Five Best Web Browsers

It's probably the most important and debated piece of software on the modern computer. See how your fellow readers get around the net, and vote for your favorite web browser, in this week's Hive Five.

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The only proper way to follow up on the passionate flurry of voting that last week's Hive Five Best Linux Distributions created was to ask you about your favorite web browser. You didn't disappoint—Lifehacker readers came out in force, logging nearly a thousand votes to support their favorite browsers. We've tallied up the votes and we're here to share the top five browsers.

Chrome

Windows only (for practical purposes, but soon on Mac and Linux, if we're lucky): Some browsers have roots going back to the early 1990s—Chrome, on the other hand, is the new kid on the block. Although Chrome has a distant relationship to Konqueror and is a cousin to the Safari web browser—both share the speedy WebKit rendering engine—Google's browser is less than a year old. Despite its youth, it's already garnered praise for its minimalist interface and snappy page rendering. Chrome also handles site errors and quirks well, and each individual tab is a unique process, so a crash or lag in one shouldn't pull down or crash the others. In general, though, Chrome has caught attention for running a performance-focused JavaScript engine in a lightweight GUI. Also worth noting, Chrome has been holding its own in the recent Pwn2Own security challenge, with the distinction of being the only browser left standing after the first day of security exploits and attacks. For a closer look at Chrome, check out our screenshot tour.

Opera

Windows/Mac/Linux: Opera is a rock-solid browser with roots stretching back to 1994. Many of the features baked right into Opera are either not implemented in other browsers, or require multiple extensions at the cost of system resources—navigation by mouse gestures is one of the flashier examples. Despite being feature-packed, Opera has a fairly small market share, due largely in part to being trialware up until 2000 and advertisement-supported until 2005—many people were turned off by the expense, if not the ads. Still, Opera proponents have long claimed that Opera beats Internet Explorer and Firefox when it comes to speedy rendering. Another selling point for Opera is the quality of the built-in tools. For many users, the built-in RSS reader, email client, and BitTorrent client do their jobs admirably, cutting down on the number applications they need running at once. Opera is extensible, but the pool of available extensions is radically smaller than that available for Firefox. More screenshots and details on Opera's features are available here.

Firefox

Windows/Mac/Linux: Firefox is the grandchild of the venerable Mosaic browser and free-roaming son of Netscape. Although Firefox has a myriad of user-friendly, forward-thinking features, a decently secure framework, and an open-source ideology, its most prominent is extensibility. When convincing a Firefox user to abandon Firefox for anything else, even temporarily, you won't have to fight them over giving up the AwesomeBar or about:config tweaks—you'll hear a common, understandable refrain: "What about my extensions?" The repository of extensions maintained by Mozilla currently has over 6,000 entries, covering everything from blocking advertisements, to managing your clipboard, to allowing you to further customize your browsing experience with scripts a la Greasemonkey (here's 10 of our must-have picks). Combine the passion people have for extensions and the ability to sync those extensions across multiple computers and portable installations, and you've got a force to be contended with. For a closer look at Firefox, make sure to check out our power user's guide to Firefox 3 and the top 10 Firefox 3 features.

Internet Explorer

Windows only: Internet Explorer still commands a healthy chunk of the browser market, mostly because it ships with the most popular operating system on Earth and fits, if not exactly elegantly, into corporate computer plans. While many or most IE users stick with it for lack of wanting to try something else, Lifehacker readers definitely don't fall into that crowd—the majority of readers who voted in favor of Internet Explorer are sporting Internet Explorer 8. By contrast, nearly 20 percent of those surfing the web right now are using Internet Explorer 6, which had its initial release in 2001. Version 8 could mark a resurgence for the brand, though. It's the first version of Internet Explorer to have a strong focus on web standards compliance, as well as increasing rendering speed. And like Chrome, Internet Explorer 8 maintains a separate process for each tab to increase stability and security. Internet Explorer 8 has also beefed up its security measures from previous versions, including active filtering against malicious cross-site scripting and ActiveX isolation from the core of the browser. For more information about what's new in Internet Explorer 8 check out our screenshot tour and overview.

