Essential software for new computers

[divito]

Everything on Ninite is basically the most "essential" list of software one could make, and it installs for you. The only things I can think of that I install and they aren't on Ninite, are Adobe products, MS Office, and Plex.

[ScratchCat]

1 hour ago, aezakmi said:

gpu drivers

Flash player

coretemp

I would really not recommend installing flash player on any computer, it is basically a floodgate for malware right now.

https://www.cvedetails.com/vulnerability-list/vendor_id-53/product_id-6761/Adobe-Flash-Player.html

1004 Vulnerabilities and counting.

 

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

Shifty- Apple lets you customize it already

From what I can tell it only lets you change the colour and set a schedule.

https://9to5mac.com/2017/01/25/how-to-turn-on-night-shift-mac/

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, ScratchCat said:

From what I can tell it only lets you change the colour and set a schedule.

 

What else is there to customize? 

[ScratchCat]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

What else is there to customize? 

• Rate of colour change
• Customize location
• Additional colour modes such as dark room , vignrette etc.
• Disable for specific time periods
• Disable for specific apps
• Change start and stop times
• Enable change of colour during the day.
• Hotkeys
• Control Philips Hue lamps

 

 

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

Why VLC? QuickTime works just as good and looks way better. Unless you have weird proprietary file types that nobody uses so you need VLC to open them.  

QuickTime is amazing, but I need to open other codecs. I use QT whenever I can though. VLC is needed for .mkv

 

33 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

MPC-HC seems to have faster software HEVC decode than VLC as well as better quality, at least as of VLC 2.2.5.

 

Quicktime seems to not support .mkv video at this time. Mkv is quite common outside "official" channels of obtaining content, so this feature can be important for a player that can play everything.

 

<snip>

I used to use Unarchiver and not 7-Zip. Pages etc are also great and free, but I need Office for work - but that comes free as a student anyway.

FireFox is great - faster and better than chrome.

[paddy-stone]

MSI afterburner/rivatuner

malwarebytes

EASUS partition manager

AOMEI backupper

HWINFO64

rufus

foobar2000

MPC-HC/MPC-BE

plex

handbrake

kodi

dvdfab

mediainfo

mkvtoolnix/mkvmerge etc

xnview

vmware

YUMI

etcher

crystaldiskmark/info

waterfox/opera/firefox/chrome

steam

keepass 2

jdownloader

evernote

freefilesync

calibre

winrar/7-zip/peazip - I use all of them, sometimes you have some awkward files  and it helps to have a backup.

avidemux

google backup and sync

cpu/gpu-z

DDU

imgburn

dropbox

vpnclient - PIA/openvpn/protonvpn

glasswire

putty

foxitreader

kindleforpc

notepad ++

mediacreationtool

injuredpixels/pixelhealer

 

 

[Bhav]

Microsoft office? I use shareware alternatives, WPS office I think its called.

[Techicolors]

1 hour ago, DrMacintosh said:

Bettertouchtools is inferior to Hyperdock and BettersnapTool

IINA is usless because you have iTunes 

eqMac2- just use iTunes for your EQ mixer 

Shifty- Apple lets you customize it already

and Apple killed Alfred with Sierra. 

 

So if anything only HyperDock and BettersnapTool. 

the other apps don't seem to handle gesture customization

i prefer a separate media player

the current night shift doesn't have a wide enough customization suite

eqMac2 is a global equalizer with profiles

Alfred is updated to handle sierra

[DrMacintosh]

11 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

but I need Office for work

What do you need office for? 

[DrMacintosh]

Just now, Technicolors said:

the other apps don't seem to handle gesture customization

BettersnapTool is built around gesture support. Every possible macro or touch gesture Bettersnap can do

 

1 minute ago, Technicolors said:

i prefer a separate media player

Why? You're just wasting space on your drive. 

 

2 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

eqMac2 is a global equalizer with profiles

Most people just EQ what they listen to, like music or audio inputs. EQing the system is just dumb. 

 

3 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

Alfred is updated to handle sierra

Sierra killed the usefulness of Alfred. Spotlight is perfect now and does the things people liked about Alfred only better. 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, DrMacintosh said:

What do you need office for? 

University work. I need to use excel and all the instructions are for excel. 

[Himommies]

how has f.lux not been mentioned

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

how has f.lux not been mentioned

F.lux is dead. 

 

Windows and macOS built its features in a while ago. 

[Zodiark1593]

9 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

QuickTime is amazing, but I need to open other codecs. I use QT whenever I can though. VLC is needed for .mkv

 

I used to use Unarchiver and not 7-Zip. Pages etc are also great and free, but I need Office for work - but that comes free as a student anyway.

FireFox is great - faster and better than chrome.

