Recommend software you find

[benji]

I hate how Vista+ are so good at protecting Windows. I just ran a bunch of the highest rated "optimizers" (disk cleaners, registry cleaners, etc.) including the ones I shared above on my laptop while playing Sanctum 2. Not a single one broke anything from what I can tell. Plus they all mostly agreed on what was "to be fixed" except for minor things.

Ahh for the days of 98 or XP losing key information that some random program flagged as unnecessary. Or when every program wanted to redo everything so they'd just increase the errors all the others found.

The Wise Cleaners (Disk and Registry) and Auslogics Registry stuff seem pretty decent and unobtrusive. If anyone wants to toy with something beyond CCleaner. Although Auslogics own Registry Cleaner disagrees with their own Disk Defrag in the "post-usage FULL SYSTEM SCAN", which then disagrees with the Registry Cleaner's opinion on disk fragmentation. Both suggest I buy their paid software suite. Which is kinda odd, you'd think they'd agree on how many errors are found...

IOBit's Advanced SystemCare is something that would totally get some self-declared poweruser (who never games and just uses Office and the internet, maybe rips CDs or converts audio/video) to use it constantly. Even though it likes to install itself all over the system and into browsers and refuses to share its details completely upfront ala CCleaner or Auslogics or Wise. I can see why it has like a five star rating on every site and was a PICK OF THE YEAR on a bunch of sites/magazine.

I think if I'm helping someone I might stick to keeping CCleaner portable and Auslogics Disk Defrag portable still on my one usb stick. Maybe I'll stick the Auslogics (because it scans everything not just the "extra safe" stuff CCleaner does) and Wise (because it has lots of options and also offers an easy way to get rid of things like Chinese language, Windows installer cache, etc. to free up space) things on there if they also have portable versions. A lot of these grander things I don't exactly trust. (Even if they don't seem to have fucked up my laptop and did clean another 400MB off and probably 150 more registry entries.)

Advanced SystemCare improved my Laptop from a half smile to a FULL SMILE. I kinda want to run on it something horrible just to see the FULL FROWN. Too bad all the females I know seem to have moved onto iPads or whatever instead of fucking up their laptops every six months.

Scary fact: One of them fucked up their Windows so hard I couldn't figure out what the hell to do with it, it would take like ten minutes to load FireFox from scratch so she just left it open which I'm sure was helping whatever malware just wreck up the joint. They of course didn't have the recovery disk. (Although a shocking number of people I know have kept it around, and barely ever have any data, a couple I was able to back up everything onto a 4GB flash drive lol...it was always fun to go back into a fresh XP and see all the windows updates offered) I asked her what exactly she thought she'd need to use it every day for, facebook, music, etc. So I wiped it out and installed Ubuntu and showed her each of the equivalents. She didn't really seem to get it except FireFox was the same, and I kinda gave up thinking at least she had that. Like two years later she gets a new laptop finally and asks me to put it how it was aka with all the Ubuntu equivalents of Windows stuff.

Scarier Fact: First time I saw her Windows laptop she had like seven months of uninstalled Windows Updates. For whatever reason she kept up to date on the Ubuntu updates because she checked them regularly. (Helps that's how you update every program I suppose.)

Scariest Fact: She learned to type "ubuntu [whatever she wanted]" into google and eventually found the software center due to this.

[Leftos]

I've been always wary of those automatic clean-up facilities, especially those that just scream BUY BUY BUY for the most basic features. I'll use CCleaner once in a while, and MyDefrag's nice schedules (Automatic Daily and Automatic Monthly).

I tried SlimDrivers, and its interface is not only bloated, but has the definition look of malware scam software. Plus, it's poorly programmed. Although it found that my audio and chipset drivers needed updating, whenever I used it to download and install a driver, it was constantly using a core of my CPU at full. Have they set their polling algorithm at "every CPU cycle"?

[benji]

I actually didn't use its download method beyond one that failed since apparently that hardware didn't exist, I just went onto what it reported's website to see if there were new drivers.

It's an interesting concept though. Crowdsourcing this stuff instead of whatever other things are doing. And scanning for new drivers across all hardware is still kinda useful.

