10 Necessary freeware for your computer

There are a lot of people who are not aware that you do not have to pay for high quality programs. This will be a list of my personal favorite programs that I usually install immediately with any new computer and the best part about it, is they are all free!
1. Emulators

This one is not so much a specific program as it is a category. There are tons of video game emulators, for just about every system ever made. An emulator is a program, on your computer, that act just like a video game consoles. Emulators have a counter part; roms. Just as consoles need cartridges or cd-roms, emulators need roms. This part of the equation is a little more difficult to get your hands on but we will cover this later with another program.

  1. uTorrent

Remember the good ol’ days of Napster and Limewire peer to peer sharing? Those days are long gone but fortunately for us peer to peer sharing did not die, it just evolved. Now you must have a torrent downloader and search the internet for torrents. uTorrent is my personal favorite. It works like this, you download the torrent downloader(uTorrent), install it and then go to either a torrent site like IsoHunt or just use a search engine for torrents. Once you have the torrent file downloaded you open it and then it begins to download the file within the torrent downloader. Hint: this is the best way to search for video game roms

  1. Google Chrome

At the time of writing this, Chrome is by far the best web browser hands down. All of the features packed into this lightning fast beast of a browser could only be contained within its own blog post. I would recommend everyone at least try this. It is very lightweight, very powerful and easily the fastest browser there is.

  1. Stellarium

Ever been looking into the night sky and wonder what particular celestial body you were looking at? This program will help you identify everything in the night sky(hopefully) and it is a beautiful to look at in the process. Basically once you get past the initial setup by entering your location and synching the time with your operating system this program will simulate the night sky in real time.

  1. Media Player Classic

One of the first things I install on my computers is Media Player Classic. This is a very lightweight media player that supports all codecs. With this as your default media player you will never have to download another codec pack again. You also will only sacrifice half of the resources as any other media player.

  1. Google Earth

This program should need no introduction, unless you have been living under a rock. This piece of Orwellian technology is very impressive. I often find myself loosing hours searching exotic lands with high quality imagery. Although this program is  a little misleading with its name, you can also explore Mars, the Moon and satellite imagery of the universe.

  1. Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

If there is something wrong with my computer Malwarebytes Anti-Malware is the first program I turn to. This free software will spot things that Norton and Mcafee combined cannot pick up. Its specialty is obviously malware. Malware’s most famous technique is giving you a virus only to offer you the solution(which usually requires your credit card number). It is like the old mobster protection racquet.

  1. Gimp Graphics Editor

Gimp is a very powerful image editor and for being free has a lot of the same features as some the more expensive Adobe products. If you do any kind of photo or image editing this program is almost a no brainer.

  1. Foxit Reader

If anyone else hates Adobe reader as much as me, you are in luck. No more constant update where you have to restart your computer or the sluggish atmosphere of Adobe reader. Froxit reader will completely replace Adobe reader.

  1. DVD Shrink

If you ever need a back-up of your(or someone else’s) dvds this program handles that job perfectly. Just insert any store bought DVD with copyright protection and all then this program will make a copy ready to burn to a new dvd. The implications are amazing!