[SOLVED] Good and bad apps and programs

[MJS WARLORD]

I am sure that you have all used some programs and apps that you have thought are brilliant or caused you a nightmare , and thats the purpose of this thread.

GOOD ONES.
Windows SNIPPING TOOL , back in the day before websites were plastered in adverts it was possible to increase the size of print on screen and you printer would print the item at that that increased size. Now that websites are full of adverts their are loads of locked margins that stop this happening. This is where the snipping tool comes into its own , it also saves a fortune on ink and paper so now all i do is copy the area i want and copy it to word and print it off.

Ccleaner , by todays standard it is old news and yes their may be better programs but this does exactly what it should and nothing else.

ADVANCED RENAMER.. windows cant cope with names on photos so you put the photos in the order you want to watch and during making a back up windows reshuffles them and saves them in the wrong order. The answer to this is the advanced renamer , you put the photos in the order you want and then drag the folder into the program , the program then replaces all the names with a 4 digit number , when you back them up windows saves them in the same order you placed them.

BAD ONES
DUPLICATE FILE DELETER ...... so that myself and this website does not get into trouble i cant name the individual company who made the program i used because its still available.
I ran the program in question and on screen i saw it search for duplicate windows files but did not suspect something was wrong until it searched for duplicate games files and folders why would it do that , thats when alarm bells started to ring.
What i did not know at the time was it was NOT searching for items and getting ready to present me with results of what it found , what i saw was everything it was deleting. The program did so much damage i had to use my factory reset discs to make it to a never used state.

 

[Colif]

Bad
Any 3rd party driver updating software as almost all of them get it wrong and can make it worse. I won't name any as there numbers seem to be growing and most of them are the same.

Those are the most dangerous as people think they are a short cut and easy way out. They would be if they worked as expected. I would praise them.

Most hardware makers now have their own software for the task, better choice to use those.
I am sure I made a stickie about all the MB makers driver updaters but I can't seem to find it.

Good
Driverview
all it does is looks at drivers, it has no way to get them for you. Best way to identify what is old. Safer than the ones on Bad list. Hence I linked to it.

HWINFO - Mainly for tracking temps

I could counter your CCleaner by saying you have to be careful what it removes. And its default settings will remove the memory dump so if you having BSOD its counter productive.
I ran it on a new install and it removed programs I wanted but hadn't run yet. Probably user error but still.

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Hi colif as you may have seen me comment on another thread ccleaner has a new bit that tells you that you have lots of drivers missing but one of my laptops own software says its all up to date so i am with you on that one ....... merry xmas

 

[Colif]

I know, I was just adding similar comment to this thread so others also see the points
My bad was limited to driver installers, I don't really use that many programs anymore.
I would have added more good but what I use is rather limited. Everything else is mostly handy sometimes
HD Sentinel handy for tracking drive health/temps
Process Explorer - an over powered Task manager

nothing I really use daily.

 

[Bob.B]

Hi colif as you may have seen me comment on another thread ccleaner has a new bit that tells you that you have lots of drivers missing but one of my laptops own software says its all up to date so i am with you on that one ....... merry xmas

Ccleaner is a nice tool to tidy up.
It is not bullet proof.
Before you clean some area or use some feature you need to do a little reading

 

[hotaru.hino]

Over the years I've distilled my view on apps to this:

Base recommended apps

• Firefox
• HWiNFO
• 7-Zip

Other recommend apps

• FreeFileSync
  • I use this to update/sync my backups
• MPC-HC with madVR (Video player)
  • MPC-HC's author started updating it again. Though it has a fork known as MPC-BE
• Paint.NET (image editor)
  • Especially with BoltBait's plugin pack
• SpeedCrunch
  • It's a better calculator app
• VisualStudio Code (if you need a plaintext editor other than Notepad)
  • I'll also throw in Notepad++
• Winamp (Music player)
  • This is just me refusing to switch to Foobar 2000, but I'll recommend Foobar 2000 as an alternative.
• WinDirStat (to find what's taking up space)

Bad

• Most anti-malware software
  • See https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/01/antivirus-is-bad
  • Although I'll still make an exception to MalwareBytes, but I haven't had a use for it in a long time so I can't vouch for how necessary it is anymore
  • On that note, add 3rd party firewalls to the list if you're still using them. You don't need those anymore.
• Driver update software
  • Drivers aren't really necessary to update unless they actually fix/improve something that impacts you in a significant way, and it's better to go to the manufacturer themselves.
  • Also Windows will do it for you if it's absolutely necessary

Stuff I don't recommend (not that they're necessarily bad, but they don't fit my needs)

• CCleaner (or any other cleaning utility)
  • Its primary functionality is handled just fine by Windows' built in drive cleaner tool.
  • Cleaning the registry doesn't really seem to have any impact on OS performance or reliability
  • Some of its other features are useful, but I don't need them on a whim
• DDU
  • My stance on this program is it's useful if you want to absolutely make sure your system is clean of drivers it does clean, but it's not needed for routine updates.
  • I mean, the site it's hosted on even says "DDU should not be used every time you install a new driver unless you know what you are doing. "
• Extra utilities for your hardware
  • Most features in motherboard utilities can be done in UEFI firmware settings. The only thing I can think of that would be nice to have with this is setting the fan speeds, but if they tweak things beyond that, I find that very unsettling to do in an OS environment.
  • For NVIDIA video cards, GeForce Experience. I've yet to find a use case for it that makes it worth installing.
  • For AMD CPUs, Ryzen Master. Unless you absolutely need to tweak the CPU for every use case, I find it better to set things in UEFI and let the system do its thing.
• PDF readers
  • I just use Edge.
• Probably a lot of others that I see recommended, but Windows takes care of the feature just fine. Off the top of my head
  • Revo Uninstaller: it's great if you really want to keep your machine tidy (i.e., making sure the folder the app was installed gets removed and all registry entries associated with it are gone), but it's not really necessary.
  • TeraCopy: Its features I haven't really needed, and if I wanted to make sure something gets copied correctly, I know how to use robocopy
  • 3rd party Defraggers: SSDs don't need them and HDD seeking technology (from the physical drives to the software stack) have made fragmentation less impactful to performance, on top of Windows defragging in the background anyway.

 

[crazyal]

CCleaner

That's mostly bloatware these days.

 

[MJS WARLORD]

Hi crazyal and Bob.B .... I did not know that some users classed Ccleaner as bloatware i have used since 2003 when it first came out and never had a problem , some postings say windows defender that i only use as a scanner once a will as a scanner , will sometimes flag up ccleaner as a pup but it has not done it to me.

 

[Bob.B]

Hi crazyal and Bob.B .... I did not know that some users classed Ccleaner as bloatware i have used since 2003 when it first came out and never had a problem , some postings say windows defender that i only use as a scanner once a will as a scanner , will sometimes flag up ccleaner as a pup but it has not done it to me.

I've used CC for years.
I have it set up to my liking and run it every 15 days.
Just a little house cleaning.
It's quick and easy to use.
Some of the features I have no interest in.

 

[Pimpom]

Irfanview - Tiny, fast, versatile, free and powerful, especially with the plugins. I use it literally every day, not only for viewing pictures but for converting and editing them too.

Folder Protector (Lockdir) by Kakasoft. Small, portable, easy to use and free. Frankly, I don't know how secure it is against a skilled hacker but it does what I want the way I want it. That is, it hides and unhides the contents of any folder in situ - no need to create a special protected folder.