OT: What freeware do you use? - Page 19

mister · 4 Mar 2008, 12:13 AM

Here's a deep freeze clone http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com...vspersonal.htm .Small too,a must for shared or public computers.

glebarr · 22 Mar 2008, 04:54 AM

most of my faves are music related http://www.freecorder.com
http://www.freemusiczilla.com
http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net
http://www.frostwire.com

-computer apps include http://www.iobit.com -advanced windowscare personal edtion
http://www.glaryutilities.com

glebarr · 22 Mar 2008, 05:00 AM

do a google search for this...it works great

xmailer · 22 Mar 2008, 06:04 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by alexu2007

- AVG Antivirus (doesn't slow down my computer) - http://free.grisoft.com/

Have you (or has anyone else here) ever compared AVG with Avast (also free)? I've been using the latter for quite awhile, at least a couple years or so, and quite awhile ago began getting the impression that it was slowing my system down somewhat, which I assumed may be to be expected. But I've lately begun suspecting that it may be slowing things down quite a bit more than I had first suspected, although I'm not sure how to tell for sure. And the updates are sometimes almost intolerably slow. And I never really did like the user interface at all, but since as far as I could tell it was doing the job, having caught at least a couple of viruses before they could cause any serious harm, I've learned to tolerate it. But after reading this, I'm seriously thinking about replacing it with AVG.

dantheman · 22 Mar 2008, 06:28 AM

Personally, i work with AVG 7.5 Network Ed. and hopefully will stay there. The more recent 8 is just unbearable on my XP notebook.

drew · 23 Mar 2008, 02:00 AM

One thing to consider is compatibility with other freeware.

I remember vaguely that some of them destroyed for the other.

They had false positive from the others. Adware could have something in it and
AVG thought it to be virus signature and take it way so one had to start anew.

The Fire Wall and the Anti Virus program fighting with each other which one should hog the same procedures.

so you need to test and see the result. It is not easy to know in advance what works together. Ask others who have same configuration that could help.

rmns2bseen · 23 Mar 2008, 03:33 AM

If it's a question of which is most economical for system resources, I'd say go with AVG. Avast seems to have more features. I've used both (using Avast now). In overall performance they both have weaknesses, but I've yet to use a perfect anti-virus program. Free or paid.

Also, tweaking Avast's On-Access Protection a little could reduce the strain on the system a bit.

xmailer · 23 Mar 2008, 03:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dantheman

Personally, i work with AVG 7.5 Network Ed. and hopefully will stay there. The more recent 8 is just unbearable on my XP notebook.

Thanks for the feedback. In the lack of any actual comparative information between Avast and AVG, I don't know whether I'll decide it worth the trouble to bother with or not, but if I do decide to try AVG I'll keep in mind your experience as between the newer and older version(s), as I see versions 7.0 through 7.5 are available at oldversion.com (a site which I learned about through someone's mention of it in this forum, possibly in this same thread), should they become unavailable from the official source(s)..

Quote:

Originally Posted by drew

One thing to consider is compatibility with other freeware.

I remember vaguely that some of them destroyed for the other.

They had false positive from the others. Adware could have something in it and
AVG thought it to be virus signature and take it way so one had to start anew.

The Fire Wall and the Anti Virus program fighting with each other which one should hog the same procedures.

so you need to test and see the result. It is not easy to know in advance what works together. Ask others who have same configuration that could help.

Thanks for the response, although I'm not sure how likely I am to find anyone with the same configuration as myself.

But as it's clear there are differences between different softwares in and of themselves apart from general system configuration issues, about the best I might hope for is that someone may have tried both with similar configuration of their own and possibly noticed a difference. Perhaps if there was an independent site with comparative reviews of them it would help, but since I'm not sure how easy that might be to find, I may well just have to try it for myself if I decide it's worth bothering with.

xmailer · 23 Mar 2008, 03:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by rmns2bseen

If it's a question of which is most economical for system resources, I'd say go with AVG. Avast seems to have more features. I've used both (using Avast now). In overall performance they both have weaknesses, but I've yet to use a perfect anti-virus program. Free or paid.

Also, tweaking Avast's On-Access Protection a little could reduce the strain on the system a bit.

