I'm just wondering what you guys use as your system utilities.

PeerGuardian 2 - http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
Privacy protection.

ZoneAlarm - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp
Firewall.

AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/doc/1
Antivirus.

SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
Passive spyware protection.

Spybot-S&D - http://www.safer-networking.org/
Active spyware protection.

Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Active spyware protection.

RegScrubXP - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2048
Registry cleaning and stuff.

Firefox - http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Web browser.

Opera - http://www.opera.com/
Web browser.

TuneXP - http://www.driverheaven.net/dforce/default.php
Windows tweaking and stuff.

Names in Italics (and with different color) are only nescesary if you are in a troublesome situation, or something not usually recommended.
Names in bold are definately nescesary and/or very good to have.
Names in Underline are the ones that I currently own.


PeerGuardian 2 - http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/
Privacy protection.

ZoneAlarm - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/home.jsp
Firewall. (Overall ZoneAlarm is essential, but for inexperienced users it can fuck up your cache and restrict your access to the internet to a big extent.)

AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/doc/1
Antivirus.

SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
Passive spyware protection.

Spybot-S&D - http://www.safer-networking.org/
Active spyware protection.

Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
Active spyware protection.

RegScrubXP - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2048
Registry cleaning and stuff.

Firefox - http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
Web browser.

Opera - http://www.opera.com/
Web browser.

TuneXP - http://www.driverheaven.net/dforce/default.php
Windows tweaking and stuff.

Okay, now onto freeware that I have.

Hijackthis - www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/
For creating a log of all your currently run programs and some values of the registry written down so you can submit it to technicians or people who know how to make use of that list for use for when your computer is infected by a virus, or that you suspect that you have one.

Process Explorer - www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html
A usefull tool to check the current processes running on your system. Good for killing certain processes and seeing what process it is, and it also shows registry values that are related to that certain process. You can see a tree of processes to know which processes originated from what program if possible.

There was another utility to decrease your boot time and optimize it through arrangement of boot processes automatically, but I forgot what website it is from, and what the name of it is.

Erm.. Firefox isn't as essential as having a good firewall such as Zonealarm you know? Internet Explorer isn't the best but it's a decent browser as long as you're careful when installing stuff or it'll get full of junk.

I also find it funny how you don't put the anti virus program in bold (AVG) while that's also more essential than Firefox. In fact, having a good virusscanner and Firewall will prevent a lot of bad stuff to happen. Put a good anti-spyware program on top of that and even internet explorer users should be reasonably safe (as long as they aren't idiots or something).

Hijackthis is a very dangerous tool if you don't know what you're doing, I wouldn't recommend it to people unless they're major geeks or something.

With the bittorrent clients Zonealarm restricts them. Just a fair warning.

Erm.. Firefox isn't as essential as having a good firewall such as Zonealarm you know? Internet Explorer isn't the best but it's a decent browser as long as you're careful when installing stuff or it'll get full of junk.

I also find it funny how you don't put the anti virus program in bold (AVG) while that's also more essential than Firefox. In fact, having a good virusscanner and Firewall will prevent a lot of bad stuff to happen. Put a good anti-spyware program on top of that and even internet explorer users should be reasonably safe (as long as they aren't idiots or something).

Hijackthis is a very dangerous tool if you don't know what you're doing, I wouldn't recommend it to people unless they're major geeks or something.

I have been asking people what anti virus AVG is, and so far I havent gotten any response yet so I havent done anything to AVG yet, but if you want I can bold it.
Yes Hijackthis is only used for experienced users because it has the potential to damage your sysyem. I will change the list when I get back.

Dual boot Linux (I'm uber n00b). It about covers them all..

But on my Windows boot (Shadow knows them already):

Anime O'Matic 0.5 (aniDB.info) (program in conjunction with AniDB.info)
--Become a member of AniDB, and this utility is your best friend. No more eDonkey hash dumps! Just click the file and archive it! It even keeps an offline version of it's database.

Azureus (http://azureus.sourceforge.net/)
--Java bittorent client that brings all others to shame.

Bitcomet (http://www.bitcomet.com/)
--Not the best bittorrent client out there, but it still works

BSPlayer (http://www.bsplayer.org/)
--One of my deadly 5 video players. If a video file does not play on one, it will surely play on the other!

CDisplay (http://www.geocities.com/davidayton/CDisplay)
--A sequecial Image viewer (more so a comic viewer). It can scan inside of zip files and allow full screen previews

Damn NFO Viewer (http://www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Text-editors/DAMN-NFO-Viewer.shtml)
--NFO files natural home. Nolonger do you open them with Notepad :)

DVD Decrypter (http://www.afterdawn.com/software/video_software/dvd_rippers/dvd_decrypter.cfm)
--Places a 1 to 1 backup of a dvd on your hard drive (and probibly does more, but I'm too lazy)

DVD Shrink 3.2 (http://www.dvdshrink.org/)
--Takes a DL video DVD and changes it to a single layer

Easy H10 (http://www.misticriver.net/wiki/index.php/Easy_H10) (for iRiver H10 Media Jukebox)
--Uses an exploit on my Media Jukebox to allow exteral an non propritary sync

Easy Realmedia Producer (http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?s=&threadid=73228)
--See RMVB>>AVI in sig

Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/)
--My one stop web browser. I haven't used IE in 2 years now.

