Top Free Desktop/Laptop Software Suggestions

[liafailrock]

Actually, the most prevalent OS is Android now, but we were talking about personal computers and laptops, which Windows still leads by far. In fact they make up 95% of that market and Linux, Chrome and MacOS make up 5% together. This of course is based on LEGAL sales, but nobody knows what those computers are converted to, if indeed they are.

There has been no need to do registry cleans or defrags for the last 4 Windows OS's, that was just marketing. I've never had a problem with viruses because I maintain a "garbage in garbage out" mentality and don't let anything into my pc that I don't know about.

LOL this is a "converted" computer to Linux Ubuntu. But I agree that MS has the majority in those markets yet with desktop and laptops (which I already mentioned) but my point was that the computer as we know it is switching to the other types in which a good portion of the population is switching over to now. For example, let's say a typical young American husband-wife team has one desktop, hubby has a notebook, each have a tablet and smart phone. That's not 2 computers but 6. 4 of them are probably not Microsoft. So while the desktop and notebook are probably Microsoft, we can say 100% MS if only talking about those kinds of computers. But if we consider all of them, MS is in the minority. And even with notebook or laptops, that depends on the crowd. Take for instance my son's age (now 25) before graduating from a University in Boston. Since something like 70% of that younger student crowd preferred and owned a Mac over MS, these same people are starting to marry today. I think where MS makes up the slack is in the corporate world who are so resistant to change and/or people who can't afford computers or ol' grampa with a clunky desktop yet.

Back in our Microsofting days here at home, I kept the computers clean, and I know what went into them because back then I built them. Certainly, I did not have the viruses that most people had. Maybe my one or two to the average person's 60 or more. Bit I respectfully disagree that we just have to "watch what we click" or "watch what we load". [SIZE=13.63636302948px]That's the Trojan part. [/SIZE] Any operating system can be compromised that way. I'm talking about drive-by's; viruses one gets without even trying. Every once in awhile I love to recap the 5 ways I already picked up a virus:

1) By doing something as innocent as reading an email. No clicking on attachments, no downloading. What I learned there was to close the preview pane AND read the SOURCE CODE only of any incoming unknown emails (that's normal, to walk on eggshells like that?)
2) Typos in the address bar. Heaven forbid if you type www.goggle.com instead of www.google.com (don't try that with an MS computer unless you have 5 hours fixing it tonight)
3) Jumping browsers. Sometimes we click before everything completely loads. I was ready to click on FTP flowers and the screen jumped and I clicked on "Mickey's girl fun place" just under it by accident. Of course a critic would say wait until you are sure it loads. With Microsoft, do we have 3 hours each time we want to load a page? (showing this is a symptom of another problem).
4) Looking up a picture. We had rats at my workplace so I wanted to get educated. I search pictures of rats, and I clicked on a picture with a normal sounding web site name. It was not some weird Goth sounding place or whatever in which a person who clicks there deserves what they get. The address sounded reasonable. Well, the web site was probably hacked anyway .... got a virus. (Not the only picture I clicked on that had a virus BTW, so with MS I learned I could not even enjoy that simple pleasure of looking things up by pictures)
5) One time, on an innocent Christian forum like this one, people warned not to click on the link that they picked up a virus. So I just hovered the cursor over the link to see what the address was and write it down. I then used my Android Tablet and a "Linux live CD" on another computer to see what it was about by going to that site. I could see they had a zillion pop-ups but nothing that hurts those computers-- it was one of those phony promo sites that downloaded spyware. When I came back, the MS computer had a virus! Never even clicked on it. Some theorized coincidentally that one of their ads on the site infected computers -- again, no operator intervention.

So for the critics out there who once told me (or people like me), "Well you must have clicked on something!" Tell me, what was my transgression in these 5 cases? And anyone can try to explain to me why walking on eggshells like that is "normal"? Now the younger population are using other types of 'computers' mainly smartphones and tablets and I don't think the very youngest even know what malware is any longer.... proving it can be done. Even in schools today the notebook of choice is usually google chrome (which is really Linux) and Mac's. The former is cheapest which is why.

 

[StanJ]

LOL this is a "converted" computer to Linux Ubuntu. But I agree that MS has the majority in those markets yet with desktop and laptops (which I already mentioned) but my point was that the computer as we know it is switching to the other types in which a good portion of the population is switching over to now. For example, let's say a typical young American husband-wife team has one desktop, hubby has a notebook, each have a tablet and smart phone. That's not 2 computers but 6. 4 of them are probably not Microsoft. So while the desktop and notebook are probably Microsoft, we can say 100% MS if only talking about those kinds of computers. But if we consider all of them, MS is in the minority. And even with notebook or laptops, that depends on the crowd. Take for instance my son's age (now 25) before graduating from a University in Boston. Since something like 70% of that younger student crowd preferred and owned a Mac over MS, these same people are starting to marry today. I think where MS makes up the slack is in the corporate world who are so resistant to change and/or people who can't afford computers or ol' grampa with a clunky desktop yet.

