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[Mhayes]

Hi Everyone,

While researching different PDF packages I came across this and you might find something to your liking: http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/top-freeware-picks-category-editors.htm

Comments on the products welcomed.

Margie

[glennab]

Awesome, Margie.  Thanks for the reference.  I have it bookmarked!

GK

[Mike S.]

Good day Margie,

Some really neat stuff on that link.  I have been using CC Cleaner and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware, for some time with success..  Pat's dad uses Avast and really likes it.  I am going to try pdfsam when I get time.

Thanks for the tip.

Mike

[Hannie]

Thanks Margie, a very easy reference website with lots of goodies!

Mike, I have used Avast for years and it works really well.  This year all of a sudden I started having random BSOD and I suspected Avast but tried lots of other fixes first.  Nothing worked, BSOD kept coming back and finally I removed Avast about 6 months ago.  No more BSOD....

Now I'm not using any virus protection so I probably should look for anther program, though I'm not too enthusiastic about installing another virus scanner.

CCleaner is also  a very good program, thorough but not over the top.  I did read somewhere that it isn't a good idea to use their Startup cleaner tool.  Apparently it is better to that the old way in msconfig.

Hannie

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Great list, Margie, there are some good pieces of software on it (it happens that I already used a lot of the recommended stuff before reading it, but I also got some new ideas from it, like OpenDNS).

@Hannie, from what I've heard, putting CCleaner into the startup is not a good idea because it takes a lot of time and you don't really need it.
However I don't understand your last sentence, "Apparently it is better to that the old way in msconfig."? The only connection that I can see between CCleaner and msconfig is the startup functionality, but in how far would there be a better way with this?

[Tori803]

Great list Margie! It has me drooling . . . (surely I need something)

Tori

[Hannie]

Jonas, what I mean is that CCleaner has a toolbox tab with 4 tools and one of those tools is for deleting items from the start up list.  (so the computer boots faster)
Normally you would edit the start up list in msconfig.  I read that using CCleaner to edit the list is not the best way to do that.

Hannie

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Jonas, what I mean is that CCleaner has a toolbox tab with 4 tools and one of those tools is for deleting items from the start up list.  (so the computer boots faster)
Normally you would edit the start up list in msconfig.  I read that using CCleaner to edit the list is not the best way to do that.

Hannie

Ah, now I get it
Never used the startup list in CCleaner myself, so I almost forgot about this one :-).
msconfig is a great tool for this purpose, but sometimes even it isn't enough. For this case there's a more sophisticated & complex version of it, called "autoruns": http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902
The main startup lists from msconfig are included in the "Logon" and "Services" tab, however it offers a great lot of control.
One of the benefits over msconfig even if you're just using these two tabs is that when you run it as an administrator, you can also check for the startups of all the other user accounts, not only those of the current user .

[TerryB]

Now I'm not using any virus protection so I probably should look for anther program, though I'm not too enthusiastic about installing another virus scanner.
Hannie

Pretty risky, Hannie.
Suggest you get AVG anti-virus FREE edition here:
http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage

I've been using it for many years and it does an excellent job.
It updates new virus signatures daily.
 

Be certain you get the free version; they'll try to trick you into getting the paid version.

[Mhayes]

Hi Hannie, Terry is right, but there is another alternative. When I had to buy a new hard drive when I found out I couldn't operate PhotoShop CS5 on the old one----I discovered the free security for Windows 7 from Microsoft. I also think this is good for previous versions. In the books Windows 7 the missing manual by David Pogue:

Microsoft Security Essentials
All Versions

It's historic. It's amazing. It's free. After all these decades, Microsoft has finally decided to offer free antiveris software. At long last, you have no excuse not to protect your PC.

I have been using it for over a year now and am very happy with it and have seen it stop some viruses that could have really caused some problems.

Margie

Footnote: Here is the link: www.microsoft.com/security_essentials

[Hannie]

Thanks Jonas, I downloaded Autoruns and it is amazing to see how many programs are executed at boot time!  I like the program and will definitely use it from time to time to check out what program I may want to disable at boot time.

Terry in the past I have used AVG also on another computer and it seemed to do the job well.  I still use XP on my main computer so I have to do some research as to which virus scanner is "lightweight".  I know that Avast is very small, that is what I liked about it and also that it has an email scanner and no adds.
Margie, Microsoft Security Essentials has some very good reviews, I was surprised.  I think I will either get AVG, MSE or Avira.
I did a couple of on line scans (microtrend, panda) for viruses, rootkits and other malware.  My computer was surprisingly clean, probably because I don't visit the naughty sites. 

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, much appreciated!

Hannie