Comments on: 5 Must-Have Programs for Netbooks

By: LM

LM — Mon, 10 Jan 2011 18:45:38 +0000

My favorites for my netbook include one or all of the following video players: vlc or mplayer or media player classic home cinema, plus audacity, fbreader, comical, 7zip, less, scite, sumatra or foxit, xnview and xmplay.

By: Ahmed

Ahmed — Sun, 02 Jan 2011 18:38:41 +0000

well my top five favorite list is as follows

1: avast internet security

2: CCcleaner

3: Tune up utilities 2011

4: Google Chrome

5: BitTorrent

By: Neil

Neil — Mon, 13 Dec 2010 22:35:51 +0000

My choice of apps for a netbook.
1. Windows Live essentials – Free gives e-mail, messenger and skydrive + online office apps.
2. Windows security essentials – Free protection.
3. Kindle book reader – Free with some great classics free to download.
4. OpenOffice – Free and as good as MS office for a lean netbook environment.
5. Visual studio express 2010, runs fine on my netbook, and C++ + the new Intel AppUp SDK allows you to develope apps for the netbook, oh yes and it’s free!!!!

By: Me

Me — Sun, 14 Nov 2010 16:55:24 +0000

Steam? What’s that?

By: jarov Ragu

jarov Ragu — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 17:34:10 +0000

I would just like to add that AVG is the best free Anti-virus on the market….most experts put it in their top ten where as Microsoft security essentials is NOT even an option.
Internet Security is more important than ever nowadays and using inferior anti-virus and firewall is DANGEROUS…..
I would recomend you think how much your safety is worth and choose a GOOD Anti-virus program like kaspersky, AVG 9.0 or Avast and if your unsure consult an expert.

By: Emmanuel

Emmanuel — Sun, 09 May 2010 23:16:26 +0000

Hi James,

Nice collection of apps, it must have taken you quite a bit of time to review all these apps! This post of yours made me discover Rocketdock, so at least for that, thank you :)

I wonder if you’d be interested in a little screen space optimizer for netbooks that I developed. It allows, among other things, to resize any window/application to the size you want, even bigger than the screen, and therefore to make any application fullscreen! This is very useful for the 10″ screen netbook users that we are. It is called ScreenSpace: http://www.dandeware.com/products/ – let me know if you’d like a license for evaluating it properly.

Thanks again for your post,

Emmanuel

By: gadgetmerc

gadgetmerc — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 19:12:04 +0000

I really like opera as my mobile platform. I use mobile platform because it allows me to use all of my note/netbooks all at once. With Unite and Link I can pick up any of them and work the same. All of my tabs and links sync by default. Whenever I get a new piece of hardware or OS I can be back to work in one install. I don't have to install a browser and my 10 favorite extensions since opera comes with everything I need by default. It also takes very little of my screen and the new beta uses Windows 7 live preview.

By: Dave

Dave — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 20:01:49 +0000

I agree with Chrome. I use StarDock's Object Dock for my dock on my netbook. Most of my work on my netbook is web based (Evernote, Google Docs, etc.) but I also have OpenOffice (found it runs better than MS Office and it's free) and Evernote's desktop version.

I have antivirus and firewall through my ISP so that's not a factor for me, I just use theirs.

I also have CCleaner and Defraggler and use CutePDF to generate PDF files.

(I'm running WinXP).

By: Greg C

Greg C — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:19:44 +0000

Dropbox and Evernote. Anchorfree's Hotspot Shield for when surfing away from home office.

I'll second MS Security Essentials performance being less of a hit on resources than AVG.

By: Matthew Trifiro

Matthew Trifiro — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 16:00:39 +0000

I find that Firefox with the Classic Compact theme is better than Chrome on a netbook.

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:39:18 +0000

oh and firefox (that goes on so fast i don't even think about it anymore ;)

By: Scott

Scott — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 15:38:15 +0000

Other must haves:

dropbox paint.net steam

By: JureF

JureF — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 13:08:37 +0000

Umm, Ubuntu? I see most of the above are only valid if one uses Windows7 – though I much prefer Ubuntu on my netbooks. I agree with Google Chrome – and use it on Ubuntu as well. The Netbook Remix interface means one doesn’t need a dock and works great.

By: sandylemberg@juno.com

sandylemberg@juno.com — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 05:24:21 +0000

XP, 2 gb memory, AVG, Opera USB, Foxit Portable, MemTurbo4, ZoneAlarm7,TCP View, CCleaner, TweakUI, StartupCop, Ztree, Everything.

Most of these are free and all are better than the big names.

Definitely none of the utilities mentioned in this article. Definitely no browser other than Opera, definitely not Acrobat.

By: Windy

Windy — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 03:36:15 +0000

Chrome may be faster but it takes up to much of the screen. Use FF instead with Hide Caption extension.
Use SMART from the Windows Club to tweak services according to Black Vipers list.
Generally use portable apps, like eg. Smplayer instead of Windows media player.

By: Joe T.

Joe T. — Tue, 23 Feb 2010 01:18:32 +0000

Just gotta comment on the terrific layout of information on this post. Yes, content is terrific, but also the neat, highly readable list with each item containing the major link at the beginning. And pics for each item, too!