New Computer - Apps to Get & Apps to Avoid??

[GregGleason]

Technology changes over time and I am curious as to what others use to help them make their PC experience better (or things to avoid).

Here are some utilities that I like:

Irfanview - Image viewer
Everything - File/folder finder
Beyond Compare - File/folder comparison

So, suggestions?

Greg

 

[NTP2]

Are you a video game fan?

 

[bjphoenix]

There are numerous videos of this type on youtube. Here are the utilities that I use (all free):
Excalibur and Free42 calculators
Faststone image viewer
Treesizefree shows space use on your hard drive
VLC media player
Windows Notepad and Wordpad
Irfanview and Gimp image editors
VNC Viewer terminal program
Treepad information organization program
Adobe Acrobat pdf viewer (or Foxit reader)
Notepad++ coding editor
Qcad 2D cad program

I don't currently have need of a spreadsheet or serious word processor but if I did I would try libre office.
There are a lot more free utilities that are recommended that I don't personally need.

 

[GregGleason]

Are you a video game fan?

No, but I used to be. Do you have a suggestion for a game or an app for a game?

 

[cls]

Open Rocket, first thing!

What kind of altimeters do you have? Get those apps.

Libre Office.

Firefox, with several add-ons: uBlock Origin (mandatory!), Bypass Paywalls Clean, Noscript.

Use Firefox to read and create PDFs, instead of suffering the bug of the week from Adobe. Also, Libre Office will read and edit(!) PDFs. Both will print anything to a PDF file.

VLC for videos

Wireshark for misc internet hacking, also records Bluetooth and USB interfaces.

Thunderbird for email. It also does chat. Has address book and calendar. I don't use the calendar or chat.

I don't like Putty for ssh. Much prefer a real Gnome terminal. Or, WSL, it's pretty nice these days. And has all the usual favorite command line stuff, vi, ping, traceroute, dig, netcat, etc.

Edit: I used to enjoy IrfanView. Haven't used it for a long time. I'm sure it's still great. Somehow I mope along with file explorer in Windows.

To avoid: everything McAfee and everything Norton!! They do not protect your system, they just slow it down and cause trouble. If your new machine came with either, try to uninstall it. Good luck. Windows Defender is quite good, keep it updated.

 

[NTP2]

No, but I used to be. Do you have a suggestion for a game or an app for a game?

Steam, and since your on a rocket forum I would recommend KSP.

Ps I like fusion 360

 

[John Kemker]

Biggest app to avoid: Windows
Replace with: Linux

 

[scschulte]

Get a Mac! (MacONLY since 1989…) But it's not black and white -- if you have certain applications / games / CAD-CAM etc. that primarily run on a "PC" (vs. a Mac) -- fully understand you'd want to stay in that system.

Although I can use (and have used) a PC since 1989… I really have spent 99 44/100th% of my home and work time on a Mac & later iPhone / iPad / Apple Watch. Altus Metrum supports Mac with their excellent software for EasyMini and other altimeters they make.

Other software: Apple Notes; Microsoft Office (or Apple's Numbers-Pages-Keynote); Apple Photos; TextExpander; Bartender-4; Printopia-3; GraphicConverter-12 -- BusyCal; BusyContacts; Clock MINI; PCalc (includes RPN); OpenRocket (or Rocksim); SuperDuper! (backup) -- VueScan for scanning; WeatherDock+; Date-Time-Calc 2; and then TurboTax to do your taxes!!

Macs really last-- I use my 2010 MBP to run old Perfectflite software (as they have not updated theirs in 7 years…).

Hope this helps you or maybe others.

Steve on Wednesday 29 November 2023

 

[Bill S]

Avoid McAfee antivirus, total crapola.

 

[David Schwantz]

Avoid all apps!

 

[DigBaddy]

Biggest app to avoid: Windows
Replace with: Linux

This!

Hell, even my farmer parents use Linux....

 

[prfesser]

If you need Windows and it's possible to replace Win11 with Win10...do so.

 

[ksaves2]

Biggest app to avoid: Windows
Replace with: Linux

Ditto!!! Been using Linux since 1990. Only have WinBlows on my mentally handicapped adult son's machine for his non-violent games. Was a Slacker back in the day but I went to Linux Mint as Slack was getting too hard to find the "add-ons" to get some software packages to work. Kurt