So you have your new Christmas computer. What software should you install?  Next question, do you have boatloads of money or are you broke – like most of us?  Final question, what do you intend to do with your computer?

I will suggest a few for you regarding the first question with the Windows operating system.  I figure the answer to the second question from you will be, “No, I’m broke, I want freebies!”  The final, I will guess that you have standard needs for your computer like most everyone else; word processing, email and virus protection.

Let’s look at word processing first.  The world standard of word processors would be Microsoft Word.  I just made that up that “world standard” part but I bet I’m correct.  I wrote a column a couple of months ago about other office programs.  I won’t belabor this point, but I believe that the best free office software out there would be Open Office (www.openoffice.org).  Using OpenOffice will not only allow you to have an excellent free word processor comparable to MS Word.   It includes their version of a spreadsheet, graphics, database and presentation programs.  Possibly even more important to many users is that anything you create using OpenOffice may be saved in the same format as MS Office.  So these programs are totally compatible.

On to email.  There are really two options for this one.  I suggest using Windows Live Mail (get.live.com) first because I really appreciate Microsoft products.  Secondly, it works very well and comes preinstalled on VISTA machines and can be downloaded to XP.  It includes several other programs you may choose to install with Live Mail, but more on those another day.

The other email program is called Thunderbird (www.mozilla.com/thunderbird) which is made by the makers of Firefox.  Either of these email apps are excellent and should take first-rate care of you.

Now to the most important applications if you intend to ever use your computer online – virus protection.  Keep in mind that these are my opinions and you may feel free to disagree.

For anti-virus I like Avast! (www.avast.com). Choose the “Free Software” link and you must register but it is free.  You SHOULD ONLY run one anti-virus application on your computer.  More than one and you will have problems!

For spyware protection I recommend “Windows Defender”, from MS (Google to find it) and also Spyware Blaster (javacoolsoftware.com).  You are perfectly safe to install more than one or two anti-spyware applications.

Make sure that you also update your operating system automatically.  Update all of the freebies I suggested manually on a regular basis.  Finally, turn on Windows Firewall.  Take into account that you also need to stay away from disreputable sites.  If they involve any illegal downloads and/or scandalous activities, then stay away or you could still get in trouble.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 20th, 2009 at 5:54 am and is filed under Columns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.