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BOOT CAMP 343 (14/09/04)
Shareware and Freeware, part 1,
Essentials
Against the gloomy
backdrop of the scams, spam emails, viruses and worms sloshing around the
Internet it is easy to overlook the fact that there are still plenty of
genuinely nice people out there developing free or very low cost software that
can make your PC safer, improve reliability, easier and more enjoyable to
use.
Freeware and shareware
is software that you download from the Internet for free, or try before you buy,
usually at a fraction of a cost of comparable commercial products. This week we
begin our annual roundup of the very best freeware and shareware titles with
some programs and utilities that you simply cannot afford to be without; in the
following weeks we’ll be looking at software for taming the Internet and email,
security and maintenance.
But how can anyone
afford to give away software or sell it so cheaply? Obviously a developer’s
advertising, packaging and distribution costs are greatly reduced by
distributing their software over the Internet. Quite a few programs are provided
on a trial basis or are ‘lite’ versions of more sophisticated applications with
some features disabled that will be activated upon payment of a modest licence
fee.
A lot of the programs
we’ll be featuring are add-ons or utilities created by fellow PC users who
simply want to share their skills for the benefit of others. In some cases the
author isn’t averse to a donation to help them to improve their product and if
you find these programs useful and continue to use them you should do the decent
thing and make a small contribution.
There are also a lot of
programs laced with adware, spyware and worse; needless to say we won’t be
featuring any of those, nevertheless, it behoves us to remind you that you
download and install these programs entirely at your own risk.
A couple of points
before we get started, it’s a good idea to create a new folder on your PC
specifically for downloads as it will make them much easier to manage and
transfer to another PC. Before you install any new program ensure that your
backups are up to date and if you are using Windows ME or XP set a new Restore
Point (see Boot Camp 334)
AVG ANTIVIRUS FREE
EDITION, freeware, 6.8Mb, Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/
If your PC is connected
to the Internet you would be barmy not to have decent anti virus software
checking all incoming emails and file downloads and regularly scan your drives.
Whilst there are many fine commercial products on the market AVG Free Edition
provides the same and in some cases even better protection, using regularly
updated signature files to detect and counter the latest
threats.
AGNITUM OUTPOST FREE,
freeware, 2.6Mb, Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP,
http://www.agnitum.com/products/outpost/
And
ZONEALARM FREE FIREWALL,
freeware, 5.7Mb, Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, www.zonealarm.com
A firewall is absolutely
essential if you have a broadband or indeed any sort of Internet connection, to
protect your PC against hackers and the many nasties lurking inside web pages,
emails and programs. The free versions of Outpost and ZoneAlarm are amongst the
most powerful firewalls available and will stop anyone remotely accessing your
files and unlike the built-in firewall in Windows XP they will also prevent
malicious programs on your PC from making unauthorised use of your Internet
connection, to send out personal or private information. N.B. Only install one
of them as they may disagree with each other.
ADAWARE SE PERSONAL
EDITION, freeware, 2.5Mb, Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
And
SPYBOT SEARCH &
DESTROY, 4.3Mb, freeware, 2.5Mb, Windows 9x/NT/2000/XP, http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
A great many of the problems PC users suffer are caused by
malicious code and programs innocently downloaded whilst surfing the web.
AdAware and Spybot are the leading cleaner utilities, capable of seeking out and
eliminating the huge number of spyware, adware, worms and trojans that can
infect your computer. Both do an excellent job but for a really thorough clean
up download and run both programs. Be very careful when entering the web
addresses shown, a number of Internet sites with very similar sounding names
will intercept a mis-typed request and try to sell you cleaner utilities that
may not be as good, or are spiked with adware. Both AdAware and Spybot are free
so accept no substitutes!
TUGZIP, freeware, 3.7Mb,
Windows 95, 9x/NT/2000/XP, http://www.tugzip.com/
Although Windows XP
comes with a handy file decompression utility, its functionality is limited and
a third-party program like Tugzip can handle most commonly used compression
schemes. If you are using an older version of Windows you just can’t manage
without it, and in addition to the decompression feature TugZip can also be used
to compress and encrypt files. This will help you to free up space on your hard
drive, send large files or images over the Internet by email or export large
files to another PC by ‘spanning’ data across multiple floppy discs or CD-ROMs.
The download can be quite slow from the author’s home page -- it is proving very
popular and his resources are limited -- but be patient or use Google to find an
alternative download site.
Next week – Shareware
and Freeware, part 2
JARGON FILTER
COMPRESSION
A technique that reduces the size of files by replacing large
repetitive blocks of data with much shorter segments of code
SIGNATURE
Essentially a virus’s fingerprint, a unique section of
computer code that a virus scanner uses to identify infected files
SPANNING
Copying a large file to multiple discs (floppy, CD-ROM, Zip
etc.), with embedded instructions to change discs when the data from one disc
has been read
TIP OF THE WEEK
Tweak UI (UI stands for ‘User Interface’) is part of the
Microsoft PowerToys suite and is one of the most useful utilities you can have
on any Windows PC. There are two versions, for Windows 95, 98, SE & ME and
Windows XP with somewhat different features but both programs allow you
customise the way your PC works and looks, without going anywhere near the
dreaded Registry. Tweak UI is completely free but unsupported by Microsoft;
don’t worry, it is completely safe, however do read the instructions for the
Windows 9x version as installation is a little quirky.
For Windows XP go to:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/
downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx
Tweak UI for Windows 9x can be found at:
http://www.microsoft.com/ntworkstation/
downloads/PowerToys/Networking/NTTweakUI.asp
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