10 Essential Windows Freeware Programs – Part 3
Posted on March 17, 2010 at 5:15 am
This article is Part 3 in the series Freeware Programs Worth Checking Out. Here, we will wrap up the list of great freeware money savers that you can use as alternatives to popular premium software.
Advanced SystemCare Free vs. System Mechanic
Want to optimize Windows for best performance? Give your PC a tune up? One of the top premium apps for doing just that is System Mechanic, by iolo technologies. System Mechanic has many convenient features designed to tackle system maintenance, optimization, and performance.
According to System Mechanic, their flagship software will: clean and defragment the registry, accelerate PC startup in 19 ways, recover lost RAM speed, boost internet speed, and more. It’s difficult to believe that an all-in-one utility will boost internet speed.
Anyways, System Mechanic will run you around $39.95 for the basic edition, and $49.95 for the pro version, which adds a couple of additional features. If you want to take advantage of fixes and updates, that will be an additional $29.95 a year.
Advanced SystemCare Free, the freeware alternative to System Mechanic, has actually received better reviews from most experts and consumers. As its name suggests, Advanced SystemCare Free is the free version of a paid premium software, Advanced SystemCare.
Advanced SystemCare Free, being the basic edition, does lack on some features of the Pro. However, for basic system optimization, cleaning, and secure file deletion, it does its job quite well. If you’re looking for an easy to use Windows optimizer, without the price tag, give Advanced SystemCare Free a try.
Alternatively, if you find that Advanced SystemCare is not the software for you, you may want to check out Glary Utilities and CCleaner. If you are looking for some basic tips, to get more speed out of Windows, Help Desk Geek has a great article titled 99 Ways to Make Your Computer Blazingly Fast.
Advanced SystemCare Free can save you $40.
Virtual Box vs. VMware Workstation
Looking for a way to run multiple operating systems on your PC, but don’t want to partition your hard drive and dual boot? For that, you will need a good virtualization software.
VMware Workstation, by VMware, Inc, is one of the most popular PC virtualization solutions. Everyone from companies to individuals use Workstation to install Linux on top of Windows, Windows on top of Windows, and more.
In fact, there is even a way that you can install Mac OS X Snow Leopard within a Windows 7 virtual machine with VMware Workstation. All of this sounds great, until you see the price tag. VMware Workstation will run you close to $200 ($189.00). That, plus purchasing any addition operating systems to install, can quickly break right through your $500 virtualization budget.
Rather, you may want to consider using the open source freeware, Virtual Box. Although it doesn’t have quite as many bells and whistles as VMware Workstation, Virtual Box is simple to use, and can do just about anything VMware Workstation can.
Being an open source software, Virtual Box also has a large support community. Meaning, if you need help installing, troubleshooting, etc., it should be easy enough to find.
Virtual Box can save you $189.00
Filezilla vs. Cute FTP
Anyone with even the least bit of website/blog making experience probably knows what an FTP app is. Basically, an FTP program allows you to upload/download files to a web server from your PC.
Cute FTP, a program by GlobalSCAPE, is one of the best FTP programs out there. It has a very intuitive interface, which goes a long ways when working with FTP programs. It also has all of the basic features that one would need in an FTP program.
Unfortunately, it costs $45.00. Although $45 is still a fairly cheap price to pay for good software, some people may prefer a free alternative, as they don’t require frequent maintenance/uploading/downloading for their website or blogs.
Filezilla is a great, free alternative to Cute FTP. Honestly, Filezilla offers just about every feature that Cute FTP offers, without the price. Filezilla is also open source, meaning that it has a community behind it. Any bugs, fixes, updates, etc, are completely free.
Filezilla can save you $65.00
Free RAR Extract Frog vs. WinRar
RAR is quickly becoming one of the most popular file archiving and compression formats. When you download something with Windows, it’s actually rare to get a straight .exe.
Rather, you will get either a ZIP or RAR file. The most popular utility to open RAR files is WinRAR. WinRAR is an excellent program. It’s easy to use, full featured, and has good speed. However, you can only get WinRAR as a limited trial. After the trial expires, you will need to purchase WinRAR, which costs approximately $29.00.
A good alternative to WinRAR, which is completely free, is Free RAR Extract Frog. Don’t let the weird name fool you. In terms of doing what it’s supposed to do, archiving RAR files, Free RAR Extract Frog works excellent. Give it a try.
Free RAR Extract Frog can save you $29.00.
Conclusion
This three part series mentioned 20 overall programs: 10 freeware vs. 10 premium. In some cases, the premium software may be the way to go, for you. But for the majority of people, the freeware mentioned in this series is capable of getting the job done.
The savings is quite clear for each software. If you are a PC user that has a use for all of the premium software on this list, and would consider purchasing it, you can save yourself $1,160.00 on the low end, and over $3000 on the high end, by using the freeware alternatives.
» Filed Under Free Software Downloads
Related Posts
- 4 Ways to Install and Run Windows on a Mac
- 10 Essential Windows Freeware Programs – Part I
- 10 Essential Windows Freeware Programs – Part 2
- Install Mac OS X Snow Leopard on a PC using VMware
- Install Mac OS X Lion on PC Using VMware Virtualization
Use 7zip.. it’s better than RAR..
7zip does rar files too and a whole bunch more; you will never need to use another program. The skins on frog are fun for a bit and then are just annoying.
Advanced System Care is a utility I’ve used regularly for the last two years with great satisfaction.