The Best Windows Software

	avast! Free Antivirus Expect great all-around protection against viruses and trojans. Download		AntiVir Free Version Lightweight and solid. Good ratings. Worth looking into. Download		AVG Antivirus Free Edition Not as good as Avast or Avira but with considerably less bloat. The most popular free antivirus. Download
	Microsoft Security Essentials Simple, effective and lightweight protection suite. Download		Comodo Internet Security Free security suite, includes both a firewall and anti-virus protection. Download

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	Spybot S&D Detects and removes spyware. Compliments anti-virus apps. Has a very good reputation. Download		Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Easy-to-use, simple, and very effective anti-malware application. Download		IObit Malware Fighter Advanced malware & spyware removal utility. Download
	Threatfire Spyware removal tool with real-time antispyware protection. Lightweight and memory sparing. Download		Superantispyware Lightweight scanner to detect and remove spyware, adware, trojans, and other threats. Download

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	PC Tools Firewall Plus 6 Powerful firewall capable of providing excellent protection. Download		Comodo Firewall (standalone) Long been considered one of the best free firewall tools available. Download		ZoneAlarm Free Firewall Provides the best overall firewall protection for advanced users. Download
	Online Armor Free All of the normal features of a firewall and more. Download		Ashampoo FireWall Free Very easy to use and navigate. For intermediate users. Download

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Auslogics Disk Defrag Simple, reliable and quite fast. A must-have free PC tool. Considered no.1 by many. Download

Defraggler Another excellent defrag tool. Portable. From the same guys behind hugely popular CCleaner. Download

IObit Smart Defrag Extremely easy to use. Works continuously in the background. Download

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Recuva Very effective in restoring deleted files. Extremely popular. Download

FreeUndelete No frills, just focused on the zen of file recovery. Download

ADRC Data Recovery Software The Renaissance Man of free data recovery. Not as popular as Recuva but still has its own fans. Download

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Revo Uninstaller Free Fast and very effective at uninstalling just about anything. Popular choice for the purpose. Download

IObit Uninstaller New kid on the block. Gaining popularity. Boasts a bunch of features not found on other uninstallers. Download

Absolute Uninstaller Less popular than the other two but probably the simplest to use one. Download

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	Mozy Incredibly smart, highly secure, set-it-and-forget-it backup solution. Backups data to web. Download		FBackup Easily backup important files and documents, personal settings and plugins. Download		Todo Backup Able to backup the entire operating system, program settings, browser data, emails and other data. Download
	Clonezilla Live CD to completely clone your hard drive. Download		SyncBack Freeware Selective synchronisation, local and remote backup to an FTP server. Download		FreeFileSync Open source folder comparison and sync tool. Optimised for speed and usability. Download
	CopyTo Synchronizer Wide set of options for backing up, updating, and synchronizing files. Download		DriveImage XML Easily Backup or copy entire disks block-for-block directly to another drive without the need to reboot your computer to run the cloning process. Download

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	Glary Utilities Includes over 15 useful system maintenance tools. Been recommended by MakeUseOf several times! Download		CCleaner Scores high points all around. The most popular choice at the moment. Not as many features as in others. Download		IObit Toolbox The amount of system maintenance tools included in this free app is truly staggering. Download
	Soluto Speed up Windows boot time by removing unnecessary apps from startup. Very effective. Download		IObit Advanced SystemCare Free One-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC. Download

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	Google Chrome The fastest, minimal design browser (from Google) now with extension support. Growing extremely fast. Download		Firefox More than 6,000 add-ons for every possible feature. The most customisable browser to date. Download		Safari A web browser from Apple. Designed to emphasize browsing. Also features extensions. Download
	Opera The “fastest and most advanced” browser available today. Download

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Thunderbird Increasingly popular email client from the same guys behind Firefox browser. One of the best email clients for Windows. Download

Postbox Express A simple, yet powerful, new email application for Windows. Check it out. Download

Google Notifier Alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. Simple and handy. Download

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	Skype The most popular cross-platform VoIP application. Must-have for everyone online. Download		Pidgin Easy-to-use, cross-platform, multi-protocol chat client. Supports all major chat programs. Download		Digsby An alternative multi-protocol instant messaging app. Cross-platform. Extremely popular. Download
	Trillian Astra Popular multi-protocol instant messaging client. Download

