Free Netbook Software Essentials
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A lot of programs nowadays are serious processor and RAM hogs (yes, I’m looking at you, Adobe). The good news is, that there are many free alternatives for programs like Adobe Reader that are much lighter and have the same functionality. I put up a chart for everyone to reference to.
| Security Suites | Avast! has a high detection rate and is one of the most lightweight antivirus programs available. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free, full fledged security suite with impressive detection rates. | |
| Archive Manager | 7zip is an all-around, free, lightweight archive manager. J-zip is another free WinZip alternative that supports 7zip files. | |
| Torrent Manager | Opera manages torrent downloads, and a lightweight program is uTorrent. | |
| PDF Reader | Sumatra PDF is a free, open source, lightweight PDF reader. | |
| Laptop Tracker | Prey is a free laptop tracker that works well for netbooks. | |
| System/Registry Cleaner | CCleaner is a free, lightweight system cleaner that works well on a netbook. | |
| HDD Defragmenter | Defraggler, made by the same folks behind CCleaner, is an easy to use defragmenter with a lot of options. | |
| Image Mounter | Virtual Clonedrive, is a free, simple, easy to use image mounter for netbooks without CD/DVD drives (practically all of them). | |
| Image Editor | An alternative to Photoshop would be Paint.net, not as advanced but is much more capable than MSPaint. InfranView is a great graphic feature with lots of unique features. | |
| MP3 Tagger | Mp3Tag is a free, easy to use Mp3 tagger that works with most formats. | |
| FTP/File Transfer | Filezilla is a simple, free, FTP manager. | |
| Thunderbird is a free e-mail client that has a ton of features. | ||
| File Recovery | Recuva, made by the same people behind CCleaner and Defraggler is a dead-simple, easy to use, free file recovery program. | |
| Disk Encryption | A free disk encryption software would be TrueCrypt – easy to use and open-source. | |
| Multi-Monitor Manager | DisplayFusion is a free multi-monitor manager to do things such as multiple desktop backgrounds. | |
| Office Suite | SoftMakerOffice is a lightweight Office suite (Thanks “J”!), Open Office is a widely used and popular Office suite. | |
Have any software you think should be on this list? Drop a comment!
Mozilla Prism is a nice thing. Let’s you put websites like GMail and NBNW as apps/programs on your desktop.
Also, just checked, why would you need a FTP manager? Chrome/Opera download it straight from the link and put it into the downloads folder.
I’ll put in Prism later. I use it for Pandora.
On the note of FTP, Opera/Chrome can’t delete, rename, copy, move, and upload stuff on/to the server which NBNW sits on, so that’s why FTP clients exist.
nice list!
there’s also the online picture editor- Pixlr.
from what i have seen, its trying to imitate PS as much as possible. even the button ui is the same.
I’ve recently moved from 7zip to Jzip.
It has a Winzip type GUI but can produce 7zip encrypted files (and split/reassemble them if required).
Hm, that’s cool. I’ll be sure to add it on the list.
USE LINUX!!!!