Looks like you posted while I was making my previous post above. I appreciate the comparative info. My aging system's having quite limited resources by recent standards does make economical use of those resources a fairly important consideration. But I have considered that fine tuning, or "tweaking", Avast's settings might help, although, not being a real "geek", I'm not sure if I'm sufficiently knowledgeable to know what I'm doing in that regard. But perhaps I'll try to look into that further and if that doesn't get me anywhere I'll consider trying AVG. Although it could be that the system is just a bit too "dated" to expect to accomplish much by mere "tweaking" or by using only a slightly more "economical" antivirus, as I'm not sure how important a factor this is in the system's current performance anyway. But thanks for the feedback.

**Gankaku** · 2 Apr 2008, 10:25 AM

Have any of you used ObjectDock? I've been using this free version and it's pretty nice for keeping your desktop less cluttered.

The only problems I've had with it is when running one of my games, when I take screenshots a bar is at the bottom. So I turn it off before gaming. Other than that works great!

robert@fm · 6 May 2008, 05:44 PM

An excellent piece of software I depend upon is Dimension 4, an NTP/SNTP (time synchronisation) client/server application (it can get the correct time from an internet server and serve that time to other computers on the LAN). It offers a far greater choice of time servers, and a lot more control generally, than the built-in time service of XP/Vista (which I suspect only offers HTTP synchronisation, which according to the D4 help is the least accurate method); among other things it allows choice of the nearest time server which works for you, which is important for accuracy.

My friend's machine would (if left to itself) drift by up to 5 seconds per day, which might not sound much until you consider how rapidly that error could accumulate, so I have D4 sync the clock once an hour.

drew · 6 May 2008, 06:33 PM

My computer has win xp as main OS and that one for sure was not free. I have an odd Aopen Barebone Mini MZ915 shoebox and to be able to use Linux on it I have to get a free software named VirtualBox bought by Sun if I get it.

http://www.virtualbox.org/

there are others like Virtual Server and Wmware too but VS needs winxp pro and I have home edition. WMware needed my home telephone number and a lot of info me didn't want to give them just to try if linux worked as a guest within it.

VirtualBox or vbox as many name it worked very good. I have nothing to compare with but I am glad it works so fast that I feel ok with it.

the bad thing is that it still don't give the security I needed.

I have winxp as host and linux as guest withing the vbox.
The other way is much better.

To have linux on a regular partition and then vbox and windows xp as a guest within the virtual hd.

that is much much safer cause linux by default separate the virtual from usual attacks until they build more such maleware for linux.

Linux is still so small globally that the criminals have had little motivation to make money out of attacking it but that could change sooner or later.

The reason me can not use linux is cause Intel need money to release their info on how to build drivers for the 915 chipset.

Linspire seems to have paid them for it but not the Kernel builders for Ubuntu and the other distros of linux.

but I know nothing about Linxipier. How does one know which of their software that works with intel 915 hardware? I've asked in Freespire Forum but not got any answer. Most likely one have to buy the computer with Linspire on it to get those special made drivers for intel 915. .

robert@fm · 16 May 2008, 04:36 AM

Inkscape, a vector-graphics program which handles files in the open-source SVG format.

DrStrabismus · 16 May 2008, 06:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by robert@fm

My friend's machine would (if left to itself) drift by up to 5 seconds per day, which might not sound much until you consider how rapidly that error could accumulate, so I have D4 sync the clock once an hour.

That's still a pretty crude way of doing it. The way ntpd works on modern unices is that the actual corrections occur continuously within the kernel's internel time keeping arithmatic. The ntp servers are then used to trim-out the systematic frequency error rather than simply correcting the time.

robert@fm · 14 Sep 2008, 01:16 AM

Recommended: VLC Media Player (cross-platform), which (unlike every commercial software DVD player I've come across) supports multi-channel soundcards without having to pay extra (in fact, it doesn't cost anything in the first place). I'm annoyed with myself because I only discovered VLC after wasting £10 on a key which is supposed to activate the DTS capability of Nero (8) ShowTime, but isn't recognised. (If I can't get any joy from Ahead within the next 7 days or so, I'm thinking of publishing the key and seeing if anyone else can get it to work.) I'm currently using VLC to listen to the songs from the Help! DVD in glorious 5.1 (well, 4.1 in my case).