The mass automatic things have always made me wary. CCleaner is quite upfront about what it's doing. And I like using it to get rid of Chrome, Opera and Firefox's cache among others if nothing else since it'll do them all in one program. Though I guess I need it less now that I have a 2TB C drive so cleaning out that gig or so a week is less important. Still lets the browsers boot faster.

I like Auslogics Disk Defrag and have used it for years even if I'm more wary of their Registry stuff. Didn't see anything too crazy out of those though. (And it has a "clean Safe only!") Even if they all try to sell the all-in-one software.

If you have a spare PC, Advanced SystemCare is kinda fun to use though. As it scans through like a billion things for half an hour and then reports all these "errors" and offers one button to REPAIR.

One of these I installed, forget which, "found" GB's worth of "junk files" and oddly 99% of them were in the Steam folder. Basically all just assets for the games with nonsense file extensions. One was like textures.CNB. Should go back and figure out which was that.

[zyco187]

so many good wares where to start....

roboform....never type in forum registration information EVER again. and the option to auto login to every website
google drive....free cloud space
dxtory...THE BEST VIDEO CAPTURE SOFTWARE EVER
vlc media player...i like this player bc I can select the audio channel I want. ie 5.1 and know that im watching a movie in surround sound
DFX audio enhancer....make your $100 set of speakers sound like $500
raidcall....free teamspeak-like servers for your clan
audacity...free music editiing
display fusion...multiple monitor software
irfanview...free photo editing....very fast editor
advanced system care....choose what apps load when you boot sytem even delayed option for large apps like display fusion
core temp...watch your cpu temps and has win7 gadgets dl
GPU observer...win7 gadget for watching gpu load and temp
videopad video editor...free
fraps...fps counter and screenshoter + some video capture
razer game booster...gets 15+ FPS on dayz
open broadcaster....better than xsplit with better FPS and free HD streaming


i know im forgetting some

[koberulz]

roboform....never type in forum registration information EVER again. and the option to auto login to every website

I have a program that does this, too.

It's called Firefox.

[JaoSming]

not software, but the Windows Key + P changes the mode your computer is in with multiple monitors. So only on monitor 1 or 2, duplicate and extend displays are choosable.

[Lean]

Imageware's Noiseware is a good noise filter for images. Shame it's not freeware. But it's powerful enough to remove noise from images.

[jenz]

Even I, can't believe it. A few days ago, firefox was acting up on my laptop. I tried using Internet Explorer 10. It has improved a lot. Now it's my default browser.

[cyanide]

Even I, can't believe it. A few days ago, firefox was acting up on my laptop. I tried using Internet Explorer 10. It has improved a lot. Now it's my default browser.

Blasphemy. Try Chrome.

[jenz]

Heh, I'm not saying it's the best browser. It's just refreshing not to feel annoyed when using IE. I still like firefox better than chrome. I just keep chrome installed for the "other stuff".

[shadowgrin]

Anonymous browsing in Chrome I see.

[agolden]

Foobar2000 + iTunes-like Skin + foo_pod + music + actual iPod Nano 7th Gen = Screw iTunes I hate you, never installed you and never will.

DVD Flick is nice if you're using Win8 and want to burn movie DVDs but can't because there's no built-in software.

ImgBurn for ripping my PS2 games to my PC.

Songza because I hate Pandora and the like.

LOVE for playing micro-games that random college devs made in 10 minutes.

[Leftos]

I've been an 8tracks fan for quite a few years now, but I'll give Songza a try. They're on pretty much everything, so I'm going to get it through "The Leftos Test": Can it give me good music to fall asleep to? 8tracks > chill+electronic has worked wonders so far.

[deihatein]

The only software that I can recommend so far is Keepas which is a password manager so that I can keep track of every username and password I have registered with in websites.

There is also TeamViewer so that I could just connect with my laptop/desktop for easy file sharing.

[Andrew]

The only software that I can recommend so far is Keepas which is a password manager so that I can keep track of every username and password I have registered with in websites.

Just gave it a look. Not a bad idea.

[Leftos]

I'm using LastPass for the same reason. They're on pretty much every platform, and the annual fee to use it on mobile and tablet is just $12. Worth it since I'm able to carry unique, long and complex passwords everywhere with me. Auto-Fills/Auto-Logins on most websites on desktop, supports copy-paste on Android, along with a Dolphin Browser Plug-In to auto-fill... Pretty much has everything I need.