Safari

Windows/Mac: Safari is Apple's contribution to the web browsing world, built originally to fit snugly inside OS X. Like Chrome, Safari runs the speedy WebKit rendering engine for snappy page loads. In addition to its WebKit core, Safari also has the Nitro JavaScript engine, which lays claim to radically faster JavaScript execution than Internet Explorer and Firefox (in its own testing reports, anyways). Safari sports Apple's Cover Flow browser for perusing your history and bookmarks and an eye-catching display of the top 24 sites you've visited as the default page when Safari is loaded.
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102 Free Computer Software For Your Computer

Good things in life do not necessarily cost you a bomb. Below I have compiled a list of the top 100

101 free computer software you can make use of.

Enjoy!

Office Suite

1. OpenOffice.org – OpenOffice.org is a viable alternative to Microsoft Office – even for professional use. It can do just about anything Office can.
2. AbiWord – A lightweight version of Microsoft Office. Simple, straightforward interface; easy to use.
3. Jarte – A word processor based on the Microsoft WordPad. It can be run directly from a USB flash drive.
4. Notepad++ – A free source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.
5. EditPad Lite – A general-purpose text editor, designed to be small and compact, yet offer all the functionality you expect from a basic text editor.

Security

6. avast! 4 Home Edition – A complete antivirus solution that is able to find computer viruses, create and check the integrity of programs installed, test executed programs and opened documents, to test and check email and other functions.
7. AVG Anti-Virus – A free security solution that is easy to use, has low system resources, automatic update functionality and ability to protect as files are opened and programs are run.
8. Comodo Firewall – A free firewall that constantly monitors and defends your PC from internet attacks. It is a fully functional product that comes with continual updates that are free forever!
9. McAfee SiteAdvisor – A plugin for Firefox and IE browser that shows safety rating as you browse the Web.
10. SpyCatcher Express – A free anti-spyware program that allows novice PC users to remove aggressive spyware, stops next-generation, mutating spyware, blocks reinstallation of aggressive spyware and removes spyware safely and automatically.
11. StartupMonitor – A small monitoring program that keeps a constant eye on your system’s startup entries. When ever a change is made, you will be notified and given a choice to either allow the change or not to change.
12. SuperStorm Freeware – This software allows you to hide your confidential files and folders in a wide variety of media files such as pictures, audio, video, executable programs among many other file types.
13. Windows Defender – A free program that helps protect your computer against pop-ups, slow performance, and security threats caused by spyware and other unwanted software.
14. HijackThis – A malware remove tool that makes a detailed log of what’s going on in your Registry and gives you the opportunity to remove things that might be suspect.
15. Zone Alarm – This software lets you block uninitiated and unwanted traffic, even while your PC is unattended or while you’re not using your connection.

Desktop management

16. Google desktop – A desktop search application that gives you easy access to information on your computer and from the web.
17. Yahoo Desktop – Yahoo Desktop enables you to search and instantly find information, preview it in its native format, and take action on it immediately.
18. TweakUI – This software reduces the Windows annoyance without having to meddle with the registry. It gives you access to system settings that are not exposed in the Windows XP default user interface, including mouse settings, Explorer settings, taskbar settings, and more.
19. Pretty run – A small program that can search your start menu, desktop or any other folder for shortcuts.
20. RoboForm – RoboForm memorizes and securely stores each user name and password the first time you log into a site, then automatically supplies them when you return.
21. AutoHotkey - This open-source utility can automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write macros by hand or use the macro recorder. You can also create hotkeys for keyboard, mouse, joystick, and handheld remote controls.
22. Keepass safe – A password manager which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key-disk.
23. Clipomatic – A clipboard cache program that remembers what was copied to the clipboard and allows you to retrieve it, even after you’ve copied something else to the clipboard.

Browser

24. Firefox – Firefox includes tons of useful features such as tabbed browsing, built-in and customizable search bars, a built-in RSS reader and a huge library of extensions developed by thousand of developers.
25. Opera – Opera introduces Speed Dial which vastly improves navigation to your favorite sites. In addition, there’s Fraud protection, an anti-phishing detection keeps browsing safe and secure.
26. Crazy browser – A browser that allows users to collect tabs into groups and then load an entire group at once. This feature is very useful for research, as you can summon a set of related sites as needed, without manually opening each one.

