Superior Alternatives to Windows Software.

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Via lifehacker.

http://lifehacker.com/384545/superior-alternatives-to-crappy-windows-software

Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software

Whether it comes bundled with your computer, bundled with other software, or is just the go-to program for a specific task, the Windows ecosystem is rife with oft-used, yet craptastic software. We asked you what your most hated Windows apps are, and you gave us tons of shudder-inducing examples. We've compiled your answers into a list of our least favorite crapware, and the better programs you can use in their place.

Application to Avoid: Adobe Reader
Indictment: Slow as molasses, insecure, and runs annoying helper app at startup
Superior Alternative(s): We prefer SumatraPDF, though Foxit Reader and PDF-XChange Viewer are also popular alternatives
Notes: Adobe Reader isn't great, but you may find that some PDFs—particularly those with watermarks, editable form fields, or other special features—work better in Adobe Reader than in other PDF readers. If you have to work with PDFs often, Adobe Reader might be unavoidable, but it's a good idea to try something like Sumatra first just to make sure.

Application to Avoid: Adobe Flash
Indictment: Slows your computer, causes frequent browser crashes, hogs resources, drains battery, makes laptops heat up, and much more.
Superior Alternative(s): None, sadly.
Notes: It's pretty hard to go without Flash these days. HTML5 is slowly replacing it in some cases, but a lot of sites still require Flash. The best solution is to install something like Flashblock, available for both Chrome and Firefox, which will let you load Flash only when you need it. Alternatively, you can uninstall the Flash plugin entirely and use Chrome's self-contained version when you need it. This has the added advantage of loading HTML5 on some sites, like YouTube, when using Flashblock would just block the original Flash instead of serving the new HTML5 content.

Application to Avoid: Norton, McAfee, and other premium Antivirus suites
Indictment: Pricey, Slow, Bloated
Superior Alternative(s): Microsoft Security Essentials
Notes: Ever since Microsoft Security Essentials came out, you hasn't had much of a reason to use anything else. MSE is lightweight, good at catching viruses, and does all of its work in the background without bugging you. If you really don't like MSE, though, you have a few other solid options.

Application to Avoid: Internet Explorer
Indictment: Always stuck in the past
Superior Alternative(s): Google ChromeFirefox, Opera
Notes: IE isn't horrible (in fact, version 9 has made a few improvements), but it always seems behind the times compared to every other browser in existence. Unless it's the only browser that can load a specific webapp, it's not worth your time. Use IE to download a more extensible, feature-filled browser and forget about it.

Application(s) to Avoid: Browser Toolbars
Indictment: I don't even know where to start. They'll change your home page, track your browsing habits, take up space, and offer you features you don't want in return.
Superior Alternative(s): Not installing toolbars.
Notes: There are a few exceptions to this rule, but in general, you want to avoid browser toolbars at all costs. Toolbars often come packaged with other software and hijack the crap out of your browser, so any time you see a checkbox with the words "Ask Toolbar" next to it, do whatever it takes to keep that thing off your system.

Application to Avoid: Windows Media Player
Indictment: Lack of format support, crappy interface
Superior Alternative(s): VLC, KMPlayer, Media Player Classic
Notes: Windows Meida Player isn't all bad, but rarely is it preferable over simpler video players like VLC and KMPlayer.

Application to Avoid: iTunes
Indictment: Slower than a turtle with dumbbells on its feet, comes with the annoying Apple Software Update and the unnecessary QuickTime
Superior Alternative(s): Winamp, Foobar2000, MediaMonkey, Spotify, and tons of others
Notes: If you have to sync an iOS device, you might be stuck with iTunes. However, you can always use iTunes solely for syncing and use something different for actually listening to your music, which'll help you escape iTunes' bloat for most of the day.

Application to Avoid: QuickTime
Indictment: Unnecessary, comes with the annoying Apple Software Update
Superior Alternative(s): VLC, KMPlayer, Media Player Classic
Notes: QuickTime isn't nearly as bad as it used to be, and if you use iTunes, you have to have it on your system. If you're not going to use iTunes, though, you can play QuickTime videos in VLC without a problem. VLC and Media Player Classic even come with a browser plugin on the off chance you come across a QuickTime-only format video embedded in a web page.

