First, let me explain what BitDefender Free Edition does. Simply put, it’s a free anti-virus solution that I’ve heard great things about. I know of a couple of computer geek friends of mine that swear by it. It’s a straight-forward, easy to navigate program that detects and removes viruses and other malware.

I decided to install BitDefender Free Edition on my laptop, which is running Windows 7 RC1. The version of Windows is irrelevant, since it runs fine on it. My issue is with the program itself and the unforgivable headaches involved in downloading and installing it.

Downloading BitDefender Free Edition

When you first go to the BitDefender website. Go to Downloads –> Home/Home Office –> and click the small ‘Free Edition’ link.

Click the big ‘Download’ button, and on the next page, enter the email address you want the link to the program sent to.

Sounds easy so far, doesn’t it? The headaches are next. They make it very easy to find it on their website, but not easy at all to download or install.

In your e-mail account, you’ll find the link to download BitDefender Free Edition. What you’ll find out is that it’s simply a mini-version of the program that will proceed to attempt to download the full program once you try and install it. However, when it tried to download the full program, it couldn’t.

I found myself having to do a Google search for ‘BitDefender Free Edition’, and downloading the full program from Softpedia.com.

Installing BitDefender Free Edition

After downloading it from Softpedia, it installed just fine, no hiccups or anything. However, the program proceeds to force the user to register an account with BitDefender, at which point they will send an activation e-mail to the e-mail account you registered with.

Ok, at this point the program is installed, registered, and activated. Finally. The next annoyance is that from now on, whenever I reboot the computer, I get nagged with a screen compelling me to buy the paid version of the software.

I guarantee that an average user will not go through all of these steps to use the product, free or not. It’s too much hassle and too time consuming. I doubt even a power user would go through all of this. The only reason I did was because I wanted the experience.

Get your act together, BitDefender. If you’re going to offer a product, free or not, at least make it so your users actually want to use it. Make the process simple.

I will say it’s a fantastic product, and I mean that, but it’s not worth all that trouble.

Originally posted 2009-07-07 00:39:01. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Most of us use Microsoft Office, but there is a free office suite you can freely download and use at no cost to you, called Open Office. It is developed for the most part by volunteers who goal is to create a strong and free competitor to Microsoft Office. It is completely compatible and it uses up less memory.

On a Windows machine, anti-virus software is a must. Norton or McAfee are options, but they’re bloated and not as effective as they used to be. AVG Free Edition, Avast Home Edition, or BitDefender are free, and won’t slow your system down. Don’t use more then one anti-virus at a time, though.

Most of us have heard of Ad-Aware and Spybot, but a great, and more thorough anti-spyware program is Spyware Terminator. Most anti-virus solutions contain equally effective spyware detection, but it never hurts to have a second opinion.

I use Adobe Photoshop often in college. It’s very popular, but very expensive. If your tasks only require simple image editing and don’t need anything elaborate, get Picasa, Gimp, or Inkscape to do many of the same things.

WinZip or WinRAR seem to be the most common programs to extract and create compressed files. Zipeg or 7-Zip handle all of the most common file formats, and will accomplish the same tasks.

There’s no need to buy programs that will “clean” your system. There are free applications that will do the exact same thing. One is IE Privacy Keeper. Another is Ccleaner (crap cleaner).

With all of the files on hard drives, it’s important to keep everything organized so your computer does slow down while it’s looking for particular files. Windows does come with a defragmentation program, but IObit Smart Defrag has more options and does a better job, for free.

Instead of sifting through the start menu looking for the program you want every time, use Launchy. Type alt+space, and type the first few letters of the program you want and press enter, and it opens. It’s very similar to a feature built into Mac OS X called ‘Spotlight’.

I hope you have enjoyed reading my columns this semester, and I look forward to writing more of them next semester. For links to all of the programs, please visit my website at www.thedigitaldistraction.com.

Originally posted 2008-12-04 19:16:54. Republished by Blog Post Promoter