Fun and Games

27. Banshee Screamer Alarm – A snoozeable alarm clock designed to wake you up. Play MP3s, execute programs, or shut down your computer at the time you set.
28. BZFlag – An online multiplayer cross-platform open source 3D tank battle game. It runs on Irix, Linux, BSD, Windows, Mac OS X, and many other platforms. It’s one of the most popular games ever on Silicon Graphics machines.
29. ConWare IconArt – An easy-to-use icon & cursor editor that allows your to design your own, edit previous icons, create cursors, capture icons from programs and DLL files or import an image for your icon.
30. Google Earth – Google Earth combines the power of Google Search with satellite imagery, maps, terrain and 3D buildings to put the world’s geographic information at your fingertips.
31. Tux Racer – Getting bored and sick of the Windows game? Tux Racer lets you take on the role of Tux the Linux Penguin as he races down steep, snow-covered mountains. Enter cups and compete to win the title!
32. ZSNES – A Nintendo emulator on your desktop. ZSNES is built to run on Windows, DOS, Linux and FreeBSD Unix and it is by far the best SNES emulator available.
33. Cartes du Ciel – A sky map that allows you to find out what constellations and planets are visible tonight.

Graphics Editing

34. GIMP – A complete image editing software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter.
35. Paint.net – A free image and photo editing software that features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
36. Google sketchup – A powerful yet easy-to-learn 3D software tool that combines a simple, yet robust tool-set with an intelligent drawing system that streamlines and simplifies 3D design.
37. IrfanView – A fast and compact image viewer/converter that is simple for beginners and powerful for professionals.

Video and Audio

38. Audacity – A complete recording and sound editing software that is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
39. Media Monkey – A music manager and jukebox for serious music collectors and iPod users. It offers an intelligent tag editor which looks up missing Album Art and track information via Freedb and the Web.
40. CDex – An application that records audio tracks from CDs and saves them to a disk as regular WAV files or as encoded sound files.
41. iTunes – One of the highest downloaded digital-jukebox software. Comes with the iTunes Music Store that offers music at 99-cents-per-song.
42. Winamp – A multimedia player that supports numerous audio and video formats. It also plays streamed video and audio content, both live and recorded, authored worldwide.
43. VLC – A highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, …) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
44. QuickTime Alternative – This application let you play QuickTime or Real videos without Apple or Real’s bloated, in-your-face proprietary players.

PDF creator

45. PrimoPDF – A free tool for high-quality PDF creation, comprising a user-friendly interface that enables printing to PDF from virtually any Windows application.
46. PDF creator – A simple PDF creation tool for those who just want to skip the technical steps and produce a PDF file. If you know how to print, then you know how to use this software.
47. doPDF – Using doPDF, you can create searchable PDF files from virtually any application. You can search for text within the created PDF file, and search engines will also index the text from the PDF.

Virtual Server

48. VMware Server – VMware Server installs on any existing server hardware and partitions a physical server into multiple virtual machines by abstracting processor, memory, storage and networking resources, giving you greater hardware utilization and flexibility.
49. LogMeIn Hamachi – A VPN that allows you to access your home PC from work (or vice versa) as though you’re sitting right in front of it.
50. OpenVPN – OpenVPN is a tried and true VPN solution. It is totally secure and infinitely configurable. You can install and run this software without relying on a third party.

Instant Messaging

51. Windows Live messenger – The next generation MSN Messenger. It comes with everything that were already available in Messenger, and a new i’m Initiative that makes helping your favorite charity as easy as sending an instant message.
52. Pidgin – A multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. Pidgin can work with: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, ICQ, IRC, MSN, Yahoo!, MySpaceIM and many more.
53. Trillian – A fully featured, stand-alone, skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC.
54. Skype – A software that enables you to make free calls anywhere in the world.

Download manager

55. Download Accelerator Plus – A download manager that can enhance your download experience. Features include a search tab, security check for every site and application you download, more speed per connection, resume broken download and preview file when you download.
56. Internet download manager – A tool for increasing download speeds by up to 5 times, and for resuming, scheduling, and organizing downloads. The program will resume unfinished downloads due to network problems, or unexpected power outages.
57. Getright – As a download manager, GetRight supports BitTorrent downloads too. In addition, you can use GetRight to schedule your downloads for later; it can dial your modem (if needed), download the files you want, then hang up or even shut down your computer when it is done.
58. DownThemAll – A powerful yet easy-to-use Mozilla Firefox extension that adds new advanced download capabilities to your browser.
59. Flashgot – A Firefox extension that allows you to handle single and massive downloads using the external download managers of your choice.

