Mozilla Firefox

Internet Explorer and Firefox are two most frequently used internet browsers. Firefox is very good and secure alternative. Lot of extensions for Firefox are made by community, so user can easily customize its browsing experience according to its needs. There are extensions that can block pop-ups, ads, scripts, protect you from phishing and password theft, warn you about dangerous web pages and so on. It supports tab browsing and advanced internet searching engines from Google, Yahoo, Wikipedia, Answers and many others. Custom download managers allow transfer resuming, while Bookmark Manager allows total control of your favorite links. You don’t like how Firefox looks like? There are hundreds of themes << https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/browse/type:2/cat:all?sort=popular >> so there must be one that suites you. When it comes to extensions, you can take a look at what is available here << http://addons.mozilla.org >>. Be prepared to see thousands of extensions that can help you in your everyday activities. We strongly recommend you to try Firefox over Internet Explorer especially since you can easily uninstall it without any traces left in your system.

Mozilla Thunderbird

Another Mozilla application, but in this case an e-mail client. The fact is that Windows users, until Windows 7, got mail client in form of Windows Mail (or Outlook Express), but when it comes to Windows 7, it is not the case. In either case, you can try Thunderbird. It is more advanced mail client that can even replace Outlook. Supports all necessary options like POP3, SMTP, IMAP and all kinds of webmail providers. It is made on same security principles as Firefox so you can be pretty secure when using Thunderbird. It has good anti-spam and anti-phishing filters so you will be warned on suspicious e-mails. Since this is Mozilla application, a lot of extensions and themes are also made for Thunderbird. What’s more, there are themes that exist for Firefox and Thunderbird so you can have “unified” internet experience: internet browser and e-mail client will look almost identical. One of the features that we appreciate a lot is option to have each e-mail account in its own, separate, folder with its own sent items. Version 2 is packed with options that often confuse new users but new version, Thunderbird 3, should make things more user-friendly.

CDBurnerXP

Some very good CD/DVD burning software over years became huge behemoths with lot of additional options and features that most of users don’t use at all. Yes, Nero is one of them. Because of this, few free alternatives emerged to solve simple problem: backup data to a CD/DVD. One of the alternatives to “famous” Nero is CDBurnerXP. After brief installation, you can start data backup to CD or DVD, HD disc, Blue-Ray disc etc. Audio CDs are created also very easy, RW medias can be erased, you can make a image file from disc or write image to a optical media and so on. Interface is user-friendly and all features are accessible even from within “wizard”. Easy, fast and reliable free alternative that should be installed in case you have a CD/DVD recordable optical device.

K-Lite Mega CODEC Pack

This is one of the best CODEC packs that exist on the Internet when it comes to Windows OS, and as such, it should be installed on every Windows based PC that will play some multimedia content.  If you are familiar with message “Error downloading codec” or “Missing codec” from Windows Media Player than this is a perfect solution to all your problems. With Mega CODEC Pack you will also get very good Media Player Classic that offers simple and fast multimedia reproduction. During installation you can customize a lot of options but if you are not too familiar with all that mumbo-jumbo just go with full installation (“Lots of stuff”) and be assured that your PC will be able to play all video and audio formats that you can throw at him. In addition, Media Player Classic can be used to play DVDs, movies with subtitles and much, much more. Installation is around 20MB and it is updated regularly so you will never again see those CODEC messages again.

XnView

This application can display 400 file types. Among those are: AI (Adobe Illustrator), DWG (AutoCAD), DjVu, EPS, PDF or even Corel CDR. For some of them you will need additional plug-ins or installed GhostScript but for average users these are not necessary. There is also support for audio and video files. However, all this is not the end of features list. XnView can convert supported extensions to 50 formats so you can always send picture in format that recipient supports. Basic editing tools are also incorporated into XnView: brightness, contrast, gamma correction, color balance and red-eyes correction. Pictures can be presented as slide show with lot of transition effects and even over full screen, which is interesting option for presentations.