What are your essential programs?

Originally Posted by SonicEchidna

Firefox: It's the best web browser that I've used. Fully customizable too. Me likes.
Nero: Makes burning CD's and DVD's simple.
FileZilla: Since my ISP doesn't let me use BitTorrent, then this is the next best thing. Especially on GFF.
MS Office: Simply because it's the best for my college work. I haven't tried OpenOffice, but I'm happy with what I've got, so why change?

I use FileZilla as well, but not the client; the server. It's easy to use, and someone wanted to give a file via FTP, what better way than using my PC for the transfer?

Just a few that I have on each computer I own:

- Winamp - My primary music player.

- Firefox - I switched to this browser after having problems with IE, and I haven't changed since.

- WMP/BS Player - I tend to use both in case one file doesn't work with one player.

- Trillian - I find it easier to have all chat programs in one.

- MS Office - Necessary for school.

- Bitcomet - I've been using this one for awhile now, and I haven't had any problems with it.

- mIRC - Although I don't chat much or use it for getting files anymore, it remains on my computer in case I need it.

My essentials:

Adium - the best multi-IM client on OS X, hands down.

Transmit - the best FTP client anywhere, hands down.

Colloquy - my favorite IRC client yet.


Most of the other apps I use every day come with the OS already: Safari (my web browser of choice), Mail, iTunes, Address Book and iCal... OS X has lots of sweet included apps.

Essentials....

Ad-Aware: Use with Ad-watcher kill adware + spyware
Azureus: Torrents, whoring memory
BbLean: :aargh: sex with my desktop.
Internet Explorer: For sites that hate Firefox
Mozilla Firefox: Tabbed Browsing, whoring memory
Mozilla Thunderbird: Email
Photoshop CS 2: Digital art
Media Player Classic: /w ffdshow to play movies
Microsoft Office: Reports
Ms Paint: Quick editing, pixel art
Total Recorder: Recording music from protected files.
Trillian Pro 3: Multi-Im, though I only use AIM, kinda whores memory
Spybot - Search & Destroy: Combine with Ad-Aware
Typing of the Dead: Working up WPM:juggler:

So far, these are probably the ones I'd go and immediately reinstall:

Trillian - I have to stay in contact with my people (minus a few)
Winamp - I need it to listen to my soundtracks that are in other formats
WavePad - I use this program to make voice clips
MS Office 2003 - since I bought it for $200, I think I'd better keep using it
BitLord - my favorite BitTorrent client
WinRAR - I don't like WinZip or the one that's installed in Windows anymore
Acoustica MP3 Audio Mixer - I'm beginning to mess with recordings now
Nero - I don't like the program that came with the computer
DCPlusPlus - pretty self-explanatory

I find myself installing the following programs whenever I format my computer:

Winrar - First and foremost, I need it unpack all of my things. I think its version 3.40, I suppose its time I look for a updated version.

Autopatcher - Helps me quickly update winxp without getting my internet to work.

AVG, Sygate firewall, Spybot, & CCleaner - The minimum I'll install before browsing the internet.

Firefox 1.5 - I need not explain =).

Winamp 5.2 or foobar2k - It really depends on the computer I'm working on, but it never hurts to have the ability to play music.

MSN 7.5 - I'd use AIM but most of my friends are on this IM client.

Smartftp - Never hurts to have it around. And perhaps use it to grab any programs I forgot to toss in my usb drive.

Microsoft Office - Its better than wordpad ._.

Mozilla Firefox - Obviously used for web browsing and having many pages open at the same times in multiple tabs. Adblock alone makes this just about the best web browser avalible.

Mozilla Thunderbird - Fast, customizable and easy to use E-Mail client. Granted it currently lacks some features of MS Outlook (i.e. a calendar) but for personal use it works just fine.

Foobar2000 0.8.3 - The only player for music on my system. Its customization options, ease of use and high system performance set this apart from all the rest in my opinion. It is really the only player that enables you to have full control over the playback chain. From output method, to the DSP array, you can achieve optimal playback quality with just about any sound card.

