Windows 7: Some help in choosing software?

Hi SevenForums,

I would like some advice on some programs which I can't decide on.
Is;

VLC Media Player better or UMPlayer ?

AVG better or Avast ?

Piriform Defraggler better or Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro ?

IDM better or DAP ?

ManyCam better or WebCamMax ?



Nitro Reader 3 Pro better or Adobe Acrobat X/XI ?

XnView better or IrfanView ?

Firefox better or IE9 ?

Winrar better or WinZip (or Peazip ... though I'm a bit uncomfortable with it ) ?

Thanks for reading!

Hi Forz19
I readed your threat and decided what software you should choose:
VLC Media Player
AVG
Auslogics Disk Defrag Pro
DAP
WebCamMax
Adobe Acrobat X/XI
IrfanView
Firefox
WinRar
Hope I helped and remmember this choosing is based on my personal experience!

No AV is perfect I use MSE and Windows Firewall for protection as for a browser used to use Firefox now use Chrome ,
sorry I don't use any of the other programs that you have mentioned so cant help you there .

Thank you for replying. Could you please tell me why DAP is better ?

And I saw at this site,

AV-Comparatives - Independent Tests of Anti-Virus Software

that Avast! was way better at detecting malware. I downloaded their result which showed,

I'm assuming you are referring to free versions only.

I still use VLC and have been happy with it but now that I am usung Media Monkey to organize my music, I find it much more convenient to use its built in player instead. VLC is far more popular than UMPlayer (never even heard of it) so I would suggest using VLC.

Until recently, AVG free was bad news. I was happy with Avast free until it recently became too top heavy with extra bells and whistles. I've been using MSE (Micro$oft Security Essentials) since last June and have been happy with it.

I have a scanner that rquires a full version of Adobe Acrobat Standard ('tis expensive, btw) and I have been spoiled by what it is able to do. However, if all you need is a free reader, Foxit is safer than Adobe Acrobat Reader and has a good reputation. If you need a free virtual printer to make PDFs, PDFCreator is a good choice. I still use it for making simple PDFs since it's faster than Adobe Acrobat.

I never heard of XnView but I frequently use IrfanView and love it. Its an excellent program fro mass filename renaming, and simple mass picture editing. I also use it for downloading photos from a camera card since it works much better than the POS wizard that came with Windows 7. It can be used as a picture viewer but I prefer to use the picture viewer that came with Office 2010 (2007's is also good) over the POS viewer that came with Win 7.

I personally prefer IE9 over Firefox but Firefox is far more popular than IE. Google Chrome is also popular but I personally don't trust Google.

I use 7-Zip for unzipping downloaded files that need it. I haven't tried the other two since 7-Zip meets my needs.

Hope this helps you some.

Hello Lady Fitzgerald, and thanks for replying.

I use UMPlayer because it has a built in Search for Subtitles, and besides i can Right Click and Load subs so I find it easier.
My WinRaR was giving problems and I have switched to 7-Zip.
I used MSE on my PC but on every restart it wou'ldnt open and i had to launch it myself, so I'm using Avast with MBAM.
I tried IrfanView and it's really good.
Free PDF Openers usually don't create PDF (from individual pics) and don't fill in forms so I guess i'll use Adobe Acrobat.
And I have been using FF since it's earliest versions and I can't change now. I only wanted to see what browsers others used. And I don't trust no Google neither, or Microsoft for that matter. Open Source is BEST!

Thanks again for replying. I can see that VLC and IrfanView are popular.

Have you tried PDFCreator? It does a fairly good job of creating combined PDFs from similar sized graphics although full blown Adobe Acrobat does it better and faster; PDFCreator is a bit combersome when combining PDFs and you have no control on page sizes and orientation. If you do buy Adobe Acrobat, get version XI so you get the maximum life for your money; I recently bought the upgrade to XI Standard from 9 although I haven't installed it yet (9's end of life isn't until June); I bought it in November while Adobe still had the installation CD for free with free shipping.

I would suggest staying with Avast over AVG since MSE hasn't worked out for you (odd that). MBAM is excellent and plays well with Avast. SuperAntiSpyware (aka SAS) looks for different kinds of nasties than Avast and MBAM and also plays well with both of them. I suggest adding it to your arsenal.

Btw, cute avatar!

OK I will check SAS out. Does this program look efficient to you, cause I'm thinking of buying it.

Thanks.

I don't feel you would really need to buy that since your AV (AntiVirus) and MBAM can scan any USB device you add.

OK.