Application to Avoid: WinZip and WinRAR
Indictment: Pricey, Unnecessary
Superior Alternative(s): 7-Zip, among others
Notes: WinZip is completely unnecessary on modern Windows machines, since it has ZIP support built-in. On the rare occasion ZIP isn't good enough, RARs provide great compression, but WinRAR is shareware, and RAR isn't that much better than 7-Zip's 7z format. For more information on file compression, check out our rundown of the best way to compress your files.

Application to Avoid: Nero Burning ROM, Roxio Creator, and other bloated CD/DVD burners
Indictment: Pricey, bloated
Superior Alternative(s): ImgBurn
Notes: Suites like Nero and Roxio are certainly more advanced than their freeware counterparts, but the majority of users will never need their more advanced features—especially considering their cost (both in dollars and in bloat). Plus, between smartphones and thumb drives, how often do you burn optical media, anyway?

Application to Avoid: Paint
Indictment: Is it still 1995?
Superior Alternative(s): Paint.NET, GIMP
Notes: If you ever have to do any basic image editing, you've probably realized Microsoft Paint is an incredibly primitive (almost childish) program. Paint.NET will serve your basic image editing needs, while GIMP provides more advanced features.

Application to Avoid: AIM, Windows Live Messenger
Indictment: Only support one network at a time, filled with ads
Superior Alternative(s): Pidgin, Miranda, Trillian, Digsby
Notes: We can't recommend Pidgin enough, though if you don't like it, Trillian and Digsby are also feature-filled, multi-protocol options. However, both contain either ads or bundled crapware, which is the exact problem we're trying to solve today. They're certainly better than AIM and Live Messenger, just be aware they're still dangerously close to being adware and crapware.

Application to Avoid: Windows Picture Viewer
Indictment: Doesn't support every format, very basic
Superior Alternative(s): IrfanView, XnView
Notes: Windows Picture Viewer is okay, but if you want support for other formats and extra features like keyboard shortcuts, IrfanView is a great replacement.

Application to Avoid: Skype
Indictment: Difficult to quit, runs at startup, horrible interface
Superior Alternative(s): Google Video Chat
Notes: This one's a little harder to escape, since everyone else you know probably uses Skype. But it's such a pain in the butt, it's worth trying to get all your friends to convert, since Skype probably annoys them just as much as it does you.

Application to Avoid: Microsoft Office
Indictment: Pricey, painfully slow, difficult to use
Superior Alternative(s): LibreOffice, Google Docs
Notes: Office suites have never been the poster children for blinding speed, but Microsoft Office is one of the worse offenders. It feels like you stare at that splash screen for hours before you actually get to start working. If you don't absolutely need Microsoft Office, LibreOffice is a great, free replacement that can handle most users' needs, though Google Docs'll also get the job done for more adventurous users.

Application to Avoid: Notepad
Indictment: Severely lacking in features
Superior Alternative(s): Notepad++, Notepad2
Notes: It's fine for one-off text edits, but if you ever spend any time in text editors, you know how painfully basic Windows' Notepad is. Notepad++ is is packed with useful features that make it stand out over Notepad. If you really want to complete the transition away from Notepad, a few system tweaks can make sure you never have to deal with it again.

Application to Avoid: Windows Command Prompt
Indictment: Annoying interface quirks, lacks real power
Superior Alternative(s): Cygwin + Console2, PowerShell
Notes: If you rarely visit the command prompt, Windows' built-in offering is probably fine. But if you're a heavy command line user, you'll want something a bit more advanced. Users familiar with Windows commands will love PowerShell, which is bundled with Windows 7, while UNIX veterans will love the Cygwin shell coupled with a better terminal program like Console2.

