Best FREE Utilities for Your Operating System

Overall, Windows XP is a pretty good operating system. After all, it’s still going strong after more than seven years, and even after all this time, some still prefer it over Microsoft’s newest offering, Windows Vista. There are many utilities on the web that you can download that will add to your computing experience. Some of these utilities you may be familiar with but  others may be new to you. We'll take a look at some of the most popular ones here. These represent the combined opinions of several publications respected in the industry.

 
 Avira AntiVir Personal - You'll probably never see the freeware version of an antivirus program outrank its commercial counterpart in a software roundup, but Avira's AntiVir gives other fee-based antivirus apps a run for their money. The program receives high marks for its malware detection rates and its ability to take on rootkit viruses. The main disadvantage is that the free version of AntiVir doesn't scan incoming e-mail. However, the program does scan e-mail attachments after you've saved them, and it detects malware if you open an infected e-mail.

AVG Anti-virus - Also getting high marks is this anti-virus program. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition doesn’t include all the features of commercial antivirus utilities (including AVG’s own), but it does provide basic virus protection at no cost.

CCleaner - CCleaner scrubs your system by removing temp files, cookies, browsing history, recent-document lists, log files in the Recycle Bin, and a lot of other digital detritus. The utility can also be used to uninstall applications and scan for orphaned and unused Registry entries.

Auslogics Disk Defrag - Your hard drive should be defragmented regularly for optimal performance, but WinXP’s integrated defrag utility tends to be slow and clunky, especially on older systems. Auslogics Disk Defrag ) is a lot quicker, and it provides better feedback during the defrag process.

Foxit Reader - If you're one of the many people who consider the Adobe Reader PDF viewer too slow and bloated, consider Foxit Reader. It is much faster than Reader, and Foxit provides more options for viewing, printing, and annotating PDFs. You can even use Foxit to fill out PDF forms.

Revo Uninstaller - It’s probably happened to all of us at least once when trying to uninstall an unwanted program via Add Or Remove Programs. Something goes wrong, both the program and its entry in Add Or Remove Programs get left behind, and the uninstall process fails thereafter. Revo Uninstaller  can succeed where Add Or Remove Programs fails. Aside from running a program’s standard uninstall routine, Revo Uninstaller can also scan your hard drive to ferret out any leftover files and Registry settings. And if there are programs installed that you don’t recognize, Revo Uninstaller will let you look them up via a Google search.

 
TrueCrypt - When it comes to protecting your data from prying eyes, TrueCrypt gets the nod.  This open-source program can create encrypted files that appear as disk drives in Windows Explorer and other file managers. TrueCrypt also lets you encrypt an entire drive (such as a USB flash drive), a drive partition,

ClipDiary - We’ve all used the Windows Clipboard to copy and paste data, but its major limitation is that each time you put something new into the Clipboard, whatever was previously in there gets erased. It’s kind of like having a closet that holds only one outfit. ClipDiary improves upon the standard WinXP Clipboard by using a database that can store countless Clipboard entries. One of the nice features is that the contents don’t get erased when you restart your computer. Find it here.

CDBurnerXP - WinXP’s built-in CD burning feature is convenient when you don’t have third-party burning software installed, but its capabilities are limited. CDBurnerXP  lets you do things that you can’t do with WinXP alone, such as burn DVDs, create bootable discs, and make backup copies of your discs by saving them as ISO image files (or burn discs from ISO files you already have). CDBurnerXP will even let you create and print custom covers for several varieties of disc cases.

Lightning for Thunderbird - The Mozilla Foundation's free Thunderbird e-mail program is great, but it lacks Microsoft Outlook's calendar and to-do list. The solution is Lightning, a plug-in from Mozilla that combines the foundation's Sunbird calendar program with Thunderbird's e-mail features.

Comodo Firewall Pro - WinXP’s integrated firewall is better than no firewall at all, but it’s light on features and customization options. Comodo Firewall Pro  monitors not just the data coming into your system, but the data going out, as well. It also includes a database of trusted applications to help guard against unauthorized software being installed on your system without your knowledge.

AbiWord -  WinXP’s integrated WordPad word processor might be OK for typing grocery lists, but it’s not good for much more. If you want a good word processor that will leave WordPad in the dust but would rather not spend the bucks on Microsoft Word, try AbiWord. It has a familiar and easy-to-use interface, a spell checker, and lots of advanced document layout features, and unlike WordPad, AbiWord can save files in Word’s ubiquitous DOC format.

There you have it - a dozen free programs that can enhance your computing experience.

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