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	Paint.NET Strong candidate as a potential substitute for Photoshop for beginner/intermediate users. Download		FastStone Image Viewer One of the best image viewer, converter & editor bundles. Download		IrfanView The Swiss Army knife of image viewers/editors. Extremely popular. Download
	Google Picasa Powerful photo manager software from Google. Includes 1-click photo retouching features. Easy online photo sharing. Download		GIMP Very capable graphic editor with Photoshop-like features. Often labeled as free Photoshop alternative. Download		PhotoScape Another good free and easy-to-use photo editing application. Download

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	foobar2000 Advanced audio player for Windows with highly customisable user interface. Download | Full Review		Songbird A popular music player based on Mozilla’s code. Includes some really useful plugins. Download		Audacity Very popular open source software for recording and editing audio tracks and sounds. Download
	iTunes Music player and video library organiser. Hosts the iTunes Store. Download		MediaMonkey Full-featured music player and music collection organiser. Download		Winamp Well-known, lightweight, small-footprint media player. Download
	CopyTrans Manager Alternative iPod manager app. Sync and transfer music & files to iPod, iPhone, iPad. Download		TagScanner A multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection. Download

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	VLC Media Player Extremely popular cross-platform video player that can play almost any video file. Highly recommended by many. Download		Handbrake Open source, cross-platform, video converter that can convert video files between many video formats. Download		VirtualDub Open-source and portable video editor. Download
	Media Player Classic Replica of WM Player. Includes only the most basic controls but can play pretty much any video. Download		Freemake Free video converter & DVD burner that’s easy to use. Download		Format Factory Multifunctional audi and video converter. Supports MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, SWF, RMVB and lots more. Download
	KMPlayer Highly customisable, popular, multi-format video player. Download

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	FileMenu Tools Customise the right-click context menu of Windows Explorer. Adds lots of useful functions and utilities. Download		FreeCommander Free file browser and Windows Explorer replacement. Two-pane browsing, secure file deletion and more. Download		TeraCopy Copy and move files at maximum speed. Pause and resume file transfers. Download
	EASEUS Partition Master All-in-one, easy to use disk partition manager. Create, resize and merge partitions. Download		Unlocker Can’t delete a folder or a file? Getting an error that it’s being used by another program? Unlocker can easily delete it. Download		TreeSize Free Shows you where your precious hard drive space has gone to. Easily view how much space is being used by each folder. Download
	DropIt Tiny tool to automate categorizing files and folders. Drag a file on top of it and it will place it for you where you need it. Portable version available. Download		Free Opener An easy way to quickly open over 80 types of file types using one tiny program. Download		SyncToy Free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations. Download

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	LibreOffice Microsoft Office alternative. Open source professional productivity and office suite. Download		Dropbox Must-have for everyone. Sync folder with docs and files to web or other PCs / Macs. Share documents. Download		Notepad++ Popular open source text editor. Favoured by many, including programmers. Download
	FoxIt Reader Really light alternative to Adobe Reader. Open PDF files. Download		doPDF Easily convert documents and pictures to PDF files from any Windows program with two clicks. Download		PDF Xchange viewer Desktop and portable PDF viewer. Lightweight and fast. Download
	Nitro PDF Reader Read PDFs, create PDFs. Extract content, annotate and fill PDF forms. Download		OpenOffice Another popular free alternative to Microsoft Office. Download		PDFTK Builder Free graphical interface version of PDFTK. Merge, split, decrypt, encrypt, watermark PDF files. Download
	VIM Text Editor Highly configurable text editor. Download		PDFsam Easily split and merge PDF files. Download

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	Fences Provides rectangular containers for your desktop to visually organize your icons. Very handy! Download		Rainlendar Very easy to use and lightweight calendar for your Windows desktop. Download		Evernote Save your ideas on the go and instantly take notes. Access notes from anywhere. Highly recommended! Download
	VirtuaWin Gives you multiple virtual desktops to organize your workflow. Highly customisable. Download		Launchy A powerful keystroke based program launcher that lets you open program and files really quickly. Download		Send to Toys Enhances the right-click ‘Send To’ system menu. Personalise and configure the Send To menu content. Download
	Dexpot Create virtual desktops to separate different running apps and Windows. Comparable to Spaces on Mac OS X. Download		Q-Dir Free multi-pane file manager to save you time. Portable version available. Download		ClipX Tiny, free clipboard history manager. Access up to 1024 items in your clipboard’s history. Download
	Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard Gain typing speed and accuracy with its unique touch-typing teaching program. Download		SendToSendTo Easily add new entries to the right-click “Send To” menu. Download		Ditto Saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. Download