(To my mind, the fact that surround capability is only available from paid-for software DVD players if one pays again is a scandal; if the shops sold a hardware DVD player which is supposed to have surround sound, but doesn't unless one pays an engineer £10 to "unlock" it[1], hardly anyone would bother; they'd return that rubbish to the shop for a refund, and buy a proper one instead. Likewise, if buying a house only got you the actual house, and if you wanted doors and windows as well you had to pay extra, there would be an outcry.)

Not recommended: as implied above, Cyberlink PowerDVD and the ShowTime component of Nero 8 (although Nero 8 as a whole is otherwise useful, a lot better than the built-in CD burning of Windows XP). PowerDVD doesn't even recognise that I have a multichannel soundcard (and is said to prevent the screen saver working besides); ShowTime does but the full functionality needs to be "activated".

I also don't recommend BullGuard (the name is unfortunately all too apt); the version I installed had a trial period of just ONE day (far too short for a proper evaluation), and it keeps popping up an annoying nag screen and its "malware" reports include several alarming false positives, such as one of the components of Nero 8.

I'm currently looking for an antivirus program, since the one really good thing AVG had going for it (that it was free) has now gone.

[1]I remember a story that IBM actually did work a scam like this one, some years back; they sold two models of printer, identical in appearance except that the (much) more expensive model was a lot faster, and a costly "upgrade" from one to the other. All the IBM engineer actually did, so the story goes, was to check thoroughly that he wasn't being observed, and then move a belt from one pulley to another...

Source: UK trade newspaper Computer Weekly.

22 Mar 2008, 04:54 AM	#272
glebarr Essential Contributor Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 220	some faves most of my faves are music related http://www.freecorder.com http://www.freemusiczilla.com http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net http://www.frostwire.com -computer apps include http://www.iobit.com -advanced windowscare personal edtion http://www.glaryutilities.com

22 Mar 2008, 05:00 AM	#273
glebarr Essential Contributor Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: Canada Posts: 220	adobe media player do a google search for this...it works great

4 Mar 2008, 12:13 AM	#271
mister Essential Contributor Join Date: Jun 2002 Posts: 387	Here's a deep freeze clone http://www.returnilvirtualsystem.com...vspersonal.htm .Small too,a must for shared or public computers.

22 Mar 2008, 06:28 AM	#275
dantheman Cornerstone of the Community Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Hot Springs, AR Posts: 857	Personally, i work with AVG 7.5 Network Ed. and hopefully will stay there. The more recent 8 is just unbearable on my XP notebook.

23 Mar 2008, 02:00 AM	#276
drew The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,626	One thing to consider is compatibility with other freeware. I remember vaguely that some of them destroyed for the other. They had false positive from the others. Adware could have something in it and AVG thought it to be virus signature and take it way so one had to start anew. The Fire Wall and the Anti Virus program fighting with each other which one should hog the same procedures. so you need to test and see the result. It is not easy to know in advance what works together. Ask others who have same configuration that could help.

23 Mar 2008, 03:33 AM	#277
rmns2bseen Master of the @ Join Date: Dec 2004 Location: USA Posts: 1,426	If it's a question of which is most economical for system resources, I'd say go with AVG. Avast seems to have more features. I've used both (using Avast now). In overall performance they both have weaknesses, but I've yet to use a perfect anti-virus program. Free or paid. Also, tweaking Avast's On-Access Protection a little could reduce the strain on the system a bit.

2 Apr 2008, 10:25 AM	#280
Gankaku Moderator Join Date: Mar 2002 Location: Virginia, USA Posts: 3,265	Have any of you used ObjectDock? I've been using this free version and it's pretty nice for keeping your desktop less cluttered. The only problems I've had with it is when running one of my games, when I take screenshots a bar is at the bottom. So I turn it off before gaming. Other than that works great!

6 May 2008, 05:44 PM	#281
robert@fm The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: London, UK Posts: 4,681	An excellent piece of software I depend upon is Dimension 4, an NTP/SNTP (time synchronisation) client/server application (it can get the correct time from an internet server and serve that time to other computers on the LAN). It offers a far greater choice of time servers, and a lot more control generally, than the built-in time service of XP/Vista (which I suspect only offers HTTP synchronisation, which according to the D4 help is the least accurate method); among other things it allows choice of the nearest time server which works for you, which is important for accuracy. My friend's machine would (if left to itself) drift by up to 5 seconds per day, which might not sound much until you consider how rapidly that error could accumulate, so I have D4 sync the clock once an hour.

