5 Star Personal Computer
Services, LLC
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This page includes links to download free software that I think are really great and would like to share with you. Click on a category:
Anti-Virus/Spyware/Malware
Anti-Virus/Spyware/Malware Software Important: Never have more than one firewall or anti-virus program running on your computer at the same time. They conflict with one another and your computer will run unpredictably. Be sure to uninstall your current firewall (in the case of Windows firewall, turn it off) before installing another firewall and do the same for your anti-virus program.
http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/ Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. Microsoft Security Essentials is a free download from Microsoft that is simple to install, easy to use, and always kept up to date so you can be assured your PC is protected by the latest technology. It’s easy to tell if your PC is secure — when you’re green, you’re good. It’s that simple. Microsoft Security Essentials runs quietly and efficiently in the background so that you are free to use your Windows-based PC the way you want—without interruptions or long computer wait times. Note: Microsoft will not slow down older computers like Norton, McAfee, TrendMicro, and other Internet security suites do. Microsoft Security Essentials replaces Microsoft's Windows Live OneCare. Please also note that MSE does not include a firewall like Windows Live OneCare did. XP users should install a third party firewall such as PC Tools Firewall Plus. Vista and Windows 7 users should turn on those firewalls.
Windows Defender is software that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software by detecting and removing known spyware from your computer. Windows Defender features Real-Time Protection, a monitoring system that recommends actions against spyware when it's detected, minimizes interruptions, and helps you stay productive.
Ad-Aware Free Anti-Malware features real-time protection, a rootkit removal system, automatic updates, and much more — to ensure that you have the power to protect yourself online.
Spybot - Search & Destroy detects and removes spyware, a relatively new kind of threat not yet covered by common anti-virus applications. Spyware silently tracks your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile for you that is transmitted without your knowledge to the compilers and sold to advertising companies. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you haven't intentionally installed, if your browser crashes inexplicably, or if your home page has been "hijacked" (or changed without your knowledge), your computer is most probably infected with spyware. Even if you don't see the symptoms, your computer may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging. Spybot-S&D is free, so there's no harm giving it a try to see if something has invaded your computer.
Have you ever considered what makes an anti-malware application effective? Malwarebytes has created an easy-to-use, simple, and effective anti-malware application. Whether you know it or not your computer is always at risk of becoming infected with viruses, worms, trojans, rootkits, dialers, spyware, and malware that are constantly evolving and becoming harder to detect and remove. Only the most sophisticated anti-malware techniques can detect and remove these malicious programs from your computer. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is considered to be the next step in the detection and removal of malware. In their product they have compiled a number of new technologies that are designed to quickly detect, destroy, and prevent malware. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware can detect and remove malware that even the most well known anti-virus and anti-malware applications fail to detect. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware monitors every process and stops malicious processes before they even start. The Realtime Protection Module (included only in the paid version) uses their advanced heuristic scanning technology which monitors your system to keep it safe and secure. In addition, they have implemented a threats center which will allow you to keep up to date with the latest malware threats.
http://download.cnet.com/Avast-Home-Edition-Free-Antivirus/3000-2239_4-10019223.html?tag=mncol;pop avast! antivirus Home Edition includes ANTI-SPYWARE protection, certified by the West Coast Labs Checkmark process, and ANTI-ROOTKIT detection based on the best-in class GMER technology.
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 8.0 - Basic antivirus and antispyware protection for Windows available to download for free. Limited features, no support, for private and non-commercial use only.
PC Tools Firewall Plus is a powerful free personal firewall for Windows® that protects your computer by preventing unauthorized users from gaining access to your computer through the Internet or a network. By monitoring applications that connect to the network Firewall Plus can stop Trojans, backdoors, keyloggers and other malware from damaging your computer and stealing your private information. PC Tools Firewall Plus is advanced technology designed especially for people, not just experts. Powerful prevention against attacks and known exploits is activated by default while experienced users can optionally create their own advanced packet filtering rules, including IPv6 support, to customize the network defenses. All you need to do is install it for immediate and automatic ongoing protection. That's how PC Tools Firewall Plus provides world-leading protection, backed by regular Smart Updates, real-time protection and comprehensive network shielding to ensure your PC remains safe and hacker free. PC Tools products are trusted and used by millions of people every day to protect their home and business computers against online threats. Note: PC Tools Firewall Plus is designed for Windows 7 (32/64bit), Vista (32/64bit) and XP (32bit)
ZoneAlarm
- Made by Zone Labs, will render your computer invisible to hackers. Hackers run
scanning programs over the Internet looking for computers with electronic
openings, called ports. A good firewall such as ZoneAlarm makes your computer
invisible to the scanners.
Outpost Free Firewall offers a basic protection solution for casual web surfers and low budget systems.