It's hardly an exhaustive list, but these are certainly the most annoying pieces of crapware you'll find on a given machine. Got another program that we didn't mention? Tell us about it (and its superior alternative) in the comments.

yoyo

I would like to comment on two of those recommendinations:
Foxit Reader - Rubbish Mozilla plugin which can't be easily removed (not deleted when foxit is uninstalled-Very poor), actually went back to using Adobe Reader as I got fed up with this one. Also installer makes it tricky not to install its spyware toolbar, many who install foxit the toolbar get dropped along with it
Trillian - Who likes to have random ads pop up like a instant message during a chat, rubbish ad supported crap now, avoid and use Digsby (I use) or Pidgin. I don't mind the odd pop up ad but the ads for Trillian come through like an instant message, very distracting and irritating

Nick

Adyx

yoyo wrote: »

I would like to comment on two of those recommendinations:
Foxit Reader - Rubbish Mozilla plugin which can't be easily removed (not deleted when foxit is uninstalled-Very poor), actually went back to using Adobe Reader as I got fed up with this one. Also installer makes it tricky not to install its spyware toolbar, many who install foxit the toolbar get dropped along with it
Trillian - Who likes to have random ads pop up like a instant message during a chat, rubbish ad supported crap now, avoid and use Digsby (I use) or Pidgin. I don't mind the odd pop up ad but the ads for Trillian come through like an instant message, very distracting and irritating

Nick

I also went back to Adobe Reader from Foxit. It just doesn't work with pdf documents with editable fields. Reader isn't as bad as it used to be either as long as you remove it from your start-up programs.

Overheal

makes terrible assumption about MS Office:

Microsoft Office is one of the worse offenders. It feels like you stare at that splash screen for hours before you actually get to start working.

Which might be true if youre on a netbook or something stupid. But actually MSO2010 is pretty handy, especially the OneNote. But Im ona 4yr old laptop and it loads in - /launches Access for giggles... not even a full second to get to from the launcher to ready-working state. Having never launched Access before. Thats a 5400RPM HDD for the folks following at home.

And Picture Viewer? You can download Live Photo Gallery. It does quite a lot more, including panorama-generating and face recognition.

Adyx

Overheal wrote: »

makes terrible assumption about MS Office:



Which might be true if youre on a netbook or something stupid. But actually MSO2010 is pretty handy, especially the OneNote. But Im ona 4yr old laptop and it loads in - /launches Access for giggles... not even a full second to get to from the launcher to ready-working state. Having never launched Access before. Thats a 5400RPM HDD for the folks following at home.

And Picture Viewer? You can download Live Photo Gallery. It does quite a lot more, including panorama-generating and face recognition.

Definitely agree about MS Office. Before I installed Office 2007 I had Open Office and it took ages to start and was buggy as hell. I really admire what they were doing and I hope Libre office is better but I'll take MS Office any day.

Fysh

Hmmm, that list has some good suggestions but also some very stupid ones. I really don't see cygwin as a replacement for the command prompt - they're designed around completely different usage, ffs! And yes, Powershell is nicer than cmd.exe, but on the other hand if you're scripting stuff for machines other than your own you know the default command prompt will work, whereas you don't have a guarantee that Powershell will be installed.

I'm also automatically wary of anyone recommending Foxit over Adobe reader. Adobe's product may have many problems, but it also has a more active dev team working on patches for software issues. Given the numerous problems that seem to plague PDF viewers, I'd prefer the one with at least some sort of security awareness.

Also, I've found CDBurnerXP to be much more useful and straightforward than ImgBurn, and for the casual user Picasa probably remains the most useful photo viewing software.

It's funny to see this thread though, I was just thinking yesterday that the applications and fixes thread could use an overhaul (there are 9-year-old posts in there!).

yoyo

Overheal wrote: »

makes terrible assumption about MS Office:



Which might be true if youre on a netbook or something stupid. But actually MSO2010 is pretty handy, especially the OneNote. But Im ona 4yr old laptop and it loads in - /launches Access for giggles... not even a full second to get to from the launcher to ready-working state. Having never launched Access before. Thats a 5400RPM HDD for the folks following at home.

And Picture Viewer? You can download Live Photo Gallery. It does quite a lot more, including panorama-generating and face recognition.

Very true, although the reason I didn't comment on this point is Office costs money, libreoffice/open office dont. Also Open/Libre office load slower than Microsoft Office from expierience, probably due to their Java bloatness out of the box, although i'm aware with Libreoffice they are trying to code away from Java. And Google Docs imo is absolutely rubbish, each to their own though...

Nick

homer911

What about a download manager?

Or a free HTML editor?

