Applications

spookymuffin

I'm getting ready to replace my current rig, and with that, I'm going to be starting from scratch (programwise). So, since I'm using new hardware, why not use some new software? I'm looking for info on any applications you might think are "the tits". Browsers, messengers, media players, whatever you've got. Please, PA, pimp my rig!

Silvoculous

I put together a list for my own planned rig:

Launchy
Xplorer2 Lite
RocketDock
uTorrent
Firefox
Xentient Thumbnails
Taskbar Shuffle
Songbird
CPU-Z
PowerStrip/RivaTuner
K-Lite Codec Pack
Media Player Classic
Pidgin
Skype
Drive Rescue
SpywareBlaster
AVG Antivirus
Powertoys for Windows XP
Audacity
Camstudio
Sylpheed
IFS Drives
7-Zip
Frostwire
HijackThis
OpenOffice
Notepad 2
Paint.NET
CCleaner
Defraggler
Recuva
Foxit Reader
Keepass
Virtualbox

spookymuffin

So what do all those things do?

Silvoculous

*starts typing*

Virtualbox is basically an infinitely superior version of Virtual PC. It isn't a "must-download" if you don't see yourself using it, and a lot of people don't.

Same with IFS Drives. It's a must-have if you're dual-booting with Linux, because it'll let you view and modify files on ext2/ext3 partitions.

Keepass works a lot like the KDE Wallet, storing all of your system-wide passwords in one file and then password-protecting that, allowing you to access any of your personal accounts with just one password.

Foxit Reader is your basic PDF reader, which happens to be the greatest one in existence. I also recommend Sumatra, for its surreal tininess.

Sylpheed's for email, I found it through Damn Small Linux and loved it.

Audacity is for audio editing, the Powertoys have multiple purposes and you'll have to Google those, PowerStrip is for overclocking your videocard and I hear RivaTuner is better (though I haven't tried it). CPU-Z is for easily getting all your system information without opening your PC case to stare at individual serial numbers.

*stops*

Google the rest. Also, FileHippo. That's all.

unabraumer

The following apps are always installed on my machine after a fresh format:

Winamp
- Everybody needs a media player, and I've grown fond of Winamp.
Steam
- Half-life? Portal? Steam.
Firefox with the following extensions:
- Noscript (I take Internet security a little too seriously, and this is one of the most powerful browser securers out there)
- Pennypacker for my PA viewing pleasure
Thunderbird
- Email client that just goes hand in hand with firefox.
PSPad
- Because I love a good, free text editor that is fully featured for anything I might want to do.
ACDSee
- Image manager/browser/viewer
WinRar
- Compression/Archive program that has been replacing Winzip more and more.
Zonealarm
- Firewall software. This is actually kind of contentious for me because it's beginning to bloat a bit too much, but I haven't found a good replacement yet.
TrueCrypt
- I have yet to find a justification for ridiculously secure encryption software, but I love having it just in case I need it.
Microsoft TweakUI (one of the PowerToys)
- Allows a deeper adjusting of how your windows GUI works than the standard set allows. I don't know if it is available for Vista.
VideoLan
- A video player (open source and free) that incorporates almost all video codecs into itself so you don't need to worry about them. Plays DVDs, Quicktime, MPGs, DivX and most others.

Grizzled

The above sets of suggestions here cover most of my set-up, I'll just add two:

I like Irfanview for managing and converting images, which I have to do a lot.

I use CD Burner XP Pro to burn and rip CDs.

I also install Google Earth and Picasa, but those are more particular to my personal needs. All of these are free as well.

Deusfaux

i fully recommend not installing something till you have the need for it though

Avira Anti-Vir for the anti virus

Reiten

Use Comodo rather than Zone Alarm for your software firewall (just make sure to turn your Windows firewall off). Free and with less bloat. Highly regarded as well.

embrik

Paint.NET - Free Layer-based image editing (Like Photoshop)
OpenOffice

Trentus

• PuTTY. A telnet/ssh client for windows.
  
• Notepad++. A neat little text editor. Supports syntax highlighting and what not for various scripting/programming languages.
  
• AVG Free. Free edition of AVG. Not a bad antivirus program.
  
• [url=http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos/[/url]CDeX[/url]. The best (IMHO) cd ripper for windows out there. Couldn't get to the main page before though, so hopefully that gets fixed soon.
  
• Stick Soldiers 2. A little side-scrolling shoot'em up game. Simple, but lots of fun. The only thing it's missing is netplay.

vonPoonBurGer

Here's what I'm currently running on my home boxes:

ActiveState Perl for scripting
AdAware for adware smashing
Avast! for antivirus
Comodo Personal Firewall to replace the piece of junk firewall that ships with Windows
doPDF 5 for printing to a PDF file
ffdshow on my HTPC for audio & video codecs
Foxit Reader for viewing PDFs
FileZilla for FTP and SFTP client
Firefox for browsing, with AdBlock Plus, Flashblock, IE Tab and Webmail Notifier addons
GnuWin32 utilities of various sorts, most importantly awk, cat, grep, head, tail, wc and which
InfraRecorder for CD burning
MediaPortal on my HTPC
Nmap for Windows for port scanning
Notepad++ for text editing
OpenOffice for documents, spreadsheets and presentations
OpenSSH server on my HTPC (since it's on all the time)
Pidgin for instant messaging (support both MSN and Google Talk, which are the two I need)
Putty for Telnet and SSH client
RealVNC for remote administration of my HTPC
7Zip for file compression and decompression; this handles everything, including .ZIP, .RAR and .ACE files
SpyBot Search & Destroy for even more adware smashing
Steam, for the many games I've bought through it
uTorrent for torrents
WinMerge for diffing files
Wireshark for network packet sniffing

Mostly open source, all free for personal use, and generally lacking in suck.