Media Player Classic - My first choice for media playback. Supports a plethora of internal filters, output (both audio and video) rendering methods, resize options (i.e. customized pan and scan of 16:9 clips) and direct support for inline subtitles. With the right codec packs, you can basically playback any a/v format currently in use today. And of course, it is very resource friendly.\

Miranda IM - My IM client of choice. Supports just about every IM protocol, which enables you to manage all of your accounts from one place and ensure you are always connected to your buds. This is also very customizable and external plug-ins can add a wide range of functionality to the program. Not good if you want to do fancy things like voice chat with the latest version of MSN messenger, but more than adequate if you just want to chat and maybe sent files from time to time.

uTorrent - After using BitComet for about two years, I wound up settling on this baby as my new client of choice (after BC became banned by just about every tracker I frequented.) The installation itself is small (runs from a singe executable) and uses system resources quite efficiently, even for torrents with a great deal of seeds/leechers.

CoolEditPro 2 - My audio editing/album mastering program of choice at the moment. It offers a wide range of options for the editing and manipulation of audio clips and recordings. Multi-track mode is great when you want to have full control of a stereo mixdown form a multi-channel source as you can easily move clips around (from channel to channel or backwards/forwards in the timeline.) It is a bit buggy though, and really memory hungry but only for really large files recorded at high sample rates.

Aston Shell - My GUI replacement of choice. Provides a nice alternative to Explorer and enable greater customization of the interface. Not exactly what I would call my favorite program, but I have grown to live with it.

Xnews - A great newsreader that is best use to download content from newsgroups. Several aspects of this program annoy me, including how it always pops up a dialogue offering to search Google if a post is not found on the server (which is annoying if you are navigating though sets of images); and the fact that several key functions (i.e. Next Message) cannot be assigned a shortcut key

Nero Burning ROM - My CD/DVD burning program of choice. Offers a great deal of options and is easy to use.

Microsoft Office - I primarily use this for editing/composing Word documents and spellchecking every forum post I make (yes I do it every time.) I used to use Excel quite frequently for school, but now I use it only if decide I need to compile data for miscellaneous things (like price lists, job hours reporting, etc.) I could just use OpenOffice, but I have found it easier to just use something that is recognizable by 95% of people I will sent things to.

CuteFTP - Have been using an ancient version of this FTP client for about 5-6 years now. I have tried running an updated version of this program before but was never able to get it working. This is one of those things that has always worked, so I never see reason to fix it.

SpyBot S&D - My only line of defense against unauthorized changes to my system (since I do not run A/V software.) Is really helpful in pinpointing know suspicious files and registry entries, and features some really powerful system tools (for editing the HOSTS file, viewing registers network protocols, securely shredding files, etc.) The TeaTimer app is one of the most important applications I currently use. I find its ability to instantly inform me of registry changes (be they good or bad) to help in my defense against the worst the web has to offer.

ZSNES - My SNES emulator of choice. There is nothing sexier than running a gorgeous game like Chrono Trigger at 1280x1024 with an AA filter in place running at 60FPS (synced with your monitor resolution). Granted the emulation still isn't perfect for all games, but it is the closest one can get to perfect emulation of this system.

I have a pretty strict set of apps that I install to my PC.

Adobe Reader - Use it for PDFs, what else? Kind of hoggish on resources, though.

BitComet - Great BT client. I'd rather not use a Java-based client, like Azureus.

Daemon Tools - Absolutely essential for reading ISOs, be it movies or games.

Dreamweaver 2004 - I don't use this much, but I may start to as my design business starts picking up.

DVD Decrypter - One of the best DVD rippers/burners out there. I rip a lot of PS2 games with this.

FileZilla - Great opensource FTP client. Very easy to use.

Firefox - Truly standards-compliant browser. To hell with Internet Exploder.

