Gizmo's Desert Island Utilities

Last year I installed for review purposes, hundreds of utility programs and applications. In the last five years, the number must be in the thousands.

Almost all of these, after review, have been promptly uninstalled.  Some were just dogs. Some worked fine but caused problems on my PC. Others were excellent but not as good as products I was already using.

The products that remain on my personal PC today are the survivors of a long Darwinian battle. They are for me the best of the best, the cream of the utility world. When ever I buy a new PC they are amongst the first products I install. They are indeed, my desert island utilities.

Some of the utilities and applications in this list also appear on the "Best-ever Freeware List" on this site but not all. That's because my list includes shareware and commercial products as well.

Note that "best" here doesn't necessarily mean the product with the most features nor does it mean the cheapest. It simply means what works best for me. Often that means "reliable."  But everyone has there own way of working so my desert island list is unlikley to be the same as yours.

Anti-virus scanner: NOD32 on some PCs Avira AntiVir Personal Premium on others.  I use AntiVir on higher risk PCs where I am prepared to trade slightly higher resource usage for a smidgeon more protection.

Firewall: Zone Alarm Pro V7 on some machines and Comodo on others. It was a rough ride with ZoneAlarm V7 as the early releases were very buggy.  I'm happy enough now but wonder whether the company really has its act together. Comodo went through a similar cycle with V3. I like Comodo but it's not really for beginners.

Adware/scumware scanner:  I use two: on some PCs I use WebRoot's SpySweeper and Sunbelt's CounterSpy V2 on others. These along with Spyware Doctor are the best products on the market and I run them on different PCs to get a long term feel for their real life performance. On production PCs I only use these products for on-demand scanning but on my test PCs I use them for active monitoring as well. Overall I've been much more impressed with SpySweeper's signature detection but I prefer Counterspy's lighter resource requirement, smart behavior based detection and better interface. For added security I cross scan my PCs with each product using mapped network drives.  

Browser: Mozilla Firefox. Safer than IE and has a wealth of free extensions as well. These extensions transform Firefox from a good browser to a great browser. Since making the move to V3 I'm waiting for a few key extensions to be updated. Here are some of the extensions I'm currently using with V3:

• AdBlock Plus Filters ads from web pages. Very effective.

• AdBlock Filterset.G Updater Keeps AdBlock up-to-date with the latest ad server sites.

•   Tab Mix Plus  Much more control over how tabs work

• Foxylicious Stores a copy of your del.icio.us bookmarks in Firefox bookmarks

• Session Manager  Saves tab sessions on demand and optionally when Firefox closes.

• Fasterfox  Tweaks Firefox to run faster on broadband connections.

• Google Tool Bar The original Google Tool Bar now available for Firefox

• Add Bookmark Here  Easy way to quickly bookmark a site to any folder.

• McAfee SiteAdvisor.  Reduces the chances of accidentally browsing to hostile sites.

• IEView Opens the current web page in Internet Explorer

• Reminderfox  Never forget a birthday again

• PDF Download  Convenient way of deciding to view or download PDFs or convert to HTML 

• RoboForm Toolbar  Integrates RoboForm password manager into Firefox

• StumbleUpon  Great way to discover new  web sites

• Nightly Tester Tools  Keeps your extensions working even after a Firefox version update

• Mimimize to Tray Useful for keeping Firefox open but hidden. Use trunk version at bottom of page.

Safe Browsing Environment:  Whenever I need to browse high risk sites I do so within a protected environment so that I can't get infected. On my laptop I use SandBoxie and while it can cause problems on some PCs it works just fine on mine. On my test PC I use VMWare WorkStation and must say its performance has been flawless; I've been infected many times but nothing has ever managed to leak through to infect my "real" PC.

Mail Client: Outlook XP.  A slow, fat monster. That said, the number of 3rd party add-ins is awesome and they provide great flexibility. I don't really want to upgrade to Outlook 2007 which is even fatter and slower but would prefer to  move to Thunderbird instead. However Thunderbird isn't quite there yet so I'll stick with XP.

Windows Explorer Replacement: Directory Opus.  For serious file management you need a two pane environment.  For serious two pane management you need Directory Opus. Warning: Old Amiga users may be overcome with nostalgia. This is an expensive commercial product and I must admit that if I was starting out afresh I'd be tempted to go with one of the free "Commander" file managers.

File and Directory Management: Directory Toolkit.  Combines wonderfully with Directory Opus to provide stunning directory and file management capabilities. Takes time to learn.

Text File Management: TextPipe Pro.  Offers the power of UNIX  grep and awk in an convenient Windows environment. If your work involves text management then you are wasting your time if you don't use this tool. Very expensive but worth every cent. One of the few tools on my PC that I truly couldn't work without.

Spam Filter 1: Google Gmail. These days all my mail to editor@techsupportalert.com is redirected to my Google GMail account. I then pick this up using Outlook for local processing on my PC. The spam filtering is excellent with a vanishingly low rate of false positives. The detection of real spam is good but not as outstanding so that's why I use another filter on my local PC - see below.

Spam Filter 2: Cloudmark Desktop.  I used to use Junk-Out, an excellent Bayesian statistical filter in the form of an Outlook add-in and but with email now averaging 1000 messages a day I found the Junk-out was overloading my CPU. Cloudmark doesn't have the extraordinary spam detection rate of Junk-Out but it's easier on processor cycles and virtually never classifies my real mail as spam. As a bonus, it zaps phishing email.  Between GMail and Cloudmark I rarely see more than a six spam emails a day which is pretty impressive given the wide distribution of my email address.

