up, the entire interface just gets out of my way and lets me work very quickly and easily. I've tried out a lot of different audio editors, but I just can't pull myself away from Cool Edit.

The only one I haven't tried yet is ProTools. I am sincerely hoping it is as excellent as I've heard, although I'm not sure if the software is really geared toward complex editing of single waveforms.

About Audio Editors, no one ever mentions Nero Wave Editor that is part of the Ultra Edition. Granted, it's no cooledit, but if all you want to do are simple recording/editing works, it's perfect.

About Foobar, meh, what can I say? I tried numerous times and always came back to good old winamp. I think it's more a mindset question than a truly technical one.

About Edonkey, the Emule MorphXT mod rawks.

About Picture Editors, I'm still in love with my old Photoshop 7 and don't think I'll be switching until I get a new, more powerful computer. Anyway, for quick image edition, nothing beats Irfan View.

As for protection, I've been using a Router/AVG Free/Spybot/Adaware combo, this year.