Fysh

I'd say FileZilla and uTorrent probably cover the download management side of things (maybe throw in jDownloader if you really want to).

TBH for HTML something like Notepad++ is your man. If you want WYSIWYG HTML editors you probably want good UI design and good documentation/newbie support, neither of which are easy to find in the world of FOSS...

BostonB

I accept the flaw of foxit. But the endless updates of adobe cause problems for me. Users would have alsorts of problems PDF's, unless they install the latest updates. And its also huge and slow, on older machines. In a large office thats a problem. Bigger than the rare security risk.

Capt'n Midnight

Fysh wrote: »

Hmmm, that list has some good suggestions but also some very stupid ones. I really don't see cygwin as a replacement for the command prompt - they're designed around completely different usage, ffs! And yes, Powershell is nicer than cmd.exe, but on the other hand if you're scripting stuff for machines other than your own you know the default command prompt will work, whereas you don't have a guarantee that Powershell will be installed.

Not to mention stuff like WSH

I'm also automatically wary of anyone recommending Foxit over Adobe reader. Adobe's product may have many problems, but it also has a more active dev team working on patches for software issues. Given the numerous problems that seem to plague PDF viewers, I'd prefer the one with at least some sort of security awareness.

I disagree.
Acrobat has far too much multimedia etc in it.
I want a pdf reader to read <gasp> pdf's !
searching / copying text is also good as is printing.
being able to open the default browser from a http in the text is handy but not essential.
everything else is bloat.
what annoys me about acrobat is that many of the security patches are to fix problems in the unneeded extras that I don't use

sumatrapdf is lite , but doesn't have full copy
foxit is starting to bloat and I don't like the zoom, must look at some older versions and save acrobat for the odd doc that won't open any other way

http://oldversion.com/foxit-PDF-reader.html
Some older versions of Foxit are 1.1MB

Acrobat Reader 9.4.5 MUI is 691MB :eek:


of course I'd leave the last word to Secunia PSI to confirm that it doesn't have any known problems
https://secunia.com/vulnerability_scanning/personal/
https://secunia.com/advisories/search/?search=foxit

Also, I've found CDBurnerXP to be much more useful and straightforward than ImgBurn, and for the casual user Picasa probably remains the most useful photo viewing software.

I've always liked Irfanview for the batch mode, and paint dot net takes the crown from paint shop pro for a lite photo editor.

It's funny to see this thread though, I was just thinking yesterday that the applications and fixes thread could use an overhaul (there are 9-year-old posts in there!).

true

JonathanAnon

okay where do I start... first of all the title is misleading "alternatives to windows software".. more like popular Windows software alternatives..

I agree with a lot of the list... As much as I hate agreeing with somebody in authority , I agree with Fysh on the Picasa and CDBXP, both very user friendly, easy to install, and very good programs..

I've never found Office particularly slow, as is suggested in the article.. the problems I would have with Office is that a) it costs a fkn fortune and b) I dont know anybody that likes the Office 2010 interface (why did they change it, it's been the same since Office 97 )

Also not sure why they've picked on Adobe.. I think the stability of the plugin has a lot to do with the browser as well as the plugin.. I've found google chrome to be stable with the Adobe plugin, firefox is just a disaster since 3.5.3 ...

BostonB

They changed office in 2007 and partially changed it back in 2010.

Fysh

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

I disagree.
Acrobat has far too much multimedia etc in it.
I want a pdf reader to read <gasp> pdf's !
searching / copying text is also good as is printing.
being able to open the default browser from a http in the text is handy but not essential.
everything else is bloat.
what annoys me about acrobat is that many of the security patches are to fix problems in the unneeded extras that I don't use

There's no doubt that Adobe's Reader is bloated, but they've gotten better with version 10 (for starters, 10 lets you set updates to install automatically though for some reason this isn't the default option). It also introduces sandboxing for improved security and lets you properly turn off a lot of the multimedia rubbish. (It also takes up 113MB, which is still ridiculous but moving in the right directino from version 9).

It would be good to have a Reader Lite that was just for viewing PDFs with none of the added cruft that's mainly intended to upsell the Acrobat Pro stuff, but despite their competence in other areas I think Adobe may be stuck with their heads in the sand on this one...