6 May 2008, 06:33 PM	#282
drew The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Jan 2006 Posts: 2,626	My computer has win xp as main OS and that one for sure was not free. I have an odd Aopen Barebone Mini MZ915 shoebox and to be able to use Linux on it I have to get a free software named VirtualBox bought by Sun if I get it. http://www.virtualbox.org/ there are others like Virtual Server and Wmware too but VS needs winxp pro and I have home edition. WMware needed my home telephone number and a lot of info me didn't want to give them just to try if linux worked as a guest within it. VirtualBox or vbox as many name it worked very good. I have nothing to compare with but I am glad it works so fast that I feel ok with it. the bad thing is that it still don't give the security I needed. I have winxp as host and linux as guest withing the vbox. The other way is much better. To have linux on a regular partition and then vbox and windows xp as a guest within the virtual hd. that is much much safer cause linux by default separate the virtual from usual attacks until they build more such maleware for linux. Linux is still so small globally that the criminals have had little motivation to make money out of attacking it but that could change sooner or later. The reason me can not use linux is cause Intel need money to release their info on how to build drivers for the 915 chipset. Linspire seems to have paid them for it but not the Kernel builders for Ubuntu and the other distros of linux. but I know nothing about Linxipier. How does one know which of their software that works with intel 915 hardware? I've asked in Freespire Forum but not got any answer. Most likely one have to buy the computer with Linspire on it to get those special made drivers for intel 915. .

16 May 2008, 04:36 AM	#283
robert@fm The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: London, UK Posts: 4,681	Inkscape, a vector-graphics program which handles files in the open-source SVG format.

14 Sep 2008, 01:16 AM	#285
robert@fm The "e" in e-mail Join Date: Feb 2002 Location: London, UK Posts: 4,681	Recommended: VLC Media Player (cross-platform), which (unlike every commercial software DVD player I've come across) supports multi-channel soundcards without having to pay extra (in fact, it doesn't cost anything in the first place). I'm annoyed with myself because I only discovered VLC after wasting £10 on a key which is supposed to activate the DTS capability of Nero (8) ShowTime, but isn't recognised. (If I can't get any joy from Ahead within the next 7 days or so, I'm thinking of publishing the key and seeing if anyone else can get it to work.) I'm currently using VLC to listen to the songs from the Help! DVD in glorious 5.1 (well, 4.1 in my case). (To my mind, the fact that surround capability is only available from paid-for software DVD players if one pays again is a scandal; if the shops sold a hardware DVD player which is supposed to have surround sound, but doesn't unless one pays an engineer £10 to "unlock" it[1], hardly anyone would bother; they'd return that rubbish to the shop for a refund, and buy a proper one instead. Likewise, if buying a house only got you the actual house, and if you wanted doors and windows as well you had to pay extra, there would be an outcry.) Not recommended: as implied above, Cyberlink PowerDVD and the ShowTime component of Nero 8 (although Nero 8 as a whole is otherwise useful, a lot better than the built-in CD burning of Windows XP). PowerDVD doesn't even recognise that I have a multichannel soundcard (and is said to prevent the screen saver working besides); ShowTime does but the full functionality needs to be "activated". I also don't recommend BullGuard (the name is unfortunately all too apt); the version I installed had a trial period of just ONE day (*far* too short for a proper evaluation), and it keeps popping up an annoying nag screen and its "malware" reports include several alarming false positives, such as one of the components of Nero 8. I'm currently looking for an antivirus program, since the one really good thing AVG had going for it (that it was free) has now gone. [1]I remember a story that IBM actually did work a scam like this one, some years back; they sold two models of printer, identical in appearance except that the (much) more expensive model was a lot faster, and a costly "upgrade" from one to the other. All the IBM engineer actually did, so the story goes, was to check thoroughly that he wasn't being observed, and then move a belt from one pulley to another... Source: UK trade newspaper Computer Weekly.