File Management

60. Eraser – An advanced security tool for Windows that allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
61. Restoration – An easy to use and straight forward tool to undelete files that were removed from the recycle bin or directly deleted from within Windows (we were able to recover photos from a Flash card that had been formatted).

Torrent Manager

62. Azureus – A popular torrent manager that allows you to install plug-in and tweak your own settings.
63. µTorrent – A very, very tiny BitTorrent client that packs enough features into that small package to compete with beefier applications like Azureus.
64. Bitcomet – A bit torrent manager that allows videos files to be previewed while they’re still being downloaded, and there’s a built-in chat tool that lets users chat with other peers in the swarm.

Backup Program

65. Cobian Backup – A multi-threaded program that can be used to schedule and backup your files and directories from their original location to other directories/drives in the same computer or other computer in your network.
66. Back4Win – A backup program that uses industry standard ZIP compression to ensures that your data will be accessible regardless of which PC operating system. Does not have 4Gb and 65535 file limit of other ZIP backup programs.
67. DriveImage XML – This software allows you to backup logical drives and partitions to image files, browse these images, view and extract files, restore these images to the same or a different drive and copy directly from drive to drive.
68. JaBackup – JaBackup allows advanced automation features. You can schedule backup tasks by the second or minute, or on a hourly, daily, weekly, or monthly basis.
69. Xdrive Desktop – Xdrive gives you 5GB of online storage space to store and backup your files. The Xdrive desktop software allows you to backup and synchronize your data with the web server with few mouse clicks.
70. Gmail Space – Use your Gmail account as storage by uploading and downloading files through a browser-based interface.

File Compression

71. 7-zip – This software compresses files in new 7z format with LZMA compression. It supports multi formats, including 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR, RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS.
72. Winzip – Using WinZip, you can quickly and easily compress and decompress files, folders, and entire folder trees to save storage space and reduce e-mail-transmission time, as well as encrypt and decrypt your sensitive documents.
73. AutoUnpack – This is designed to unpack your compressed file in a single quick step. You merely point to a folder containing your ZIP or RAR files and choose an output directory. Press one button to start a process that ends with your archive perfectly unpacked, or let the program automatically unpack that directory every set number of minutes.
74. ExtractNow – A simple program allows you to extract more than one archived file at a time, with one click of a button, making extracting files quicker and easier.

System Optimization and Diagnostic Tool

75. CCleaner – A system optimization and privacy tool that removes unused files from your system and allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.
76. Security Process Explorer – An enhanced task manager, that provides advanced information about programs and processes running on the computer. It displays all the standard information, including file name, directory path, description, CPU usage etc. as well as a unique security risk rating.
77. CPU-Z – This mini software allows you to find out everything about your computer. You can find information such as processor name and vendor, core stepping and process, processor package, internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, partial overclock detection, and processor features including supported instructions sets.
78. EULAlyzer – This takes your EULA agreement and analyze it in seconds, and provide a detailed listing of potentially interesting words and phrases. Discover if the software you’re about to install displays pop-up ads, transmits personally identifiable information, uses unique identifiers to track you, or more. It is great for picking out privacy issues.
79. Process Explorer – An advanced process management utility that picks up where Task Manager leaves off. It will show you detailed information about a process including its icon, command-line, full image path, memory statistics, user account, security attributes, and more.
80. Auslogics Disk Defrag – This software was designed to remedy system sluggishness and crashes caused by disk fragmentation. It is fast, simple to easy and what’s more, it is effective.
81. SmartDefrag – SmartDefrag boasts a system checker that continually defrags the files that you use the most, and does it without becoming a persistent drag on your system resources. The “Install It and Forget It” feature works automatically and quietly in the background on your computer and it only eats up 14MB of RAM, so it’s possible to run it smoothly on older machines.
82. Local Cooling – Fight global warming from your desktop! Local Cooling automatically optimizes your PC’s power consumption by using a more effective power save mode.
83. Belarc Advisor – Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware and analyzes elements such as whether antivirus software is up to date, or whether all the security flaws in Windows have been patched.