Back in our Microsofting days here at home, I kept the computers clean, and I know what went into them because back then I built them. Certainly, I did not have the viruses that most people had. Maybe my one or two to the average person's 60 or more. Bit I respectfully disagree that we just have to "watch what we click" or "watch what we load". [SIZE=13.63px]That's the Trojan part. [/SIZE] Any operating system can be compromised that way. I'm talking about drive-by's; viruses one gets without even trying. Every once in awhile I love to recap the 5 ways I already picked up a virus:

1) By doing something as innocent as reading an email. No clicking on attachments, no downloading. What I learned there was to close the preview pane AND read the SOURCE CODE only of any incoming unknown emails (that's normal, to walk on eggshells like that?)
2) Typos in the address bar. Heaven forbid if you type www.goggle.com instead of www.google.com (don't try that with an MS computer unless you have 5 hours fixing it tonight)
3) Jumping browsers. Sometimes we click before everything completely loads. I was ready to click on FTP flowers and the screen jumped and I clicked on "Mickey's girl fun place" just under it by accident. Of course a critic would say wait until you are sure it loads. With Microsoft, do we have 3 hours each time we want to load a page? (showing this is a symptom of another problem).
4) Looking up a picture. We had rats at my workplace so I wanted to get educated. I search pictures of rats, and I clicked on a picture with a normal sounding web site name. It was not some weird Goth sounding place or whatever in which a person who clicks there deserves what they get. The address sounded reasonable. Well, the web site was probably hacked anyway .... got a virus. (Not the only picture I clicked on that had a virus BTW, so with MS I learned I could not even enjoy that simple pleasure of looking things up by pictures)
5) One time, on an innocent Christian forum like this one, people warned not to click on the link that they picked up a virus. So I just hovered the cursor over the link to see what the address was and write it down. I then used my Android Tablet and a "Linux live CD" on another computer to see what it was about by going to that site. I could see they had a zillion pop-ups but nothing that hurts those computers-- it was one of those phony promo sites that downloaded spyware. When I came back, the MS computer had a virus! Never even clicked on it. Some theorized coincidentally that one of their ads on the site infected computers -- again, no operator intervention.

So for the critics out there who once told me (or people like me), "Well you must have clicked on something!" Tell me, what was my transgression in these 5 cases? And anyone can try to explain to me why walking on eggshells like that is "normal"? Now the younger population are using other types of 'computers' mainly smartphones and tablets and I don't think the very youngest even know what malware is any longer.... proving it can be done. Even in schools today the notebook of choice is usually google chrome (which is really Linux) and Mac's. The former is cheapest which is why.

Desktops and laptops are what IS considered personal computers. Smart Phones and Tablets are just that, NOT PCs. So, from THAT perspective, PCs are 95% Microsoft OS. I agree that today one has to WAIT for a page to load before clicking away, but that is still be careful. browser high jacking is not as prevalent as it once used to be, but it can still happen. I personally have NEVER been infected by clicking on a link or picture, but then again I take precautions and was a big fan of Steve Gibson way back in the day. I guess my point is because the majority of hackers want to effect the most people at any one time, they hack MS for just that reason. If one's browsing habits get them in trouble, I'm not sure that is really Microsoft's problem or fault.

I don't walk on eggshells when I browse, because I have proactively kept my system and all preventative measures up to date. Usually it's people that don't do that and are mostly using it for porn, warez or bit torrent, that run into all the virus problems.

The reason Macs were so popular in schools was because Apple had a very long term plan in mind to influence students at the youngest levels. It was smart, but IMO not very successful given that they only occupy roughly 2% of the PC market. Smart phones are another issue and I give them full props for penetrating that market so well, but Samsung is now kicking their butt in that market, and the MAIN reason is that their equipment is far to pricey compared to Android phones. In that market, MS is performing dismally, but it is the biggest growing market now so kudos to Samsung and Apple for being 1/2. I use an Android Tablet most of the time when I'm online.

 

[DanielGarneau]

[...] I use CCleaner for cleaning registry. [...]

[...] I don't trust ANY registry cleaners. The need is sold to us by those that invent them. [...]

Thank you prashanhd and StanJ for your posts about IT software, especially about CCleaner, which existence I am glad to be reminded of, as well as the warning to use it with care.

 

[StanJ]

Discovered a great FREE keyboard app for Android today. Hacker's Keyboard is great for those of us that love using keyboard shortcuts in Windows. Now finally, I have a keyboard that uses the HOME & END keys for browser use in Android. It also allows me to open the keyboard on demand in any screen.
Love it!

 

[jlm]

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