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7-zip Takes care of most of your archive extracting/compression needs. Supports ZIP, RAR and many others formats. Download

Universal Extractor With over 50 supported file formats, Universal Extractor is superb. Download

IZArc One archive utility to rule them all. Supports almost all formats. Download

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	ImgBurn CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning tool. Also, lets you easily create image files from CDs and DVDs. Download		CDBurnerXP The most popular free alternative to Nero Burning ROM. Burn CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. Download		bitRipper Back-up your DVDs as AVI files or MPEG to your hard drive. Excellent backup tool for DVDs. Download
	CDex Open-source digital audio CD extractor. Saves CD tracks as MP3′s. Download		DuBaron CD2ISO A great tool to extract ISO images from CDs or DVDs. Very simple and easy to use. Download		Virtual CloneDrive Mount a virtual drive to open and playback ISO image files (CD/DVD images). Download
	DVDShrink The easiest and one of the better free DVD ripping and backup tools. Download		Exact Audio Copy The most accurate and error-free audio CD extractor. Can extract MP3s from a CD. Download		DVD Flick Easy-to-use DVD creation software. Allows adding subtitles and making DVD menus as well. Download
	WinCDEmu Mount ISO, CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF, CCD, IMG images by simply clicking on them in Windows Explorer. Download

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	uTorrent Speedy, efficient, and free. The most popular BitTorrent client. Download		Deluge An awesome but unappreciated cross-platform BitTorrent client. Download		YouTube Downloader HD Downloads YouTube videos with just a few clicks of the mouse button. Download
	PeerBlock Control/block your PC’s communication with ad or spyware servers. Secures P2P activities. Download		Free Download Manager Open source download accelerator and manager. Increase download speeds and resume broken downloads. Download		Jdownloader The most popular download manager. Quickly and efficiently download files from sites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and many others. Download

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	LastPass Secure plugin to store and synchronise login passwords across browsers. Comes auto-login and form filler. Download		TrueCrypt Free open-source, cross-platform disk and data encryption tool. Encrypt and hide sensitive files. Download		TeamViewer Request remote technical assistance. Connect to remote computer. Zero setup required. Download
	PortableApps Suite A collection of useful portable apps that can be stored on USB stick. Carry the apps with you wherever you go on a thumbdrive. Download		Sticky Password Free password and identity manager. Browser add-on for automatic login and form-filling. Download		KeePass Free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager. Download
	LiberKey Suite of over 300 free useful software apps that you can carry with you wherever you go. Download		Hiren’s BootCD All-in-one bootable CD providing an alternate boot environment to troubleshoot Windows problems. Download		Eraser Advanced security tool to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive. Download
	iPrint Print multiple pages on each sheet of paper, delete unwanted pages. Lowers printing costs. Download		Antirun Protects your PC by blocking viruses and malware from infected USB thumbsticks and flash drives. Download		Everything search engine Locates files and folders by name instantly. Download
	Game Booster 3 Speeds up your PC for faster gaming. Download		DriverPack Solution 11 Makes the job of finding and automatically installing drivers really easy. Download

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Backup FreeBSD Official

19.12 Backup Basics

The three major backup programs are dump(8), tar(1), and cpio(1).

19.12.1 Dump and Restore

The traditional UNIX® backup programs are dump and restore. They operate on the drive as a collection of disk blocks, below the abstractions of files, links and directories that are created by the file systems. Unlike other backup software, dump backs up an entire file system on a device. It is unable to backup only part of a file system or a directory tree that spans more than one file system. The dump command does not write files and directories to tape, but rather writes the raw data blocks that comprise files and directories. When being used to extract data, restore stores temporary files in /tmp/ by default -- if you are operating from a recovery disk with a small /tmp directory, you may need to set the TMPDIR environment variable to a directory with more free space for the restore to be successful.

