12 Essential Apps to Install on a New PC
Guest Post by Ruchir Chawdhry
If you’ve just bought a new PC and just can’t wait to load it with useful apps, this handpicked list is a must-read for you:
VLC Media Player is a lightweight multimedia player that plays most video and audio formats out there, including CDs and DVDs, without the need for codecs. It’s a thousand times better than the default Windows Media Player. I use VLC as my default video player.
2. iTunes
Apple’s iTunes is the best music player I’ve found. I recommend you use it as your default audio player. And you have to install it anyway if you own an iPod or an iPhone.
3. PeaZip
PeaZip can manage most of the compression protocols out there like zip, rar, gzip, 7zip etc. I’m yet to come across another compression utility that can handle so many compression formats and still look very neat. Alternatives are WinRAR and 7zip.
Mozilla Firefox – the best browser ever made. Its unlimited extensibility is what’s great about it. You can download hundreds of plugins to match your tastes.
5. Picasa
Picasa is the program for managing and organizing photos. It lets you find, edit, and share all your photos with ease. Picasa makes editing your photos a piece of cake by putting one-click effects at your fingertips. You can share your pics using Picasa by email, print, CDs, or by posting on your blog. This is a must-have, if you ask me.
6. RadarSync
Keep your apps and drivers up-to-date for free with RadarSync. Keeping your software and hardware drivers up-to-date can be a nerve-wracking task but it doesn’t have to be. All you have to do is just run RadarSync occasionally. Stop wasting time looking for updates, instead get RadarSync.
A nice alternative is FileHippo Update Checker, although it only checks for apps (mostly freeware) on its database.
7. SUPER
SUPER is a great app for those who want to convert videos from one format to another. The great thing about SUPER is that it allows you to customize the output of your audio/video file, and it supports just about any format. The only problem is that SUPER can be a bit confusing for new users.
If you’re not a geek, then my guess is that FormatFactory will be better for you.
8. Roboform
RoboForm cuts out the time you spend filling various forms online, it remembers all your passwords, and even features a random password generator for the security freaks among us. What more could you possibly ask for?
9. Lavasoft Ad-Aware 2008 Free
Ad-Aware is an excellent anti-spyware app that provides protection from select trojans, malware, dialers, and browser hijackers.
10. Infrarecorder
If you have a DVD/CD writer then Infrarecorder is for you. The in-built windows disk writing utility is just too clunky, and well, broken. Infrarecorder allows you to do a lot of things, such as making your own video disks, music CDs, backup your data etc.
For more alternatives, check out this post on Make Use Of.
Make sure to install a firewall and anti-virus app on that new PC of yours. As you know, the built in Windows Firewall is just not enough. I recommend you get either AVG or Avast. They offer the best protection in the industry, and more importantly, they are freeware.
12. OpenOffice
For those who don’t want to pony-up for Microsoft Office, the open-source OpenOffice.org is a good alternative. It’s got the apps that you’ll want, but it’s only a bit slow.
You can catch Ruchir Chawdhry at TechVivo where he blogs about software, online tools, tech tips, tricks, and resources that you can use to become more productive and better your life. Click here to subscribe to TechVivo.
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Nice list. I know there are a few others, but that is a great start!
Patrick Budowski
7 Dec 08 at 8:06 pm
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7 Dec 08 at 8:39 pm
Great list but there’s a few others that can be very useful. Sorry about the double post… An error I made in the codes. Please kindly delete the previous one.
1.) XNeat Window Manager – Website – Allows all windows to be hidden, transparency to windows and taskbar, roll-up windows and even minimize windows to taskbar.
2.) SpywareBlaster: Website – Builds an immunity to your web browsers by blocking known malicious sites. The list is updated frequently.
3.) Spybot Search and Destroy – Website – This also builds an immunity to your browser applications.
4.) AusLogics Disk Defrag – Website – Does a much better and faster job at defragmentation.
5.) CCleaner – Website – Essential application for cleaning junk files and the registry. It also serves as an uninstaller and start-up manager.
6.) Songbird – Website – With version 1 just released, this is a much better alternative for iTunes on Windows. iTunes is a cow of an application especially on Windows. It takes forever to install and start-up as well and it installs a ton of services a lot of people don’t require. Songbird is a much better alternative and it’s based on the same technology as Firefox. It can be extended with addons and customised with themes as well.
7.) Thunderbird – Website Email management at its best. Again with the addons and themes. Very powerful.
Ragflan
8 Dec 08 at 4:04 am
Nice list yaar! More apps can be added. Visit for more: http://southspice.co.cc
Desidigg
12 Dec 08 at 11:10 am
Good list.
But I believe that there are better music players as compared to iTunes. I am a huge fan of Winamp and I also use it to sync files between my PC and Ipod using the ml_ipod plugin.
iTunes does not provide you with great filters and DSP effects are pretty average when it comes to winamp or other players.
Other software you may want to consider :
1. VirtuaWin : is a utility that allows you to shift between different desktops much like in any popular Linux distro.
2. Launchy : one of the best application launchers for those of you who love keyboard shortcuts.
3. Ava Find : decent software to search files on your hard drive.
4. TugZip : in the same league as that of 7zip and Peazip.
5. Foxit PDF reader : much better than Adobe Reader. AdReader occupies lot more disk space and adobe updates can be pretty irritating.
6. Pidgin : great IM client.
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12 Dec 08 at 2:18 pm
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14 Dec 08 at 7:11 am
really cool apps that are must have for a newbie
Nicholas Francis
16 Dec 08 at 1:09 pm
Nice list Shankar! I’ve got some too in my website. Some of them are FARR, Locate32, GOM Player and more!
Syahid A.
23 Dec 08 at 6:28 am
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25 Dec 08 at 10:49 am
I think you missed WINRAR in the list
Amit
31 Dec 08 at 9:47 am
I feel FooBar is so much better then iTunes. It doesn’t crash when I load my folder of 40k songs where as all other music players do.
Zanacross
7 Jan 09 at 12:20 am
Hi Ganesh,
Your apps are really cool. However, I would like to add that though VLC is a nice media player, but I use GOM Player because I am able to control it with my laptop’s remote control unlike any other player I have came across including Windows media player, itunes, VLC, Super etc.
The con with GOM is it sometimes fail to play some mp3 and flv files.
Kapil Gupta
19 Feb 09 at 1:35 pm