Pen's Gotta Have It Thread/Reviews

[DSF Guest 8]

Hey everyone. I have been asked about 9 million times some variations of the following questions: "What programs can't you live without?" or "What do you think of this software?" or "I can't get this to work. Why?"

As some of you know I am heavily involved in software and started the original Apps thread as a Utilities Gotta Have/Review thread. The original idea in the Apps thread was software I used, tested and recommeneded.

Jester took over the apps thread and made it his own when I left the forums for awhile. He has done an amazing job, along with some others, of keeping it going and making it grow like a weed in Miracle Grow!

This thread is going back to the original idea of software I cannot live without, I have used it or still do, have tested it, or have been asked to review it.

Feel free to ask questions and I encourage you to post your own software you cannot live without. Just make sure it mets the above criteria

There may be dupes from the apps thread but never dupe links

P.S. If it is linked it is virii free

[DSF Guest 8]

First up is a program I absolutely love...

Roboform

Roboform Password Manager and Form Filler has been saving you time and making your life easier since 1999. Our software automatically remembers your passwords, logs you into websites, fills long web forms, and so much more.

RoboForm is amazingly fast and easy to use.

Easy: Automatically memorizes your passwords and logs you into websites.
Saves Time: Fills long registration and checkout forms with one click.
Secure: Encrypts your passwords, fights Phishing, and defeats Keyloggers.
Strong: Generates random passwords to protect you against hackers.
Portable: RoboForm2Go runs from a USB flash drive.
PDA-friendly: Sync your passwords to Pocket PC and Palm.
Robust: Works with Internet Explorer, AOL, MSN, and other browsers.
Always Current: Fully compatible with IE 7 and Vista.

It is also free! It can be downloaded here:

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[DSF Guest 8]

Avast Anti-Virus

Yes there are better solutions. NOD32 is one that comes to mind BUT as far as install it and forget it Avast is a superior choice for normal home use. It is also a VB100 award winner, ICSA labs certified and also West Coast Labs certified.

Oh yea...did I mention it is also free?

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[DSF Guest 8]

Defraggler - Use it!

Everyone knows they should defragment their hard drive but not everyone knows why. Why defragment?

When your computer is using files, it will plunk them down, here and there, on the hard drive. If a file is too big to fit in a particular space, your computer will break up (fragment) the file and put the pieces in several different places. As the drive gets more and more cluttered, it takes your computer longer to find things, and the system runs slower and slower. Defragmenting your hard drive will reorganize all these files and pieces of files, making it easier for your computer to find them quickly.

From everyone here at Piriform, the company that brought you CCleaner... we now bring you a file defragmentation tool... Defraggler!

It differs from other defrag tools on the market, by enabling you to quickly and simply defrag the files you want to, without having to process the whole drive. Simply run it, select the file and defragment in seconds. No more struggling with the Windows defragmentation tool!

Defraggler is completely free for both corporate and individual use.

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[DSF Guest 8]

SUPERAntiSpyware

Another great FREE program. Again use it!

SUPERAntiSpyware is the most thorough AntiSpyware scanner on the market. Our Multi-Dimensional Scanning and Process Interrogation Technology will detect spyware that other products miss! SUPERAntiSpyware will remove ALL the Spyware, NOT just the easy ones!

Quick, Complete and Custom Scanning of Hard Drives, Removable Drives, Memory, Registry, Individual Folders and More! Includes Trusting Items and Excluding Folders for complete customization of scanning!

Detect and Remove Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers, Parasites, Rootkits and many other types of threats.

Light on System Resources and won't slow down your computer like many other anti-spyware products. Won't conflict with your existing anti-spyware or anti-virus solution!

Repair broken Internet Connections, Desktops, Registry Editing and more with our unique Repair System!

Real-Time Blocking of threats! Prevent potentially harmful software from installing or re-installing!*

Multi-Dimensional Scanning detects existing threats as well as threats of the future by analyzing threat characteristics in addition to code patterns.

First Chance Prevention examines over 50 critical points of your system each time your system starts up and shuts down to eliminate threats before they have a chance to infect and infiltrate your system.

Process Interrogation Technology allows threats to be detected no matter where they are hiding on your system

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[DSF Guest 8]

Firefox

Firefox is more secure than IE7. How IE8 will fair vs. FF3 remains to be seen but for now I recommend FF3.

Firefox 3 is faster at rendering, uses vastly reduced system resources, clever tools for your bookmarks and browser history, and more security features than any other browser.

The bad: Firefox 3 will no longer support Windows 95, 98, and Me; same with Mac OS X, versions 10.2 and earlier.

Free!

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[binary_jester]

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I used to use Avast. How does it do with false positives? I know AVG doesn't like certain assemblers and will fire off alerts. I ask this for obvious reasons.

[DSF Guest 8]

Jester - Avast will fire off more false positives than NOD but as many as AVG. When in doubt I suggest using Virus Total a free online scanner (http://www.virustotal.com/). It uses engines from:

AhnLab (V3)
Aladdin (eSafe)
ALWIL (Avast! Antivirus)
Authentium (Command Antivirus)
AVG Technologies (AVG)
Avira (AntiVir)
Bit9 (FileAdvisor)
Cat Computer Services (Quick Heal)
ClamAV (ClamAV)
CA Inc. (Vet)
Doctor Web, Ltd. (DrWeb)
Eset Software (ESET NOD32)
ewido networks (ewido anti-malware)
Fortinet (Fortinet)
FRISK Software (F-Prot)
F-Secure (F-Secure)
G DATA Software (GData)
Hacksoft (The Hacker)
Ikarus Software (Ikarus)
Kaspersky Lab (AVP)
McAfee (VirusScan)
Microsoft (Malware Protection)
Norman (Norman Antivirus)
Panda Security (Panda Platinum)
Prevx (Prevx1)
Rising Antivirus (Rising)
Secure Computing (Webwasher)
BitDefender GmbH. (BitDefender)
Sophos (SAV)
Sunbelt Software (Antivirus)
Symantec (Norton Antivirus)
VirusBlokAda (VBA32)
Trend Micro (TrendMicro)
VirusBuster (VirusBuster)

As an example I checked an outstanding program uploaded by you with it. The results can be found here. As you can see 4 antivirus engines flag this file as suspicious or an outright virus which it is NOT.

In all cases, as you know, it is downloader beware.

[Glen Quagmire]

Been using Roboform a long time. In fact, I even (gasp) bought the paid version. I am pretty sure the free version becomes limited use after 30 days, although it's still usable.

[carajas]

Hi, pendragon
I've been having a problem with WinRar (I'm using the 3.71 version-I got it from the Apps thread)
For example: I downloaded TuneUp Utilities version 7.0.8004 (thank you by the way)... winrar opens the window when it finish donwloading, and when I try to drag the two files to my desktop it gives an error message:
Tune[1].rar: No Files to extract

What I've been doing is, I save the file to my desktop and I use PowerArchiver to open, it opens fine and I could drag the files to my desktop without a problem... but now my free 30-day trial is up.. and I keep geting that annoying message that I shouldbuy buy...:

It doesn't do this everytime, I noticed it only happns when I try to drag .exe files... any ideas what's wrong.

I know that I could just keep powerachiver to open files when winrar can't, but I would prefer to keep only one compression program, winrar..

Thanks in advance