FontFolio OpenType Edition - Not really an app, but really useful to me anyways. It's a huge collection of professional fonts that I use for my web design.

Miranda-IM - Great lightweight chat program. Supports a ton of different chat protocols, and has plugin and skin support.

Nero Burning ROM - Best burning software period.

NOD32 - Best antivirus I've ever come across. Incredibly lighweight and powerful. Supposedly picks up the slack most other AVs leave behind.

OpenOffice - To hell with MS Office. This is a fully featured Office clone, and costs absolutely nothing vs. $400 for MS Office. Some little things aren't quite up to par yet, but it's still free.

Photoshop CS - Used for web design. Nuff said.

Sygate Firewall - Yeah it's discontinued, but it's still loads better than a lot of other firewalls. It may be time to start looking for a new one.

Ventrilo - Used for games and better than Teamspeak. Nuff said.

Winamp - I like it cuz it's tiny and skinnable.

WinRAR - Does everything WinZip and 7-Zip do. I only use RARs and ZIPs anyways. Does a great job at compressing files.

And of course, I have my games installed as well.

Foxit Reader- It's like Acrobat Reader minus the bloat and annoying startup times.
Bulletproof FTP Server and DynDNS updater- Can't nobody say that I never did nothing for the peoples. ^^
FileZilla Client- The inverse of the above. I use it to download music from other people.
Winamp- My favorite music player, and it can play a bunch of formats that iTunes doesn't support.
iTunes- I use it to sync my iPod, and occasionally as a music player. Winamp is smaller and nicer for playing, though.
uTorrent- the smallest, fastest BitTorrent client that I've found. It's replaced BitComet for me, since that seems to be banned at an awful lot of trackers.
SonicStage- It's crap, but it's what my burner came with. I should pirate Nero, or something. ;_;
The GIMP- Useful for all sorts of basic image editing tasks. It's a far sight cheaper than Photoshop.
WinRAR- The perfect archive program, bar none. It's shareware, but it's worth the money/the nag messages/finding a torrent of it.
WindowBlinds (or uxtheme, if I'm lazy)- The default Windows XP theme looks like it was designed by Playmobil, and this makes it look nicer.
OpenOffice or Microsoft Office- My laptop has MS Office, my desktop gets OpenOffice. For my rather basic purposes, they're about the same, and they beat Notepad for serious work. ^^
ZSNES, ePSXe, WinUAE, MAME32, DOSBox and RockNES- The best emulators (well, DOSBox isn't exactly an emulator, but that's not the point) for their respective systems. Yay for old games!

Azureus - Don't need to say anything about that
Adobe Premiere Pro - For Video Editing
Adobe Photoshop CS2 - For Photo Editing, Manip and what not
Firefox and Thunderbird - Don't need to say anything bout that.
MP3 Tag Tools For fixing tags on MP3s and everything like that
Exact Audio Copy w/ LAME - For VBR encoding of CD's
Rhapsody - Recording WAV files with my MP3 player and converting them into VBR
Express WebPictures - Mass grabbing of picture files.
WindowsBlinds Different Shell for XP
StyleXP - Side bar for watching CPU, Page Files, HDD space and Weather.

Mine should:

Winamp - great player
WinRAR - great compressing and extrating files
Office - word, excel,.....
Nero Burning ROM - my burning program
PowerDVD -
WSFTP - great FTp program
AIM and MSN - chat with friend
Mcaffe firewall and anti virus

Microsoft Office - School
Windows Media Player - Music
DivX Player - Movies
Azureus - Torrent
Limewire - Individual song downloads
Diablo II LoD - Oh yeah...
MSN - What I use to talk to most of my friends online

Hmm.. I think for me... its:

Firefox - </3 IE
Thunderbird - I've left Outlook Express as well
mIRC - Spend most of my time here
Adobe Photoshop - Photo Editing.. duh
Yahoo Messenger - More contacts Haha.
AVG - Since I gave up on Norton as well
Winamp - Havent used any other MP3 player aside from this.
MS Office - For School work, and others
Daemon Tools - Erm, to be able to install my other "softwares"
Winrar - Needed to install as well
Winzip - Likewise
Style XP (yes) - I just cant stand the blue color
Litestep (yes again) - and just to take out explorer Haha

winamp - i have about 10 plugins for this, and it's a small player that isn't bloaty (WMP)

mIRC with nnscript - regular mIRC blows; i like being able to connect when opening it and have scripts.