Note: If you use dump on your root directory, you would not back up /home, /usr or many other directories since these are typically mount points for other file systems or symbolic links into those file systems.

dump has quirks that remain from its early days in Version 6 of AT&T UNIX (circa 1975). The default parameters are suitable for 9-track tapes (6250 bpi), not the high-density media available today (up to 62,182 ftpi). These defaults must be overridden on the command line to utilize the capacity of current tape drives.
It is also possible to backup data across the network to a tape drive attached to another computer with rdump and rrestore. Both programs rely upon rcmd(3) and ruserok(3) to access the remote tape drive. Therefore, the user performing the backup must be listed in the .rhosts file on the remote computer. The arguments to rdump and rrestore must be suitable to use on the remote computer. When rdumping from a FreeBSD computer to an Exabyte tape drive connected to a Sun called komodo, use:

# /sbin/rdump 0dsbfu 54000 13000 126 komodo:/dev/nsa8 /dev/da0a 2>&1

Beware: there are security implications to allowing .rhosts authentication. Evaluate your situation carefully.
It is also possible to use dump and restore in a more secure fashion over ssh.

Example 19-1. Using dump over ssh

# /sbin/dump -0uan -f - /usr | gzip -2 | ssh -c blowfish \
          targetuser@targetmachine.example.com dd of=/mybigfiles/dump-usr-l0.gz

Or using dump's built-in method, setting the environment variable RSH:

Example 19-2. Using dump over ssh with RSH set

# RSH=/usr/bin/ssh /sbin/dump -0uan -f targetuser@targetmachine.example.com:/dev/sa0 /usr

19.12.2 tar

tar(1) also dates back to Version 6 of AT&T UNIX (circa 1975). tar operates in cooperation with the file system; it writes files and directories to tape. tar does not support the full range of options that are available from cpio(1), but it does not require the unusual command pipeline that cpio uses.
To tar to an Exabyte tape drive connected to a Sun called komodo, use:

# tar cf - . | rsh komodo dd of=tape-device obs=20b

If you are worried about the security of backing up over a network you should use the ssh command instead of rsh.

19.12.3 cpio

cpio(1) is the original UNIX file interchange tape program for magnetic media. cpio has options (among many others) to perform byte-swapping, write a number of different archive formats, and pipe the data to other programs. This last feature makes cpio an excellent choice for installation media. cpio does not know how to walk the directory tree and a list of files must be provided through stdin.
cpio does not support backups across the network. You can use a pipeline and rsh to send the data to a remote tape drive.

# for f in directory_list; do
find $f >> backup.list
done
# cpio -v -o --format=newc < backup.list | ssh user@host "cat > backup_device"

Where directory_list is the list of directories you want to back up, user@host is the user/hostname combination that will be performing the backups, and backup_device is where the backups should be written to (e.g., /dev/nsa0).

19.12.4 pax

pax(1) is IEEE/POSIX®'s answer to tar and cpio. Over the years the various versions of tar and cpio have gotten slightly incompatible. So rather than fight it out to fully standardize them, POSIX created a new archive utility. pax attempts to read and write many of the various cpio and tar formats, plus new formats of its own. Its command set more resembles cpio than tar.

19.12.5 Amanda

Amanda (Advanced Maryland Network Disk Archiver) is a client/server backup system, rather than a single program. An Amanda server will backup to a single tape drive any number of computers that have Amanda clients and a network connection to the Amanda server. A common problem at sites with a number of large disks is that the length of time required to backup to data directly to tape exceeds the amount of time available for the task. Amanda solves this problem. Amanda can use a “holding disk” to backup several file systems at the same time. Amanda creates “archive sets”: a group of tapes used over a period of time to create full backups of all the file systems listed in Amanda's configuration file. The “archive set” also contains nightly incremental (or differential) backups of all the file systems. Restoring a damaged file system requires the most recent full backup and the incremental backups.
The configuration file provides fine control of backups and the network traffic that Amanda generates. Amanda will use any of the above backup programs to write the data to tape. Amanda is available as either a port or a package, it is not installed by default.