Yeah, PDN is very nice for a free editor - Photoshop fans may prefer Gimpshop just for the UI/menu structure, but if you spend a bit of time collecting filters you can turn PDN into a very good graphics package. It's not exactly lightweight though given that it depends on having almost all the .NET runtimes installed...

Kadongy

I like Free RAR Extract Frog. Simple minimalist fast and has a picture of a frog.

http://download.cnet.com/Free-RAR-Extract-Frog/3000-2250_4-10804840.html

I like Avira for virus protection, because it's very light and works fine. It also allows you to turn off features if you want more easily. The only criticism I have of it is that it gives more false positives than other AV software I have used - but not so many as to be annoying.

http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus

Opera is resource heavy tbh. I dont remember what my issues were with Chrome, but I really hated it. Firefox is the only browser that I find doesn't slowly devour all your RAM.

Silverlight's generally more efficient than Flash, uses open standards where Flash does not, and is far superior in how applications can be structured from a programming PoV. But even MS say HTML5 will be a superior choice for RIAs in general. Silverlight will still have its uses though - and not just on Windows Phone. The fact that they're choosing to specialise early rather than to compete means it will probably be the best choice for certain applications for a long time.

I like Zune personally, but it's very very slow to load on most computers.

BostonB

Fysh wrote: »

...
Yeah, PDN is very nice for a free editor - Photoshop fans may prefer Gimpshop just for the UI/menu structure, but if you spend a bit of time collecting filters you can turn PDN into a very good graphics package. It's not exactly lightweight though given that it depends on having almost all the .NET runtimes installed...

Whats PDN?

BostonB

Never heard of RAR Extract Frog, must give it a whirl. I've started using 7-Zip. Compresses much smaller than pkzip.

Fysh

BostonB wrote: »

Whats PDN?

PDN=Paint.Net. It's a very nice editor, with support for layers, filters, transparencies and a whole bunch of other things usually assumed to be limited to Photoshop or other pricey packages.

Inkscape's also a good one if you need a free vector graphics package.

BostonB

Why is there a D in it? I always thought it was a bit fussy so I 've stuck to an old version of PSP I have licence for. Or XNview.

Fysh

Paint Dot Net

It probably is fussy to some extent, but most decent image editors cost money so getting a decent one for free is a good deal.

JonathanAnon

BostonB wrote: »

Why is there a D in it? I always thought it was a bit fussy so I 've stuck to an old version of PSP I have licence for. Or XNview.

Yeah I've done the same.. Just cant make the move to GIMP.. I've tried on a number of occasions but PSP (version 9) is just so quick for putting stuff together..

BostonB

Fysh wrote: »

Paint Dot Net

It probably is fussy to some extent, but most decent image editors cost money so getting a decent one for free is a good deal.

LOL. I think its great. Its just not replaced my old reliable. I'm still using an old version of Photoshop 7 I think, I have from years ago. I couldn't switch to gimp either.

Ghost_of_ED209

If your sick of itunes and just want to easily backup, copy or transfer files from/to your ipod, I'd suggest using this great free app called sharepod..

http://www.getsharepod.com/

Overheal

homer911 wrote: »

What about a download manager?

Or a free HTML editor?

I'm sorry, I must have dialed 1999. People still use download managers? Why?

RolandIRL

Overheal wrote: »

I'm sorry, I must have dialed 1999. People still use download managers? Why?

I use DownThemAll for Firefox. Its 1-click and batch downloading is much easier than the native Firefox downloader.
jDownloader as well is much better for automating downloads from file-sharing sites apart from captcha input.

Being able to resume downloads as well is handy. I'm sometimes on a sluggish midband connection due to my location and the Firefox downloader doesn't always resume downloads even thought DTA does for the same files.

yoyo

Overheal wrote: »

I'm sorry, I must have dialed 1999. People still use download managers? Why?

Filehosting sites :P . Batch downloading etc. Actually download managers are used quite a bit these days. Anything over 400 odd meg I will use a download manager, even if its just downthemall. Browser download managers don't support multiple connections and are usually considerably slower to a download manager, download managers also let you pause/resume, handy if a server goes down mid way through a large download, theres some hope of not needing to waste bandwidth again!

Nick