Essential/Critical Software that tries to make XP almost as safe as OS X or Linux:
- Firewalls:
- ZoneAlarm Firewall (outbound firewall, the integral XP firewall is pretty good for inbound crap, but ZoneAlarm can block trojans and other malware from getting out)
- Anti-Spyware (run both of these):
- Ad-Aware 2007 v7.0.2.6
- Spybot Search and Destroy v1.5.2.20
- Anti-Virus (McAfee and Norton/Symantec have let the consumer down):
- AVG v7.5.519
Useful Applications:
- Text Editor (because Notepad sucks):
- Putty (terminal emulation, ssh client)
- Some prefer: Secure CRT (commercial, about $100 per seat)
- Firefox (The Gold Standard Web Browser)
- Opera (The Fastest/Lightest Web Browser on Windows)
- Safari (Another Web Browser)
- Cygwin (UNIX-like environment for Windows)
- iTunes (music player, podcast-catcher, cd-ripper)
- VideoLAN (multi-format video player)
- Thunderbird (email application)
- Synergy (share keyboard, mouse, cut&paste buffer between several computers)
- Remember to use PuTTY or SecureCRT to start an ssh tunnel, and configure Synergy to use local host rather than your Synergy server so your keystrokes and cut&paste buffer are protected and private. Here are instructions I used to do this.
- Sandboxie (virtual machine to run MS Internet Explorer in so IE cannot hijack your real machine)
- Forte Agent (Commercial $30 USENET news reader and email client)
- Pidgin (open source AIM client, replaces GAIM)
- Some prefer: AIM v5.9 (Be sure to use the older version 5.9; v6 is crappy bloatware)
- Launchy (application launcher and index)
- Some prefer: AppRocket ($9 commercial launcher)
- Ruckus Player (Music discovery)
- Acrobat Reader
- iTunes (Music and Podcast player)
- QuickTime (video player)
- Mozilla Thunderbird (because Outlook is crap)
- Whisper 32 Password Manager
- Motorola i580 USB – Handset Manager
- ShoreTel Call Manager
- DriveImage-XML for backups
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