Email Client

84. Thundrebird – Thunderbird makes e-mailing safer, faster, and easier than ever before with the industry’s best implementations of features, such as intelligent spam filters, a built-in RSS reader, and quick search.
85. Eudora – A robust e-mail client whose features include multiple address-book-formatting options and the ability to filter, redirect, and forward mail. It supports QuickTime- and HTML-enriched e-mail, letting you include stylized, formatted text and in-line graphics in your messages.
86. Opera Mail – Opera Mail is integrated with the Opera browser, and lets you send, receive, sort and search your e-mails quicker and easier than with conventional e-mail programs.
87. Sylpheed – A surprisingly versatile email client. ‘Surprisingly’ because it has a friendly, easy to use interface to its many useful features.
88. PopTray – The premier pop-up mail checker for standard POP3 and IMAP mail accounts, including Gmail, and it can be coaxed to work with HTML-only mail such as Hotmail by following the instructions at the PopTray site.

Photo Organizer

89. Google Picasa – A free software that helps you locate and organize all the photos on your computer, edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks and share your photos with others through email, prints and on the web.
90. Xnview – A fast multi-format graphics browser, viewer, and converter. It has an Explorer-like browser that allows quick and simple browsing of directory contents.
91. FxFoto – This software provides a single tool for automatically organizing, enhancing, annotating, e-mailing, printing, uploading, and archiving your digital photos.
92. Adobe Photoshop Album Starter Edition 3.0 – This software makes it easy to find, fix, and share your digital photos. Instantly fix photo flaws in just a click or two.
93. Jalbum – A gallery software that makes web albums from your digital images.

Video Converter

94. Free FLV Converter – This free software let you search youTube and dailyMotion videos without opening your browser and you can even watch the videos using the built-in video player.
95. Free Video To iPhone Converter – Convert video files to Apple iPhone MP4 video format. Convert the whole movie or select a partition from the movie to convert (trim video).
96. Any Video Converter – An all-in-one video converting freeware with easy-to-use graphical interface, fast converting speed, and excellent video quality.
97. iPod Video Converter – Free iPod Video Converter provides an easy and completed way to convert all popular video formats to iPod video.

FTP client

98. Filezilla – A full-featured FTP client that supports Secure FTP, SSL, and other protocols in a slick interface, complete with a tree-structured site manager that lets you store settings for multiple sites.
99. SmartFTP – An FTP client which allows you to transfer files between your local computer and a server on the Internet. SmartFTP offers secure, reliable and efficient transfers that make it a powerful tool.
100. FireFTP – FireFTP turns your browser into an FTP client, with a two-pane file manager for uploading and downloading.

EyeCandy

101. Yahoo Widget – A small, specific applications that you can run on your Windows or Mac OS desktop. You can download tons of useful widget from the widget gallery.

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Thanks to Frank for recommending another free software. Here is it:
102. Process Scanner – This application gives you a complete analysis of all the processes running on your PC, along with a risk analysis of each one.

What is Ubuntu ?

Ubuntu is an operating system built by a worldwide team of expert developers. It contains all the applications you need: a web browser, office suite, media apps, instant messaging and much more.

Ubuntu is an open-source alternative to Windows and Office.

The Ubuntu promise

• Ubuntu will always be free of charge, along with its regular enterprise releases and security updates
• Ubuntu comes with full commercial support from Canonical and hundreds of companies from across the world
• Ubuntu provides the best translations and accessibility features that the free software community has to offer
• Ubuntu core applications are all free and open source. We want you to use free and open source software, improve it and pass it on.

To Know More About Ubuntu Please Visit www.ubuntu.com

Windows Media Player 11

Windows Media Player 11 for Windows XP offers great new ways to store and enjoy all your digital media. It's easier than ever to access all of your music, videos, pictures, and recorded TV on your computer. Play it, view it, organize it, or sync it to a portable device for enjoying on the go, or share with devices around your home—all from one place.

Windows Media Player 11 is designed to work with all editions of Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), and can also be used to restore Windows Media Player and related technologies to N and KN editions of Windows Vista.

Download Windows Media Player 11

www.microsft.com

About Windows 7

Windows 7 is the most recent publicly available version of Microsoft Windows, a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, including home and business desktops, laptops, netbooks, tablet PCs and media center PCs. Windows 7 was released to manufacturing on July 22, 2009, and general retail availability on October 22, 2009, less than three years after the release of its predecessor, Windows Vista. Windows 7's server counterpart, Windows Server 2008 R2, was released at the same time.