For video playback, ideally, I'd like one player to do everything. Realistically, due to bugs or varying performance and capabilities of my devices, I still need to keep multiple players around. Kodi on my Windows tablet works great with touchscreen controls, but the tablet needs MPH-HC to have a hope in hell of decoding my 1080P HEVC encoded content. The Weatherwax version of VLC seems to have broken hardware decode for myself, so I hadn't used it much in quite some time.

 

For Windows 7-zip is basically invisible until you need it. Never used Unarchiver before, and while 7-zip exists, I'm not sure why stuff like WinRAR is around. 7-zip does virtually everything WinRAR does at no cost.

 

Love Firefox on PC. The Android variant has gotten considerably faster with the new update, but still lacking Chrome's fluidity. Otherwise I'd use Firefox on Android as well.

[Himommies]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

F.lux is dead. 

 

Windows and macOS built its features in a while ago. 

rly?

I know my mac has night shift but on PC?

I really don't like night shift as it's not nearly as extreme for my tastes

 

[DrMacintosh]

1 minute ago, Himommies said:

I really don't like night shift as it's not nearly as extreme for my tastes

You can set it to be orange as fuck. 

[Himommies]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

You can set it to be orange as fuck. 

But that dosen't change over time like flux

[Guest]

1 minute ago, Zodiark1593 said:

For video playback, ideally, I'd like one player to do everything. Realistically, due to bugs or varying performance and capabilities of my devices, I still need to keep multiple players around. Kodi on my Windows tablet works great with touchscreen controls, but the tablet needs MPH-HC to have a hope in hell of decoding my 1080P HEVC encoded content. The Weatherwax version of VLC seems to have broken hardware decode for myself, so I hadn't used it much in quite some time.

 

For Windows 7-zip is basically invisible until you need it. Never used Unarchiver before, and while 7-zip exists, I'm not sure why stuff like WinRAR is around. 7-zip does virtually everything WinRAR does at no cost.

 

Love Firefox on PC. The Android variant has gotten considerably faster with the new update, but still lacking Chrome's fluidity. Otherwise I'd use Firefox on Android as well.

You are talking about Windows -  I am talking about MacOS

On Windows I use Media Player Classic with the K-Lite Codec, and WinRAR (Cause free anyway).

[Mira Yurizaki]

3 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

For Windows 7-zip is basically invisible until you need it. Never used Unarchiver before, and while 7-zip exists, I'm not sure why stuff like WinRAR is around. 7-zip does virtually everything WinRAR does at no cost.

I still chuckle when people use WinRAR. They could just use 7zip which does everything without the nag screen.

 

But I guess since WinRAR doesn't actually do anything when the free trial is up, people don't seem to care enough to switch. And I've been seeing more 7z files than rar if it's not a zip file lately.

[Techicolors]

3 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

BettersnapTool is built around gesture support. Every possible macro or touch gesture Bettersnap can do

 

all i see about bettersnaptool is it's a window positioning tool. hyperdock is similar

[DrMacintosh]

2 minutes ago, Technicolors said:

 

all i see about bettersnaptool is it's a window positioning tool. hyperdock is similar

Because you don't own them

 

[Zodiark1593]

5 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

You are talking about Windows -  I am talking about MacOS

On Windows I use Media Player Classic with the K-Lite Codec, and WinRAR (Cause free anyway).

Any benefit to installing the K-Lite codec over using the codecs MPC already includes?

[Guest]

Just now, Zodiark1593 said:

Any benefit to installing the K-Lite codec over using the codec MPC already includes?

Not in real use, but its pretty much every codec ever

[Anghammarad]

Here a little list for my windows systems:

 

All drivers for the system. Not from the system manufacturer but from the components manufacturers.

 

7zip

Acrobat Reader

Audacity

CDBurnerXP

CPU-Z

Free Youtube to MP3 Converter

Gimp

Handbrake

InSSIDer (on devices with wifi)

Java

A Office package (currently MS Office 2010)

MS Sysinternal Suite

Network Speed Test

Notepad++

Nexus Dock

PingPlotter

Speccy

SRWare Iron (with Addons Adblock, Disconnect, Ublock)

Teamspeak 3

Total Commander

Ventrilo

VirtualDub

VLC

Winamp

WinSCP

WDRT

WinDBGview (for troubleshooting minidumps)

 

I left out the game clients, because no matter if Steam, GoG, Origin, Ubisoft, Blizzard etcpp. It only depends on what you play, so no reason to install Blizzard Launcher if you don't play any blizzard games.

 

Benchmarks I only install when I build a fresh system, not for a fresh install. So not listed here as well.

 

I think I forgot a lot of tools which I normally have at hand. 

 

[Mira Yurizaki]

27 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

Any benefit to installing the K-Lite codec over using the codecs MPC already includes?

 

26 minutes ago, RorzNZ said:

Not in real use, but its pretty much every codec ever

I would argue installing madVR is essential, which K-Lite (and maybe CCCP) does not include. At the very least, it renders HDR videos "correctly" on SDR displays.