//Recommended Utilities

The following are some helpful (and free!) utilities that we've found to be very useful in keeping your computer running smoothly.

Ad-Aware SE Personal

Comprehensively scan your memory, registry, hard, removable and optical drives for known datamining, aggressive advertising, and tracking components.

Open Office

A free office productivity suite similar to (and compatible with) Microsoft Office. Create documents and spreadsheets with nearly the same look and feel to Microsoft Office with none of the cost.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Provides the ability to open and read those oh-so-common PDF files.

GIMP

An amazing alternative to Adobe Photoshop is Gimp. Another free utility that allows nearly the same scope of tools for image creation and photo editing. Photoshop users will have to learn new tool names, but other than that...it's very similar in its abilities.

AVG Anti-virus

AVG is a free anti-virus program that will protect your system against many forms of virus attacks, including realtime e-mail protection. AVG also has the ability to run scheduled scans so you can more effectivly utilize your computer time.

Firefox

Firefox web browser empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser.

Opera

Opera is another great web browser, while not as easily customizable as Firefox it provides much more "out-of-the-box" features and security.

Thunderbird

Thunderbird gives you a faster, safer, and more productive email experience with implementations of features such as intelligent spam filters, built-in RSS reader, quick search, and much more.

VLC

A powerful and completely free video playing utility that can handle almost any format of video file you try to play including DVDs (on systems with DVD rom drive installed).