Hari's Favorite Freeware and Shareware: How to use your computer without paying anything for software, without pirating and without worrying! Any program with a * next to it is also for the Mac, but the download location may be different. Macs have Safari, Mail, and a pile of other programs built in and almost never need to worry about finding other programs. But Macs do not run all the programs that people need, so they use PCs. I love Macs and really dislike Windows, but I still use it. Sigh. *UPDATE* I have been using the Beta versions of Windows 7 as a dual boot with XP. It is good and I like it generally, but it still lacks the overall ease of the Mac. It is also not very friendly with older hardware as it seems they insist on newer hardware for basic tasks (such as my RAID controller or Video hardware).

I have often visited the site, www.snapfiles.com, to find freeware and shareware to use on my computer. I have had very good experiences with the programs available. They guarantee all downloads are free from spyware or malware. It is often hard for the inexperienced or even moderately experienced computer user to know what programs are useful. Therefore, I have compiled a listing of the most essential files a normal user might need to perform the basic tasks a computer should do without spending any money. Of course, one who uses the programs is invited to donate to the author as an expression of appreciation for the work he or she has done. When I really like a program and am sure it will remain an essential element within my software library, I donate to the programmers and am glad I did.

Sometimes the software developers modify the links to their download locations. In case one of these links does not work, contact us and we shall update them. In the meantime, you can simply go to Google and put in the name of the program and most likely find it rapidly, or go to Snap Files and find it by searching.

The most essential part of the computer is the browser and email program. I favor Firefox * and Thunderbird *, two free, open source, and super good programs that do anything you want. Thunderbird is working on incorporating encryption into its features so update these programs often. Thunderbird can also be ported from a PC to a Mac easily if one simply copies the user files.

Before you do anything in a Windows environment, you require protection. To stop spyware from getting to your computer, install Spyware Blaster and put it in your startup folder (drag the program icon to start --> All Programs --> Startup). Microsoft's Windows Defender is an excellent program and seems to work very well. To find spyware you can also use alongside Windows Defender, Lavasoft's Ad-aware as a double check.

Grisoft's AVG anti-virus has been repaired and works well now. It is a very good, free anti-virus program. Although at present most security problems come from phishing (the practice of imitating or 'spoofing' a bona-fide bank or company's email or website and inducing an unsuspecting user to reveal personal information that is used in identity theft) or fly-by contamination of your operating system when you visit or contact a malicious website that infects your computer and enlists it in a botnet (a network that uses your computer to compromise you and those you contact), it is still wise to use anti-virus protection. Get AVG Free here and remember to choose the AVG Free option when you scroll down the page.

To prevent the wrong people from entering into your computer and doing things they shouldn't, create a firewall with Zone Alarm. Update all these programs regularly and run them often. It is good to run the scanners every day. There are great freeware utilities and security software from Sysinternals (the company was bought by Microsoft), including a very important program that reveals if your computer is victimized by a rootkit-- a very nasty provider of services to even more nasty trojans and keyboard loggers. Find out if your are infected by using RootKit Revealer. Carefully read the instructions on their site. If you have a rootkit, reinstall your operating system on a newly formatted drive AFTER backing up all your data VERY safely. Maybe the most respected root kit finder and removal utility is gmer and if you know what you are doing, you can find any rootkit with it.

Probably the most essential element in your arsenal against the nasty doers or evil in the dark side of the net is keeping all your programs up to date with the latest versions. Doing this protects against the majority of exploits as most hacks to home computers take advantage of security faults published when the upgrades were released. Use Secunia PSI to make sure you are always up-to-date!

To make sure that all your data is safe from prying eyes, you can create encrypted disks where you can store all your important files using the marvelous program True Crypt *. I open the location for my email data only when I am going to use the email program and when I am finished, I close that location. One does this by mounting a drive and dismounting a drive.

Now that you have a functioning internet protected computer, you need to have some software to do something with the computer. The most common applications are found in office suites like Microsoft Office. This Office version costs much money, unless you have it pre-installed on your new computer. If you do not have this program there is no worry. Open Office * , an open source free office application, has everything you need in it. Those who work on a Mac will find it much safer than Microsoft's Office since it does not attract hacks into the Mac. It takes some time to learn, but once you do it you will find it does everything you need and it is free. If you need a pure text editor for plain text or any kind of programming, I highly recommend evolvEd. I use it constantly for a wide variety of purposes. Want an interesting all-purpose mess around and do a ton of stuff simple editor with notes and features? Try Note Tab. They also offer a free thumbnail utility to view and organize your photos. Want a more familiar kind of simple word processor? Try AbiWord. With these programs you are ready to write, calculate, and organize to your heart's content!

Here are programs to help you do more fancy things. Disk burning is easy with Ashampoo Burning Studio Free or to a lesser extent with DeepBurner but you cannot copy disks with deepburner program. Disk copying can be done with other programs. Everyone needs compressed audio files and the format most use is mp3. I have been using Audiograbber for years and love it. Be sure to also download Lame MP3 at the same time from the same page and copy it into the audiograbber directory to get first class encoding. Nowadays, many programs have mp3 compression tools built in. iTunes has a superb interface for creating and labelling mp3 files. For your information, AAC is a vastly superior codec that creates smaller files of higher quality. iTunes can use this as default.

File management is always important, otherwise you your disk becomes a mess and you cannot find anything when you need it. Windows explorer is useless for this purpose. I personally use Total Commander which is shareware and has multiple features that work very well. I use it for all ftp transfers, permission modification, and all types of file manipulation. I have supported this project since the early 90's. Do buy a key from Mr.Ghisler when you find you like the program. It is more or less a lifetime key and well worth the small cost. Otherwise, use it in free mode. A super way to deal with your photo images is with Irfanview a superb image manipulation program that integrates seemlessly into Total Commander or stands alone.

I love Google's Picasa. I had no idea how many photos were on my computer till I used it. You can email them, edit them, delete them, and many of the most important basic photo functions in one easy to use program. Get it here!

Freeware backup programs are not as sophisticated as purchased ones, but try this highly rated one SyncBack.

I have multiple networks and have found the program NetSetMan effortlessly manages switching connections. Want to check your DNS settings? I am sure you will find many surprises unless your domain hosting is managed by a good company. Dnsreports used to be free and it was a great way to get the full scoop on your nameservers, but now they demand a membership fee. Simple DNS testing, domain testing, email testing and so on, can be done through this program. More serious checking can be done through the IIS service.

Have some other requirements? Usually a search on google with the words "freeware [what I want to do]" will find what you want. Otherwise snapfiles has it.