Pepping up Windows

[Steve]

The guys at Tom's Hardware aren't happy with Windows and the applications used with it. In fact, they've written an article looking at open-source alternatives.

The average Windows user tends to be less than satisfied with Windows. And that's no surprise, either, given the rather woeful state of its default applications. Consider that both Wordpad and Notepad refuse to open larger files, the integrated audio recorder limits recordings to 60 seconds, and Paint, the integrated graphics program, offers only the most rudimentary of features. Worse still, Internet Explorer can neither be considered modern nor safe for browsing, while Outlook Express is known for its affinity for contracting any number of worms and viruses. In short, the out-of-the-box Windows configuration is usually outdated and problem laden.

The good news is that there's hope for improving your Windows experience. There are many alternatives to these and other default Windows apps - many of them open source and freeware - that can help you pep up your Windows installation and boost your productivity, making life with Windows more bearable.

[THG]

I use, or have used, at least half of the items on their list. Some of them, like OpenOffice, have been ditched for pay-for alternatives, while others, like Filezilla, serve my needs superbly.

[TheAnimus]

some are really good programs, VLC for instance, others are gawd awful.

OpenOffice, after calling IE6 un-modern, i fear to think of a word potent in outdateness to describe open office, good thing its free, but its not even worth the bandwidth, disk space, but most importantly my time. I hate the fact office costs so much, but one note is awsome and < £20 OEM.

describing firefox as "the modern and secure" is just wrong. So very very very wrong. Ladies, its still worth running firefox as a LIMITED USER, its a web browser ffs, it dosen't need to be running as a power user. Also i hate how long it takes to load FF, as such i don't use it. (Thats on a machine running dual xeons, and 5 * 15krpm hdds) i like to be able to hit my google key, then instantly able to type the search string, no wainting thx....

paint with gimp, errr i think there missing the purpose of paintbrush.

They've also missed the power toys, which whilst most people know about, an alarming number of people don't have cmd prompt here.

other than that, most of the list is good, but i do prefer winrar (again costs thou)

[eloquence]

Tried 7-zip, still use WinZip or WinRAR despite them being not free - it's just not as stable or as full-featured.
Personally, I think the Scintilla Text Editor should be on there for editing text and source code and the like.
IrfanView I've always found to be a remarkably good image viewer, and it also comes in handy if you need to batch convert files to other format or resize them.

I'd disagree with the opinion of OpenOffice in some ways. It does need some further work for the non-power user as much as the power user. However, it does find some uses, like as a free editor for creating e-books, since it can output PDFs.

GIMP has its uses - anyone doing serious editing would probably get annoyed by the interface in fairly short order, but its much more capable for various tasks than notepad, and its Script-Fu can create some quick-fix images for site titles and buttons, at least.
Paint.NET is possibly a better recommendation for a Paint alternative.

[NuShuttle]

Open Office is a perfectly acceptable subsitute for M$ Office, it has a learning curve and can be frustrating, but I've been using it for 2 years + without problem and native PDF output is hard to beat. Although I do have a copy of Word that came with my laptop.

TextPad has long since replaced the archaic notepad (who uses wordpad anymore??!?)

Audacity beats the inbuilt recorder hands down, free and supports plugins.

I use WinRar but 7-zip is pretty stunning so I may change.

I keep Media Player around, but iTunes holds all my audio these days...

I run Firefox and IE6 - just use a firewall or NAT for both!!!