Administrator Lite Posted April 13, 2009 Administrator Share Posted April 13, 2009 A little while back, Neowin news writer Andrew Lyle went ahead and asked the community about their favorite Windows Mobile and iPhone applications. It seemed fitting to repeat this process, with a larger scale in mind; the top 10 favorite Windows applications. I'm not going to bore you with a witty introduction or lame jokes, so let's just jump straight into it, starting from #10.#10: TuneUp Utilities 2009TuneUp Utilities tends to be the crowd favorite when it comes to performance optimization software. It has a crazy range of features, and it wraps them all up into a slick interface. I use it myself, daily, and have done for years now. You can do a lot of stuff with it... there's defragmenting tools, UI customization features, a hard drive error checker and you can even go and change your boot screen if you are so inclined. If you feel like having a bit of a read, you can check out the Neowin review of this program right here.#9: VLC Media PlayerVLC tends to be the enthusiasts choice when it comes to media playing software. First and foremost, it's free, and it also comes on a vast amount of operating systems. Perhaps the biggest benefit, though, is that it can play pretty much any codec you can think of, and does so with simplicity. One of my favorite 'features', however, is the size of it. It's more than easy enough to just stick it on a USB key and take it wherever you need a good video player, which is very handy. You can pick up VLC for the aforementioned price of free.#8: 7Zip7Zip is a popular extracting and archiving tool, available on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Not only is it free, but it supports a wide range of archive formats, including .zip, .rar and it's very own .7zip format. There's not much else that needs to be said about this program.#7: OperaOpera is a web browser that was first released back in 1996, that is currently available for operating systems, as well as mobile platforms as well. It's rather popular, and, although has a smaller market share than most, is certainly no worse than any of the other competitors out there. The software giant Adobe uses it for some of their products, and the Nintendo DS and Wii use it exclusively for their web browsing needs. #6: PidginPidgin (or Gaim, as it was previously known) is a very popular instant messaging client, for Windows, Mac OS X and various Linux variations. It's been around since 1999, and it's essentially the client of choice amongst Linux users. You can use it to chat to a huge range of protocols, including MSN, AIM and even MyspaceIM.#5: Windows Live MessengerWindows Live Messenger is the Microsoft iteration of an IM client, which comes included with Windows Vista. It's extremely popular, not because it's already installed on Windows machines, but because it has a great range of features, customization and even built-in games. It's worth noting that the Mac OS X client is much different to the Windows version, and isn't as fully featured, but still does the job well.#4: WinRARWinRAR is probably the most popular archiving tool available for Windows, I'd say. It's a shareware application, so if you want a fully free alternative, look elsewhere.#3: Adobe CS4 SuiteAdobe's latest Creative Suite, CS4, is the newest addition to possibly the most popular and famous graphics editing package in the world. CS4 features a bunch of programs, including Dreamweaver and Illustrator, but most importantly it included Photoshop. Photoshop is the professional choice when it comes to image creation and manipulation, and whilst there are very good free alternatives, Photoshop is in a league of its own. #2: µTorrentµTorrent is, apparently, one of the most popular torrent clients around. It's got a great range of features, and works very well. It's currently available for Windows, or as a beta on Mac OS X. Aside from its features, it's also very small in filesize so is great for people with limited hardware. It's handy for downloading that Linux .iso, or what-have-you.#1: FirefoxIs anybody really surprised about this? Firefox appears to be the browser of choice with Neowin, and it's no wonder. It's fast, it's free, and it has a wonderful range of add-ons that make it hugely customizable while still being very usable. Development for Firefox is very strong and consistent, with new versions released daily, and Mozilla (the company behind it) have a great community, as well as a current 22.905% market share as of March, 2009. If, for whatever reason, you don't have this wonderful piece of software installed already.Honorable mentions:Google Chrome:Google's Chrome browser hasn't been around as long as its competitors, but it certainly is popular already. It is based on the Chromium project, and is currently available for Windows, but as a pre-alpha for Ubuntu and Mac OS X. If you've yet to try out Chrome, you can do so here. It's currently sitting on 1.23% market share, as of March, 2009.CCleaner:CCleaner is a very popular (and free!) tool for Windows, designed to remove all the unwanted files you may have lying around. It's had over 260 million downloads, and has many features including a registry cleaner and, most importantly, it's damn fast. According to the website for the software, it usually takes less than a second to run.Credits: NeowinSo, does everyone agree? If not what applications would you put the "Top Ten"? Lets make our own! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
irefay Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Why have both FF and Opera in the same list? Both are great products but they do the same thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KotaXor Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 I have half of the top ten. So should be agreeable.Why have 7zip and WinRAR together?Firefox and Opera? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bizarre™ Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 We should probably make:Top 10 Security ProgramsTop 10 BrowsersTop 10 Registry CleanersETCJust my 2 cents :wut: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
UberB Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 Personally I'm surprised that software like Hamachi and Daemon Tools aren't on the list.Again, having FF/Opera, WLM/Gaim, WinRAR/7Zip doesn't make sense. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Donaldo Posted April 13, 2009 Share Posted April 13, 2009 We should probably make:Top 10 Security ProgramsTop 10 BrowsersTop 10 Registry CleanersETCJust my 2 cents ;):yes:. . . . . . . . . . that makes it 4 cents. :P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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