COMODO is a free Internet security program (Firewall plus Anti-Virus). It does not provide protection from spyware. Currently, as far as I know, it is the only free firewall that runs with Vista and Windows 7 64 bit operating system.
Have you ever received a document attached to your Email that you couldn't open up because you didn't have the program to do so? Or have you ever sent a document to a person that couldn't it? This is called a document exchange incompatibility, and there's a simple solution around it... convert it to a PDF file. PDF files were invented by Adobe. It is considered the universal format for exchanging documents. Anything that can be printed can be converted to a PDF file. All you need is the FREE Adobe Reader program to open them up.
I've come across what I think is a great free PDF file creator called PrimoPDF and it's so simple to use. When you install PrimoPDF a new "printer" is created named PrimoPDF. To create a PDF file, you just open up the document you which to convert using the appropriate program, then click on File, Print... Then instead of printing it to your normal printer, select the PrimoPDF "printer" and click OK. Soon, another window will appear where you can make other choices and even password protect it so that only people you give permission to can view it.
Not only can you create PDF files with GreenPrint, GreenPrint's patent-pending software eliminates unwanted pages saving paper, ink, money, and millions of trees. Have you ever printed a Web page where you only wanted 1 page and not a bazillion others? What a waste. Well, with GreenPrint, those days are over. But it isn't just for Web pages. It's for anything that you can print. It highlights and removes unwanted pages, you can decide what prints and what doesn't, and it even tracks pages and the money you've saved.
Have you ever downloaded a ZIP file or have had someone send you one in an E-mail and you couldn't open it because you didn't have and unzipping program like WinZip? I found a program called CAM UnZip. I've used it a few times without any problems. Not only does CAM UnZip unzip files, it will also ZIP them. For those of you who don't know what I mean by Zipping and Unzipping... when a file is zipped, it's compressed into a smaller file size. Also, many files can be zipped into one zipped file. This makes zipped files more suitable for downloads. Zipped files make better Email attachments too, because of their smaller size. In order to gain access to what's inside a zipped file, a program is needed to unzip it. Once the file is unzipped, you will see one or more other files. These new, unzipped files, are now ready to be used.
Find and enjoy the pictures on your computer in seconds. Picasa is software that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the pictures on your PC. Every time you open Picasa, it automatically locates all your pictures (even ones you forgot you had) and sorts them into visual albums organized by date with folder names you will recognize. You can drag and drop to arrange your albums and make labels to create new groups. Picasa makes sure your pictures are always organized. Picasa2 also makes advanced editing simple by putting one-click fixes and powerful effects at your fingertips. And Picasa makes it a snap to share your pictures – you can email, print photos home, make gift CDs, instantly share via Hello™, and even post pictures on your own blog.
IrfanView
is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use)
graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP.
It is simple for beginners and
powerful for professionals.
Bring your digital photos to life with Photo Story 3 for Windows. Experience your photos in amazing new ways. Capture memories - Create slide shows using your digital photos. With a single click, you can touchup crop, or rotate pictures. It's that easy! Bring photos to life - Add stunning special effects, soundtracks, and your own voice narration to your photo stories. Then, personalize them with titles and captions. Share your stories - Small file sizes make it easy to send your photo stories in an e-mail. Watch them on your TV, a computer, or a Windows Mobile–based portable device.
http://www.download.com/Paint-NET/3000-2192_4-10338146.html Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plug-ins. Version 3.36 includes unspecified updates. If all you want is a quick image retouch, Photoshop is overkill. Paint.NET, on the other hand, is an open-source freeware editor with all the essentials, including tools to crop, rotate, resize images, adjust colors, and create collages. Paint.NET supports common image formats--JPEG, PNG, GIF, TIFF, and others--but not high-resolution RAW files. There are enough basic and intermediate effects and features to keep image-tweakers happy, though the red-eye removal tool is notably weak; those images may require manual attention. Unlike most free image editors, Paint.NET supports layers and has an actions manager. The pleasing interface boasts semitransparent windows for ease of use. Version 3 fixes many old quibbles, including a convenient thumbnail manager for handling multiple image editing, and improved program graphics. Paint.NET is far more advanced than Microsoft Paint, and given its free price, it's a must-have for anyone needing to fix images.
Audacity is a free, cross-platform, open source program for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
iDump will allow you transfer your songs off your iPod to a PC. iDump
does have an installer program. You simply drop the .exe in the root directory
on your iPod and run it from there. Select
the songs you want to transfer then pick a destination directory and how you
would like your songs to be named then sit back and transfer all the selected
songs to the PC. This program can be used to share music with others illegally. That’s wrong. You should only use this program to recover music you own.
OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages like Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access). It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. Please note: This is a very
large download. If you have a dial-up Internet connection or just don't want to
be bothered downloading OpenOffice, please contact me
for a CD. |
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