This is what I use a lot on Windows:
7-Zip - Open source and free (so it doesn't have that annoying pop up when you open it like WinRAR does) file archiver.
Adobe Photoshop CS5: I have rudimentary Photoshop skills. The new content aware feature is really cool.
CCleaner - Frees up HDD space by deleting temporary files that aren't important. It can also delete other kinds of files, uninstall programs and select what programs start up. But you don't really need CCleaner to do those things.
Foobar2000 - I used to have a slow computer with hardly any storage so I rarely listened to music on it. I got a good laptop a couple of years ago so I could listen to music all the time. ??? asked me what audio player I used and I said Windows Media Player and he laughed at me and made fun of me but I didn't know anything about audio players since I hardly used them. I'm glad he told me to download Foobar. With thousands of songs loaded on it it would only use about 9 MB of RAM, very stable, has a nice, simple UI (some people say it's ugly but there's tons of skins for it), has a lot of plugins (I've discovered hundreds of new bands with the Last.fm radio plugin), etc.
Foxit Reader - It's a PDF reader like Adobe Reader but it's only 6.6 MB while Adobe Reader is over 40 MB. Adobe Reader also looked very cluttered to me and froze all of the time while Foxit Reader is very lightweight.
Google Chrome/Chromium - I started using Firefox in 2004 but finally switched to a new web browser a couple of months ago. Chrome has all of the extensions I need and is so much faster than Firefox. I usually use Chromium because I like using the latest stuff but if it's too buggy I use Google Chrome.
IrfanView - Photo viewer that I prefer over Windows Photo Viewer. Has more settings and options.
Miranda IM - When I used Pidgin 3 years ago it used 8-12 MB of RAM, now it uses 20-32 MB while I've Miranda use as little as 600 KB. This will sound wrong but I'm anal about RAM. When ??? uploaded his Miranda IM set up to Fileden I downloaded and never used Pidgin again. I had used Miranda before but the crappy default settings annoyed me and I wasn't good at setting it up. I still recommend Pidgin to most people because Miranda will take a while to set up for people new to it while Pidgin "works out of the box."
OpenOffice - It's like Microsoft Office but it's open source and free. I wanted to use AbiWord instead since it's more lightweight but it crashes all the time.
Paint.NET - It's like Microsoft Paint but way better. It has a lot more options.
7-Zip - Open source and free (so it doesn't have that annoying pop up when you open it like WinRAR does) file archiver.
Adobe Photoshop CS5: I have rudimentary Photoshop skills. The new content aware feature is really cool.
CCleaner - Frees up HDD space by deleting temporary files that aren't important. It can also delete other kinds of files, uninstall programs and select what programs start up. But you don't really need CCleaner to do those things.
Foobar2000 - I used to have a slow computer with hardly any storage so I rarely listened to music on it. I got a good laptop a couple of years ago so I could listen to music all the time. ??? asked me what audio player I used and I said Windows Media Player and he laughed at me and made fun of me but I didn't know anything about audio players since I hardly used them. I'm glad he told me to download Foobar. With thousands of songs loaded on it it would only use about 9 MB of RAM, very stable, has a nice, simple UI (some people say it's ugly but there's tons of skins for it), has a lot of plugins (I've discovered hundreds of new bands with the Last.fm radio plugin), etc.
Foxit Reader - It's a PDF reader like Adobe Reader but it's only 6.6 MB while Adobe Reader is over 40 MB. Adobe Reader also looked very cluttered to me and froze all of the time while Foxit Reader is very lightweight.
Google Chrome/Chromium - I started using Firefox in 2004 but finally switched to a new web browser a couple of months ago. Chrome has all of the extensions I need and is so much faster than Firefox. I usually use Chromium because I like using the latest stuff but if it's too buggy I use Google Chrome.
IrfanView - Photo viewer that I prefer over Windows Photo Viewer. Has more settings and options.
Miranda IM - When I used Pidgin 3 years ago it used 8-12 MB of RAM, now it uses 20-32 MB while I've Miranda use as little as 600 KB. This will sound wrong but I'm anal about RAM. When ??? uploaded his Miranda IM set up to Fileden I downloaded and never used Pidgin again. I had used Miranda before but the crappy default settings annoyed me and I wasn't good at setting it up. I still recommend Pidgin to most people because Miranda will take a while to set up for people new to it while Pidgin "works out of the box."
OpenOffice - It's like Microsoft Office but it's open source and free. I wanted to use AbiWord instead since it's more lightweight but it crashes all the time.
Paint.NET - It's like Microsoft Paint but way better. It has a lot more options.
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