Unlike its predecessor, which introduced a large number of new features, Windows 7 was intended to be a more focused, incremental upgrade to the Windows line, with the goal of being fully compatible with applications and hardware with which Windows Vista is already compatible. Presentations given by Microsoft in 2008 focused on multi-touch support, a redesigned Windows Shell with a new taskbar, referred to as the Superbar, a home networking system called HomeGroup, and performance improvements. Some applications that have been included with prior releases of Microsoft Windows, including Windows Calendar, Windows Mail, Windows Movie Maker, and Windows Photo Gallery, are not included in Windows 7; some are instead offered separately as part of the free Windows Live Essentials suite

Tweak Windows with Ultimate Windows Tweaker v1.2

"Ultimate Windows Tweaker" is a tweaking Utility for Windows Vista and 7 which can help you in increasing system performance and tweaking your system to the max.

Its a very small and portable utility so you don't need to install it. Just download and run the EXE file.

Ultimate Windows Tweaker is contains 9 sections which helps in identifying which tweaks you want to apply:

• System Information
• Personalization
• User Accounts and UAC
• System Performance
• Security Setting
• Network Setting
• Internet Explorer
• Additional Tweaks
• About

You can download it using following link:

DOWNLOAD

Rename Your File

Rename Master is a FREE utility for renaming large groups of files with a few clicks. Anyone that has worked with websites, file archives, or collections of music, videos, or pictures has probably spent way too much time renaming hundreds of files.

This utility will add, remove, or replace parts of the filename with ease and also supports renaming via file properties, MP3 tags, JPEG JFIF and EXIF tags. Batch renaming that's simple to use, yet still very powerful.

Download

System Information Viewer 3.36

A sofware who will show any thing about your computer hardware

System Information Viewer is a general Windows tool for dumping lots of useful Windows, network and hardware info - CPU info, PCI info, USB info, Machine Info, Hardware Sensors, Networked computers Operating System Information and more

What's new in System Information Viewer 3.36 :

· Added support for Intel Core i5 (Lynnfield) processors together with the Intel P55 and ICH11 chipsets.
· Added recognition of Windows 7 and validated on Build 7000 Beta 1 and Build 7100 RC1.
· Added support for Intel Core Duo L2000 (Yonah) series of low power processors.
· Allow for the Windows Task Bar being at the top of the screen.

Download

How to edit registry key in Windows XP or Vista?

Basic Registry Editing in Windows XP/Vista

Editing registry key can be very complicated and highly risky. Please do NOT try this unless you are absolutely positive that you might mess up the system, and as always, it’s highly recommended that you do a backup of the registry (or whole system) before making any modifications.

Since it would take hours to talk about the registry, I am just going through the very basic steps. You can always refer to the Microsoft website or books for full details. Here’s the most common steps you might ever need to know for basic troubleshooting:

For Windows XP:

1. In Windows XP, from Start, and then click on Run.
2. Type “regedit“, then click on OK.
   
3. Now it opens the Registry Editor.
   
4. You can easily navigate through the subkey if you know what you are looking for. Or, you can press “Ctrl + F” to locate the subkey that contains the value you want to edit. (F3 to Find Next)
   

For Windows Vista:

1. From Start, then type “regedit“.
   
2. Click on “regedit” on the search result to open the registry editor in Windows Vista.
3. Step 3 & 4 are the same as Windows XP (see above).

That’s all you need to know for basic editing such as removing spyware or troubleshooting a basic Windows problem. Please digg it if you find this helpful. Good luck!

How to Fix a Slow Computer

Slow computers are annoying and frustrating, preventing you from being able to use your computer for even the most basic of tasks. A slow system is a huge problem, affecting millions of PCs all over the globe, but luckily, it's a problem which is relatively easy to fix, if you know how.

The problem with slow computers is that most of the time, they are incredibly easy to fix, it's just not many people know how. It all boils down to a part of your system called the registry, which is the central database of Windows, where all the settings and options for your computer are stored. The registry has been a part of Windows since Windows '98 and as actually the main reason why the operating system is so popular, as it allows Windows to run many different applications without a problem.

However, the registry is a double-edged sword which is often referred to as the "Achilles Heal" of Windows, because it causes so many problems on your computer, of which a slow system is one. Unfortunately, your computer often gets confused about which registry files it has open, which leads it to constantly save many of them in the wrong way, making them corrupt and damaged. This makes the files like books with all the chapters in the wrong order, making them incredibly difficult for your computer to read.

