I tend to be a software minimalist. I like software that's small, clean and good at what it does. I don't like the Microsoft mindset that crams every possible feature anyone can think of into a package. Word is a bloated monster. Surveys indicate that 90% of Word users never use more than 10% of the features. I'm one of those.

I try to avoid Microsoft products whenever practically possible. Microsoft products are riddled with bugs and security holes. The two biggest, stationary targets in the computer world are MS Outlook and Internet Explorer. If you use other products for email and web browsing, you will eliminate the vast majority of security risks on the internet. I use Firefox for web browsing and recommend it to others. I use Eudora for email and recommend Thunderbird to most of my friends.

The primary aspect of the Microsoft world that I don't like is the philosophy of sharing code within the Windows environment. It results in what is affectionately know as ".DLL Hell" and ultimately "WinRot". I have for years, longed for "the good old days" of DOS where each application carried the resources it needed within itself. Installation, in most cases, was merely copying the new software into its own directory. Unistalling was simply a delete. It wasn't all that simple, but in general that was the way things worked.

Now I freely admit that Windows has given us many nice things like copy & paste between applications, system based printer resources and the like. But the .DLL mess continues and gets worse. I have spent years wishing that the Windows world could move back toward the simplicity of non-shared resurces as much as possible.

The PortableApps project is doing that. They have a large suite of applications that carry needed resources within their own space and can be run from removeable media, primarily thumb drives. You can plug into any computer with a USB port, run applications as if they were local, and when you're done, remove the drive and leave no traces on the machine. This is ideal for those who use public computers at school, libraries, web cafes, etc. and those who carry applications as well as data between home and work.
Portable Apps that I use.

Another source with the same philosphy is Steve Gibson. He has written a bunch of useful utilities that also run in a PortableApps-like manner. I carry several of them on my thumb drive as well.

So here's my recommended list.

Firefox is a small, efficient web browser from the Mozilla group that will do anything the average computer user will need. An added advantage to Firefox is that it is part of the PortableApps project. It will ride on a thumb drive, carrying your bookmarks and other configurations.

Eudora is a very powerful, full-featured email client that can easily handle multiple, diverse ISP accounts. The down side to this flexibility is that it is a bit user hostile when it comes to configuring. I use it for all my email as I can manage all four of my regular accounts from within one application.

Update May 2007: Qualcomm has ended all development and support of Eudora and has handed off the code to the open source community. Future development will be done within the Mozilla community and it will become Penelope, a melding of Mozilla and Thunderbird. The final version of Eudora, 7.0.1.9, is still available on the Eudora website. Sponsored mode is no longer active, Eudora has taken down the add server site. Sponsored mode still functions with all features, it just doesn't display adds anymore. I'll be using it until it will no longer run on whatever Windows becomes. I have not tested it on Vista as I'll be avoiding Vista as long as I possibly can.

Thunderbird (from the Mozilla group) is the email engine I recommend to almost all my friends. It is very similar to Outlook so the change is easy for most users. It is far more secure than Outlook. It is not as versatile as Eudora, but most users don't need to manage multiple accounts from different ISPs so the issue doesn't apply. It is also part of the PortableApps project.

Irfanview is the greatest graphic viewer available for free. It's better than most that cost money. It's like a mini-Photoshop and also plays most audio and video formats.

Cobian Backup is an easy to use, reliable backup program that's made for disk-to-disk backup. It will run automatically and do your backups overnight.

Software I use every day
Firefox
Eudora
Irfanview
Portable Apps
Cobian Backup

Software I recommend to others
Thunderbird

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