19.12.6 Do Nothing

“Do nothing” is not a computer program, but it is the most widely used backup strategy. There are no initial costs. There is no backup schedule to follow. Just say no. If something happens to your data, grin and bear it!
If your time and your data is worth little to nothing, then “Do nothing” is the most suitable backup program for your computer. But beware, UNIX is a useful tool, you may find that within six months you have a collection of files that are valuable to you.
“Do nothing” is the correct backup method for /usr/obj and other directory trees that can be exactly recreated by your computer. An example is the files that comprise the HTML or PostScript® version of this Handbook. These document formats have been created from SGML input files. Creating backups of the HTML or PostScript files is not necessary. The SGML files are backed up regularly.

19.12.7 Which Backup Program Is Best?

dump(8) Period. Elizabeth D. Zwicky torture tested all the backup programs discussed here. The clear choice for preserving all your data and all the peculiarities of UNIX file systems is dump. Elizabeth created file systems containing a large variety of unusual conditions (and some not so unusual ones) and tested each program by doing a backup and restore of those file systems. The peculiarities included: files with holes, files with holes and a block of nulls, files with funny characters in their names, unreadable and unwritable files, devices, files that change size during the backup, files that are created/deleted during the backup and more. She presented the results at LISA V in Oct. 1991. See torture-testing Backup and Archive Programs.

19.12.8 Emergency Restore Procedure

19.12.8.1 Before the Disaster

There are only four steps that you need to perform in preparation for any disaster that may occur.
First, print the bsdlabel from each of your disks (e.g., bsdlabel da0 | lpr), your file system table (/etc/fstab) and all boot messages, two copies of each.
Second, burn a “livefs” CDROM. This CDROM contains support for booting into a FreeBSD “livefs” rescue mode allowing the user to perform many tasks like running dump(8), restore(8), fdisk(8), bsdlabel(8), newfs(8), mount(8), and more. Livefs CD image for FreeBSD/i386 8.3-RELEASE is available from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/ISO-IMAGES/8.3/FreeBSD-8.3-RELEASE-i386-livefs.iso.

Note: Livefs CD images are not available for FreeBSD 9.0-RELEASE and later. In addition to the CDROM installation images, flash drive installation images may be used to recover a system. The “memstick” image for FreeBSD/i386 9.0-RELEASE is available from ftp://ftp.FreeBSD.org/pub/FreeBSD/releases/i386/i386/ISO-IMAGES/9.0/FreeBSD-9.0-RELEASE-i386-memstick.img.

Third, create backup tapes regularly. Any changes that you make after your last backup may be irretrievably lost. Write-protect the backup tapes.
Fourth, test the “livefs” CDROM you made in step two and backup tapes. Make notes of the procedure. Store these notes with the CDROM, the printouts and the backup tapes. You will be so distraught when restoring that the notes may prevent you from destroying your backup tapes (How? In place of tar xvf /dev/sa0, you might accidentally type tar cvf /dev/sa0 and over-write your backup tape).
For an added measure of security, make “livefs” CDROM and two backup tapes each time. Store one of each at a remote location. A remote location is NOT the basement of the same office building. A number of firms in the World Trade Center learned this lesson the hard way. A remote location should be physically separated from your computers and disk drives by a significant distance.

19.12.8.2 After the Disaster

The key question is: did your hardware survive? You have been doing regular backups so there is no need to worry about the software.
If the hardware has been damaged, the parts should be replaced before attempting to use the computer.
If your hardware is okay, insert the “livefs” CDROM in the CDROM drive and boot the computer. The original install menu will be displayed on the screen. Select the correct country, then choose Fixit -- Repair mode with CDROM/DVD/floppy or start a shell. option and select the CDROM/DVD -- Use the live filesystem CDROM/DVD item. The tool restore and the other programs that you need are located in /mnt2/rescue.
Recover each file system separately.
Try to mount (e.g., mount /dev/da0a /mnt) the root partition of your first disk. If the bsdlabel was damaged, use bsdlabel to re-partition and label the disk to match the label that you printed and saved. Use newfs to re-create the file systems. Re-mount the root partition of the disk read-write (mount -u -o rw /mnt). Use your backup program and backup tapes to recover the data for this file system (e.g., restore vrf /dev/sa0). Unmount the file system (e.g., umount /mnt). Repeat for each file system that was damaged.
Once your system is running, backup your data onto new tapes. Whatever caused the crash or data loss may strike again. Another hour spent now may save you from further distress later.

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Norton Ghost 15.0 user's Guide

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