Because the registry files are needed by Windows, it has no choice but to try and read them, which takes longer and longer, making your system slow down. The more registry files that are damaged on your system means the slower your computer will run, as your computer has more files that it needs to decipher. With most computers having 1,000's of these damaged files all jamming up their registry database, it's no surprise that this is actually the biggest reason why computers run slow.

Luckily, there's actually an easy way to speed them up. You just need to use a program called a 'registry cleaner' to go through the registry database and fix all the corrupted files that are in there. Registry cleaners work by scanning every registry file and then fixing any of the ones that it finds are broken. This allows your computer to quickly read the files that it needs, speeding it up dramatically... but it all depends on the quality of the registry tool that you use.

3 Ways to Speed Up Your PC

Slow computers are incredibly annoying and frustrating, preventing you from being able to do a number of things properly. Luckily, there are several ways you can speed them up. Here are 3...

1. Uninstall unwanted programs

Many programs that you install have parts which are constantly running without you knowing. They are known as running "in the background" and take up a lot of system resources, making your computer run slower for no reason. Such programs which are famous for doing this are AIM and Outlook.

To stop this problem, you should uninstall any program that you don't need / want any more. To do this, you just need to go into the Windows CONTROL PANEL - ADD / REMOVE PROGRAMS and then scroll down the list, removing the programs you don't want. You need to be careful here, because if you don't know what a program does, you should check it out online, because if you remove the wrong one, you could do a lot more harm than good to your Pc.

2. Clear out any junk files

Especially thanks to high speed Internet, many people are now collecting huge amount of files on their computers which the simply don't need. Pictures, movies, document & web pages are just some of the junk that are cluttering up computers now. Although this seems okay, the truth is that the more files you have on your PC, the slower your PC will run.

Every time you boot up Windows, it actually takes all the files on your hard drives and creates a "map" of where they all are. This is known as file "indexing" and is what every Windows PC does to help it search your hard drives quicker. This is okay, but if you've got lots of junk files in there, this process will take a lot longer, making your computer slow down dramatically.

To fix this, you just need to remove any junk files on your PC. Just go to the folders where you like to save your files, select the ones you want to delete and then hold down SHIFT & click DELETE. This will permanently delete the files, instead of sending them to the recycle bin, allowing you to quickly make the most of your hard drive space

3. Clean out the registry

The registry is the central database for Windows, which stores all the settings and options for your computer. Everything from your latest emails to your desktop wallpaper are kept in here, allowing your computer to "remember" a lot of things even when it's turned off and on again.

The problem is that this database often gets full of corrupted and damaged registry files, which forces your computer to take longer to read them. With many computers having 1,000's of damaged registry files, it's one of the biggest causes of a slow system, and one which is easily fixed with a registry cleaner.

Choosing an OS For a Computer

Counting both systems and versions, you have many operating systems to choose from. If you're planning to run Microsoft Windows, you have to choose which version, a choice with significant technical and performance implications. If you're planning to run Linux on your PC, you still have to choose which distribution (essentially, which company's enhancements to and packaging of the standard Linux) and which version of that distribution. Linux isn't yet suitable for a beginner who doesn't have a captive expert nearby, but it's made great strides in the last few years, and the day when a beginner can succeed unaided with Linux isn't far off.

WindowsThere are two technically distinct Windows architectures. One what we'll call Win9X in this article - originated with Windows 95, a successor to Windows 3.1 and ultimately DOS, and inherited both compatibility benefits and reliability problems from its parents. The other architecture originated with Windows NT, and is available today as Windows 2000 or Windows XP. Windows 2000 and Windows XP are the most reliable versions of Windows, but are not necessarily compatible with all the software and hardware built for Win9X.

Practically, however, there are only three useful versions of Windows: Windows 98 Second Edition (Win98 SE), Windows 2000, or Windows XP. No version of Windows prior to Windows 98 Second Edition (Win98 SE) is more stable, and SE includes Universal Serial Bus (USB) support without additional patching.

Linux and UNIXThe many varieties of UNIX are mostly used to run servers, computers used to perform tasks remotely for you across a network. Of the non-proprietary versions of UNIX, the two best known are Linux and FreeBSD. Both are available from a variety of companies; we use the Linux versions from Red Hat or Mandrake, and the FreeBSD version from FreeBSD Mall (formerly Walnut Creek CD-ROM). Linux is the most widely used version, but all versions of UNIX are less common than Windows on desktop computers because of these factors....

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