Jarrhed’s Top 10 Essential Programs

Hi Guys

Here are my top ten Essential Programs.

1. Firefox

Firefox is a super customizable, open source, fast browser. It supports tons of plugins, all common operating systems (Windows, Unix), and much more.

Get it from firefox.com

2. Pidgin

Pidgin is a open source, multi-protocol, gtk-based instant messenger client. It has all your popular instant messenging protocols like

• AIM
• MSN
• ICQ
• YAHOO
• Xfire (Need a plugin called Gfire)

There are a lot more than that but thats just a few of them. Pidgin also supports Windows & Linux. It has been ported to OS X under the name of Adium.

Pidgin’s Website: http://www.pidgin.im/

Adium’s Website: http://www.adiumx.com/

3. VideoLan Media Player

VideoLan Media Player (AKA VLC) is a media player that is cross-platform (Windows, OS X, and Linux), it plays almost any format (Video and Audio) and you can choose to run it with DirectX or OpenGL (Windows Only). It also supports streaming video’s over your lan (hence the name).

VLC Website: http://www.videolan.org/

4. ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a freeware application that can burn many popular cd images (ISO), random files that you select, and it looks nice. It’s very detailed and it rarely has errors.

ImgBurn’s Website: http://www.imgburn.com/

5. WinRAR

WinRAR is a shareware archiver that can unarchive all popular formats (ZIP RAR ARJ 7z and more) and it has a nice user inteface and its fast.

http://www.rarlabs.com

6. SongBird

Songbird is a relatively new, undiscovered application. It is a firefox based media player for all platforms (Unix, Linux, Windows). Songbird is open source and it has browser capability with this great feature that lets you play any media file as if it were in your library.

I use this with both Linux & Windows

http://www.getsongbird.com

7. Avast Anti-Virus Home Edition

I have to say that this the best free anti-virus. It has all your basic features + great virus protection. One of those great features is that is scans downloads as you download them and if it has virus code in it. It will stop the connection and then warn you.

http://www.avast.com

8.  Wine

Wine is a compatibility layer that lets you run Windows applications and some games on your Unix Desktop. It most of your average programs and its open-source.

http://www.winehq.org

9.  Ccleaner

Ccleaner is a Windows crap cleaner. It can clear your browsers history, recently used documents, fix your registry, and much more. It is free and Windows Only

http://www.ccleaner.com/

10.  Winamp

This is the alternative to Songbird. It is a media player that plays most of your audio formats and it has a great ui. It’s free (Except for Pro Version) and it is fast

htttp://www.winamp.com