Claire's Random Thoughts

This is post 2/7 in my weekly series of my Top Free Applications

I picked AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition, even though it’s not open source, because it’s free and has protected my computer for the past few years. Since this great program has served me for years, I figured I could return the favor by promoting the program for anyone hasn’t heard of it yet. For personal use, I would consider this the best security suite, and many people seem to agree with me, because it’s currently the most frequently downloaded program from download.com. If you are currently a paid subscriber of any security software, such as McAfee or Norton, AVG Free Edition may be an effective and cost efficient alternative.

Looking back at my post yesterday, you can probably see that I prefer software with a bundle of features rather than a separate program for every function. AVG does a good job with bundling security features into one package anti-virus, anti-spyware, email scanning, and an option of real-time protection (when I currently have disabled, because it is annoying when you are trying to install anything that can potentially modify a registry file). If you look at this page to compare the free and paid editions of AVG, you will see that the free edition already has most of the essential features.

The only feature that is not in the free edition that I would use regularly is a firewall. However, this minor drawback is not enough to deter me from choosing this security suite over other ones, paid or free. If anyone decides to use AVG Free Edition and needs a firewall, it is fairly easy to search for a free one from download.com, but I have no single favorite recommendation at the moment.

I will spend this week, the week of November 17, blogging about my seven favorite legally free applications, one per day. The majority of software I use is open source, because I can find no reason to justify paying for software when I can use a free and often better alternative. Some paid software, such as Microsoft Office, is not only ineffectively written but also highly priced, so I support the open source versions of programs with similar functions.

I am not saying that the programs I am going to introduce this week are the best available in their categories, even compared to the highest class paid versions, but they are my choices, because they are just as suitable for my needs as paid software would be, and I always look for cost effectiveness (i.e. As long as you’re not a professional graphic designer, you can perform all your needed photo editing functions using GIMP, even though the most expensive version of Photoshop probably does have more features, features that the average user will never need). After all, I am a poor college student at this point in life and have better things to spend hundreds of dollars on other than software. I hope readers of this week’s entries can find something useful and save more than few bucks at the same time.

Sure, some will tell me that the standard more popular software can be free too from bittorrent or P2P sites, but isn’t that the same thing as calling them “free” if you’re willing to steal them from the store?

Pre-determined list:
1. Seamonkey all-in-one internet application suite
2. AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
3. FileZilla FTP Client
4. Cerulean Studios Trillian
5. OpenOffice.org
6. VLC media player
7. Stepmania

Stay posted the week of November 16, 2008 for my personal reviews, features, and tips about these programs.

Update: This weekly series is now complete