For my Computer course at the University of Phoenix, we created our top 5 applications for the year.  Part of the requirements were that we had to justify them.  I’m presenting my list here, along with a request for other people’s lists.  As new applications are pointed out to me, I’m planning on checking them out.  Who knows… Maybe I’ll have a new list in a few weeks.  So, without further ado, my list:

I’m more of a free and Open Source type of person.  But some of my top 5 are paid software.

Office 2007 -  If you’re new to Office, then this version is actually easier to use than the previous versions.  However if you’ve been using it for a while, there’s a learning curve to the ribbon.  But since Microsoft is dominating the market for Productivity Suites, you’ll want to use a program that’s compatible with their formats natively.

Open Office Org 3.0 – This does the same thing as Office (for the most part), but is free.  While it doesn’t natively support the Microsoft Office formats, it does a very good job of interpreting them.  And it comes with an HTML Editor, which is a decent alternative to the Microsoft offerings.

Avast Antivirus -  Mainly I like Avast because it’s free.  Their detection rate is on par with Norton and McAfee, and it’s not as much of a resource hog.  This combined with a good firewall, a good antispyware program, and safe surfing habits should get you through without having to spend a lot of money.  Along the lines of Avast, I also like AVG for the same reasons.

Comodo Pro Firewall -  I recently did a comparison of personal firewalls, and this was the top of the line free version.  It’s scores were in the 90% range on the tests, where Norton, Trend Micro, Zone Alarm, and even Sunbelt (my old favorite) were in the lower ranges.  One more thing I like about Comodo is that it brings in it’s own antispyware program.  The results and test data can be found at http://www.matousec.com/projects/firewall-challenge/results.php. Don’t go for the Comodo Firewall Pro Plus version, as that’s their pay version. 

Firefox with NoScript -  Firefox is one of the three great browsers.  With No-Script, it’s a lot safer than even Internet Explorer.  As someone mentioned about cheat code sites, I’ve visited a few in the past, and no-script kept them from downloading anything on my computer.  Of course it also depends on the user to leave the scripts blocked.  Firefox also has add-ons for a lot of the things we do today.  Although it’s not very compatible with the UoP website.  If it’s a site that I’m not sure about or know is going to try and drop something, I use Firefox to surf there.

I’ve got a lot more favorites like Password Managers and such.  But these are the five that I use most of all.

Now that I’ve listed mine, let’s hear your lists.  Comment or e-mail me with them, and I’ll look into them and post about them.

Have a great day:)
Patrick.