ReviewsByP's Top 5 Freeware of 2005

Rating:

Ok, ok so even if you're on dialup, some of these will still apply to you but if you're on DSL, these programs become more meaningful. So without further ado, Starts With P presents 2005's Best Free software every DSL subscriber should have:

The best free web browser:
Opera web browser - Simply the best web browser for me-- built in pop-up blocking, mouse gestures (hold right button and move mouse to the left to go to the previous page), search from within the browser, built in RSS feed reader, "one-touch" toggling of images/setting of proxy servers and so much more!

Firefox comes a very close second. This is the browser I recommend for the typical user (your lola or nanay or non-techies) as it provides a safer, faster and better alternative to internet explorer!

The best free antivirus:
AVG Anti-virus by Grisoft. This is a no-nonsense virus scan with a light footprint (doesn't take much memory!). It just sits in the background, updates itself automatically and does its job quietly and effectively.

The best free firewall:
ZoneAlarm. This software protects your PC from hackers and malicious programs. It may be difficult to setup at first and can become annoying because you have to "allow" each program access to the internet but this is precisely why I like it-- control over which applications get to access the net.

The best bittorrent client:
Azureus. Naku if you still don't know what a torrent is, you're missing out! Think of it as a very fast way to download whole albums of music, TV episodes or whole movies! It's like napster or kazaa-- only faster and more reliable. If you're downloading lots of torrents, it could use quite a lot of your PC's resources which brings me to my second best bittorrent client: uTorrent (pronounced meeyoo torrent). uTorrent is smaller and faster than azureus but I just like azureus better.

The best free encryption: Truecrypt. What's so cool about this program is you can create a "virtual" drive (for example drive X:) that you can access like any ordinary drive-- you can open it in windows explorer, you can drag and drop files, etc.. *but* the contents of this drive are encrypted! You can use this on your USB flash memory or use it to hide your photos or important documents.

I hope you enjoy these personal favorites of mine! Let me know of your experiences with these software and tell me your own top five.