MCK - used to make chiptunes

notepd.exe - notepad with custom everything and a toolbar, mainly used with MCK

mozilla firefox - tabbed browsing

openoffice.org - something to type with, assuming i don't find my office cds.

windows xp - duh, but i couldn't use linux without giving up a lot of functionality.

media player classic - does everything WMP does, but it's 4MB and loads quickly.

razorlame - mp3 encoding

oggdrop - ogg encoding

WSFTP95LE - it's outdated and such, but i still use it.

virtualdubMP2 - decodes dvds pretty well, basic video editing

putty - connecting to unix / linux command prompts at school here

CPU-z - used a lot when overclocking

speedfan - regulate fan speeds and see temps

atiTool - see temps of video card, overclock it

zonealarm - decent firewall

MuMML - frontend for MCK

AOL IM - maybe i should switch to gaim someday, but i still use this a lot.

steam / counterstrike - i play this way too much still.

so basically, yeah, those are the programs i install when i reinstall windows first.

The main ones are:

Mozilla Firefox: Best browser period.
Mozilla Thunderbird: Gets my email for me!
Photoshop CS2: Perfect for image editing and web design.
Nero: CD/DVD Burning...
Azureus: Torrents
Foobar 2000: Best music player hands down.
BSPlayer/VLC Media Player: What video files the one won't play the other always seems to...
EAC (Exact Audio Copy): CD Ripping.
Textpad: HTML/PHP/CSS/etc. text editing.

mine:

firefox (a given)
foobar2000 v0.9 (good to listen to music, great to customize =p)
photoshop (a must)
uTorrent (best torrent client)
acdsee (gotta view all them digicam pics)
gaim (aim is poo)
nero (a given)
color cop (eyedropper tool, a must have for me)
unlocker (best lil program ever)
netlimiter (im on dsl, gotta limit the upload)
CLCL (clipboard manager)
flashget (download manager)
rainlendar (gotta keep schedules)
dc++, zpoc, soulseek, etc (gotta pirate)
media player classic (video)
evillyrics (i like to read what im listening to)
winamp cd case (displays album art, but works with foobar =p)
visual studio .NET (homework)
microsoft office (homework)

that list turned out kinda long

I only have a short list of must-have software!

FireFox - The best browser I've ever come across!
Winamp - Must have music!
Media Player Classic/DefilerPak - A combination which has never yet failed me.
Miranda IM - Useful for connecting to multiple IM protocols at once.
Exact Audio Copy/Lame - For the rare times I decide to rip albums.
ABC/BitLord - Two bittorrent clients, since I find BitLord is better for batch torrents, but is banned from quite a few trackers.
PeerGuardian 2 - For protecting myself while pirating!
ImgBurn - For burning ISOs.

Thats all that I can think of just now, if anything is missing its because I haven't had need to install it yet!

Firefox
MSN 7.5 with MSN plus/stuff plug plug in - more customizable options
windows media player - never used anything else, winamp scares me
winRAR - to derar stuff
Bitlord - used Bitcomet until some sites started blocking it
Limewire/Shareaza - just started using shareaza, so used to limewire I cant rid of it
Nero Express - for burning cds
Object dock - kick ass tool bar since I hate average run of the mill icons on the desktop
Style XP or Windowsblinds - I get bored of only 3 XP skins to choose from
Wallpaper Master - I'm too lazy to switch my wallpaper myself
D-link Airplus - It makes my internet work since the internet is downstairs
random codecs - to play files such as avi