Clipboard Manager: KeyText.  My clipboard management needs focus on easily creating and inserting text snippets. KeyText allows me to do this easier than any other product I've tried. Occasionally I need to collect clips from multiple documents and KeyText does that as well. A gem. Mind you if was choosing  a product today I'd use Phrase Express. It's almost as good as KeyText and is free.

Download Manager: GetRight.  Offers seamless integration with FireFox combined with blinding speed, flexible configuration and many advanced features.

Internet Accelerator: Propel.   A $6.00 per month service that doubles browsing speed when using a modem. I  used to use it all the time while on the road but with better 3G cell phone coverage my days of dial-up are fast disappearing and so the days of Prople are numbered. I used Google Accelerator for a while and it's good but  Propel offers better performance with dial-up.

Registry Cleaner: After using  I've been using JV16 for a couple of years but development seems to have slowed so I've switched to Registry Mechanic with excellent results though I don't like their annual licensing approach. Still, it works without problems which is all you can ask.

File Zipper: WinZip.  Nowhere near as flexible as some of it's competitors but remains unmatched for its seamless integration into Windows. That's why it's my default zipper. WinRar is my backup. It handles most of the compressed archive types not handled by WinZip.

Text Editor: EditPad Pro.   It's a Notepad replacement, a full featured text editor and a pretty passable program editor as well.  Does what it is asked with total reliability. There are probably better choices for individual jobs but this is a great all-rounder.

File Cleaner: CCleaner combined wth Empty Temp Folders.  Between these freeware products you have all you need.

Disk Defragger: I used to use Perfect Disk which was fast and effective but with the release of V8 it runs way too slow and I've switched to DiskKeeper V10 and am quite happy with it even though the setup is ridiculously complicated.  Today I'd probably use the freeware program JKDefrag rather than fork out for DiskKeeper.

Disk Partitioning: Partition Magic.  I use an old version not the latest. It's slow and clunky but the most reliable product in its class . With this kind of product, reliability is everything. In recent times I've been using the open source GParted Live CD with excellent results.

Disk Imaging: True Image.  Easier to use than any of its competitors, can be scheduled and does incremental and differential images. My favorite version was V8 as V9 onwards suffer from feature bloat. That said the latest version of TI has never failed me.               

Data Backup: Genie Backup.  I use True Image for my major backups but in between, Genie protects my critical files. The best home data backup program on the market.

File Search  X1 Search.  This is one of the few utilities that will truly change the way you work.  It indexes the contents of all the data files on your hard drive including email and allows you to find anything instantly regardless of where it is stored and in what format. It's speed and presentation of search results are the best available. I use the full commercial version.

Search Bar: Google Tool Bar.  Yahoo Search Bar has more features but I need the Google web page rank information that's only available in the Google Bar. Besides I prefer to search with Google not Yahoo.

PopUp Stopper:  I use the stopper built into Mozilla FireFox. The performance is exemplary.

Ad Blocker: AdBlock Plus.  A free FireFox extension that virtually eliminates all types of ads. Needs the right filter setup to achieve its potential.

Task Bar Manager: PS Tray Factory.  Achieves the rare combination of bringing your taskbar icons under control without losing productivity.

FTP Client: FileZilla.  I used to use WS_FTP Pro but with the release of version 9, I find it over-kill for day-to-day tasks. FileZilla does all I want with simplicity, reliability and elegance and it's free as well.

Digital Image Editor: Adobe Photoshop.  It takes years to learn to use it properly but once you've mastered it there's no need to use anything else ever again.

BitTorrent Client: Azureus.   A freeware product that is flawlessly implemented. I just wish a lot of commercial products were this good. I also use uTorrent on another PC  which continues to impress with it's speed and compact size. I use the older V1.6 though, which predates the sale of uTorrent to people I don't trust.

Screen Capture:  ScreenHunter Pro  Does everything you could ever want. A true gem.

HTML Editor DreamWeaver.   Expensive but totally capable.  For quickies I often use FrontPage 2003. People bag FrontPage but it's an excellent editor just as long as you don't us Microsoft's proprietary features. Since this site went to CMS I do hardly any html coding.

Registry Editor: Resplendent.   Many times faster than Regedit,  full featured but most importantly, totally reliable.

Web Log Analyzer: Weblog Expert.  Amazingly fast and powerful for the price, well ... any price. Makes WebTrends look hideously expensive.  In recent times I've been using the free Google Analytics webservice and found it to better than any standalone log analyzer.

TaskBar Time: 12Ghosts Showtime.  The only utility I've found  that allows me to display time and date on the taskbar without taking up any extra space. As a bonus it gives me world-times and clock synchronization as well.

Password Manager: RoboForm.  Integrates seamlessly with FireFox to provide everything I want in a password manager. The fact that I can still access the same passwords from Internet Explorer is a bonus. There's a free version but you'll soon exceed the 10 passwords allowed.

File Re-namer: Lupas Rename   Allows me to mass rename files with ease. I can't understand how a product this good can remain free.

Search and Replace Utility:  The freeware program BK ReplaceEm. Awesome power and flexibility provided that is, you read the instructions.

KVM Software  I use two computers at the same but control both PCs and screens from the one keyboard and mouse by using the open source Synergy program that connects both PCs seamlessly using my network. I can even cut and paste from one PC to the other. Another gem.

CD/DVD Burner: Nero  Needs a re-write as the current interface is a kludge. It works well enough but its main strength is that it's main competitor Easy CD Creator, is so flawed.

Well folks that's it for now.