Free Download Manager (http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/)
--Used with Firefox's Flashgot extention, it allows multiple streams in a download.

Gaim (http://gaim.sourceforge.net/)
--AIM, YIM, MSN, Jabber, Google Talk, ICQ, and IRC all rolled into one client

HashCalc (http://www.slavasoft.com/hashcalc/index.htm)
--Hash identifyer (Used to create file verification codes (MD5, eMule, CRC32, SHA1, and more))

Media Player Classic (http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/)
--The next of the deadly 5 Media players.

mp3tag 2.33 (http://www.mp3tag.de/en/)
--Mass MP3 tag alterations and archiving tool

mplayer (http://www.mplayerhq.hu/)
--One of the deadly 5 video players. Somewhat a bitch to set up, but it is awsome once it's working. As effective, if not, better than VLC. Did I mention it comes with a re-encoder? :shifty:

Notepad ++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/)
--Nice litte upgrade from the standard notepad that seconds as a source code editor

Object Dock (http://www.objectdock.com/) (plus)
--I hate... HATE windows taskbar. I replace it with this tiny bar that resembles a Mac counterpart

OpenOffice (http://www.openoffice.org/)
--Alternative to Microsoft Office. It does everything the same.

RealAnime 3.2 (http://www.detritus.qc.ca/)
--See AVI>>RMVB in my sig

Smart FTP (http://www.smartftp.com/)
--Quick, simple FTP client. It does what it's suppost to do.

Spybot S&D (http://www.safer-networking.org/)
--Anti-Spyware. No keylogers here.

Thunderbird (http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/)
--Mail Client. If you can't tell by now, I hate Microsoft.

Winamp (http://www.winamp.com/)
--The weakest media player of my freeware set.

WinRAR (http://www.rarlab.com/)
--Zip Client

Ventrilo (http://www.ventrilo.com/)
--VoiP client; requires a server to run.

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/)
--My last Media Player.

Lol, Openoffice does the same as M$ Office? It gets close, but doesn't do quite as much. But I guess for Microsoft haters it's the only decent thing out there. But if you hate M$ so much, buy an apple or download Linux, BSD or Zeta.

It's so hypocritical to be using Windows and then shouting you hate MS.

I'm in the works of learning Linux (hense my n00bship and the dual booting - I'm also a little pissed about the work you have to put into WINE in order to run window's videogames/programs on linux; while they do supply just about everything, somethings are irreplaceible). I'm just too timid to make the absolute shift.

I got Wine to work on the first try. Lol.

I waiting until the new linux comes out before I make the switch.

New versions of Linux come out around the clock. What do you mean with "the new Linux"?

I think he's talking about Blue Linux by IBM.

Why wait for that? Fedora Core and Suse are excellent products and very easy to use.

None the less. I'm waiting for a new computer as well, that way I can run linux and my mom and sister can use Windows.

Make games that look like Final Fantasy 1-5.

Custom (http://hamsterrepublic.com/ohrrpgce/index.php/Downloads.html)^_^

I use tools from Sysinternals (http://www.sysinternals.com/) ALL the time at work. Also I highly recommend unxutils (http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/) for people like me who want the unix CLI tools in Windows but hate cygwin

A small tip to everyone: beware of ZoneAlarm (slows connection), O&O products (serious bugs), and HijackThis (for advanced users ONLY).

Heres my tools (get the sites on your time!):

SubSeven 2.2 Beta (oh wait...)

Everything from Sysinternals is awesome and solid...

AVG

Spybot S&D

Firefox

Steganos Security Suite 2006

Steganos Antispyware 2006

HijackThis

Webroot Spysweeper

System Mechanic 6 Professional

Kapersky Antivirus

Kerio Personal Firewall

Sygate Personal Firewall

Xoft-Spy

Free-RAM

PerfectDisk Defragmentation

PowerDefrag (Excelent, and command line!)

VLC Media Player

Ultimate Boot CD 4.0

MuenetOS (My own os that runs live from floppy)

I have some more tools, but I will have to update this later.

and My Greatest tool of all..

Red Hat Linux: Fedora Core. I'm now all Linux. Alas, learning shell is taking forever though, but as soon as I do, I'll go Gentoo/Fedora Core/Blue (triple boot!!).

Only one additional tool for that, F-Prot Virus Scanner - http://www.f-prot.com/products/home_use/linux/

It runs from shell command!! You'll have to do a cron job to have it scan your whole file system, because it will only do one file at a time, and you have to run a scan before you can update. It sounds like a lot of work, especially with no widespread Linux viruses, but it is well worth it, and this is an excellent product.

Oh, and Shadow-chi, he is right. You should use Ubuntu, Fedora Core or maybe Suse 7.0/9.0 before Blue comes out. You can't switch overnight. Try running the Ubuntu live CD for a while. After that, I think you should be pretty well prepared. The only transfer easier that to Ubuntu would be to Linspire. I have a few good texts, and one awesome book on Fedora Core, "Linux Transfer for Windows Power Users".