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Help me jazz up my new desktop computer
Thundyrkatz
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Hey! After many long years of hemming and hawing I finally got myself a new Desktop PC and I am looking for suggestions for fun things to do with it other then grading papers and playing games. 
Specifically... where can I find great desktop themes and screen savers? What about any cool apps for information? Maybe something that gives me the weather forecast? I'm pretty easy to amuse.
I don't want to download some malware ridden piece of crap, or something that drains my system resource. So id love to hear what you guys use and like!
Specifically... where can I find great desktop themes and screen savers? What about any cool apps for information? Maybe something that gives me the weather forecast? I'm pretty easy to amuse.
I don't want to download some malware ridden piece of crap, or something that drains my system resource. So id love to hear what you guys use and like!
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Not sure if serious, but if you want to avoid malware, don’t install any of that stuff at all, ever.
You can check the weather using a web browser and screensavers are useless now that screens can go into standby hence saving the screen and not wasting power.
The browser is really one of the most multi purpose tools ever invented. You can do almost everything you need to do with just a browser now.
Depending on how you feel about adblockers and script killers, one of those at least. Most browsers have built in pop up blockers so you shouldn’t need that. I don’t use Chrome, so I can’t make any specific recommendations. You should also be careful, malware has been distributed through browser extensions before. Only install the ones you need and trust.
As for wallpapers, I tend to favor science stuff, like eso.org for astronomy photos.
Recommend you also check out 1Password to help collect all the pws in a repository.
Your best wallpaper tool is gonna be Wallpaper Engine on Steam. Absolutely bonkers cool stuff on there, tons and tons of it. Also a metric ton of anime porn so be aware that the nsfw stuff is not kidding.
Also yeah, get Steam. This is ostensibly a videogame forum after all!
Edge is good now. It's crazy, I can't believe it. But Chrome is fine.
Notepad++ is a must-download on all my machines.
Discord lately too. Don't use it in the browser. Ventrilo and Teamspeak are dead, don't bother.
It even has those shared device capabilities if you install it across your phone and computer and other devices, so long as you are logged into the same microsoft account (live, o365, hotmail, etc).
Biggest change is that Microsoft is less data-harvest trigger happy compared to Google, so if you care about that thing it's a good choice.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
The AV built into Windows is pretty decent. I personally haven't used a third-party one in a long time. It won't stop someone determined but it should catch most of the crap before too much damage is done.
Setting up separate profiles without administrative access would be an extremely good idea. I can't count the number of times I had to clean utter junk off the system that my stepmom's grand kids were using and the reason I had to that is because I was too lazy to set up separate profiles for them and they would literally install anything. The thing would hit 80% CPU usage idling after a month or two.
Never again.
Microsoft will let you create child accounts that connect to yours and give you a very large degree of control over how the PC is used, look into that.
Also seconding soggybiscuit's advice to just use Windows Defender. It's fine, and with uBlock running you're going to screen out 99% of the viruses and other crap. Basically every virus protection tool nowadays is just malware by another name - Windows Defender just does the whatever... I haven't had a virus problem in years and I'm on the internet basically 100% of the time.
As well as Steam you're probably going to need other game storefronts/launchers eventually (Epic, Origin, Rockstar Social, Ubisoft Connect, etc), but it's up to you if you want to install them in advance or just as needed. Just be aware of them.
I find the desktop WhatsApp useful too, and it piggybacks off the app on your phone so is super simple. Speaking of your phone, Your Phone (Microsoft's own app) is a handy tool too for bridging the gap between devices.
Steam | XBL
We have three, ages 22, 24, and 26. They all cut teeth on IDE ribbon cable and have been in and around PCs as long as they've been alive... and all of them trashed our computers at least once each. This computer still has like 35gb worth of mystery data in a profile one of them made when they visited for a holiday that I haven't bothered to delete, but at least it's not in mine.
garbage payloads (never download a tool form a site that asks you to first download some download tool.).
Firefox, add the Adblock+ add on to block ads.
I've been a Firefox fan since day 1 and still I find it to be the best browser of them all. Just the way it handles tabs, letting you easily re-opens ones you closed by mistake for example and also that you can open multiple bookmarks as tabs with one click - like for example I have a handful of bookmarks with comics so when I am in the mood I just open them all in one go.
Thunderbird
Best mail client I can think of. It is somewhat related to Firefox and it just works, much more efficient than for example Outlook. The only thing I miss is for it to play different notification sounds depending on what mail box there is new mail in.
Notepad++
This or alternatively Textpad. Both great and powerful text editors.
TreeSizeFree
On a new system you won't need this, but eventually a tool to let you find out what branches in the file structure takes up space is handy.
Game Launchers
These will sneak in as you install games, but I will recommend getting the Epic one right away. They are giving away a game for free every weeks, not every game will be to your taste however their offerings are all over and it includes both a little older and rather new ones. Like I've picked up GTA V, Civ VI, Inside, Metro 2033 Redux, GC III, Control and more.
MAME
It is a platform for simulating Arcade games. Think Pac Man, Galaga...
Delphi
If you're into programming even just a bit I recommend checking it out. There is a free version one can sign up for.
Open Hardware Monitor
A tool for monitoring temperatures, fan speeds and so on. Depending on what you have and what you've done setup wise, it may be you have left available performance unused and/or fans running harder and thus louder than needed.
Wall papers
NASA has a ton, but also just using google to search and setting it to show only images as results seems to be a good way to find images. If you're into art there is also art museums that are offering scans of paintings.
Steam | XBL
Steam | XBL
You're most welcome. Enjoy the new rig.
Enjoy it!
Steam | XBL