The advantage of computers these days is that when someone comes up with a Great idea, then 1000 others copy and release a product that can do basically the same functions as the original. That gives the average user a choice. The same way that in your car, you do NOT need to keep the factory radio, or at the Pharmacy you can generic over name brand medications, computer software has its own “alternative” choices to virtually all software. Of course not all alternatives are good alternatives, today we will cover some of the good ones.
WinDirStat ( http://windirstat.info/ (http://windirstat NULL.info/) )
WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool for Windows. It allows you to see how much space each file is taking up and see what files are eating up your hard drive space. It can do this either via size-ordered directory view, or as a color coded treemap.
As soon as you find the files that are taking up to much space, you can remove them with the built-in cleanup operations. This is like looking at your hard drive via the My Computer icon on your pc, except for the fact that you get way more detail here.
Foxit PDF Reader ( http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/ (http://www NULL.foxitsoftware NULL.com/pdf/reader/) )
Everyone is familiar with either the term PDF or with the name Adobe Reader, which is the program designed by Adobe for PDF. The Adobe program is the most common, because it is what 95% of sites that require you to view or download PDF point you to. However, the Adobe Acrobat program is not the only choice out there. A much better choice would be the Foxit PDF reader. What are the main differences with Foxit vs… Adobe.
- Foxit starts almost at an instant. Adobe is a slow annoying wait of 2 to 5 minutes depending on the age of your pc, where all you will do is watch the Adobe “Splash” (Opening) screen load.
- Adobe takes up a considerable more hard drive and memory than Foxit.
- - On older systems that is something especially important to consider.
**Notes on installing Foxit
- I would uninstall Adobe Acrobat 1st (all copies – as some people will find when they go to add / remove programs they will have Acrobat v4 and Acrobat v5, and sometimes even more) prior to installing Foxit, as Acrobat will keep fighting to be your default PDF program and continue to try and run. If were replacing it, then lets get rid of the old.
- During the Foxit install you may see a prompted for a toolbar install (as of now its for the Ask.com or EBay toolbars), just make sure you uncheck the box that says “Do you want to install any toolbar, you just don’t need them.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware ( http://malwarebytes.org/ (http://malwarebytes NULL.org/) )
Eventually all users of a PC will get some form of an infection (Virus, Trojan, Worm), no matter how careful they are. Its like getting a cold, even if you take your Vitamin C and cover up and do all those things mom said to do growing up, you will get a cold eventually.
For all the programs that I’ve used for my own use and to recover infected systems for clients, Malwarebytes has been the most able to get all the germs out of a pc.
(From the Malwarebytes website) Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware is an anti-malware application that can thoroughly remove even the most advanced malware. It includes a number of features, including a built in protection monitor that blocks malicious processes before they even start.
