I'm planning to install my software one by one—any advice?

Hey,
So I just picked up a new laptop and now comes the fun part: installing everything one by one. I already know I'm grabbing VLC for video, but what else is actually worth downloading? Any suggestions for some solid free software that won't suck?

Malwarebytes is free, and you can also grab 7-Zip for free if you need to extract any zipped files...

neonhawk24 said:Hey there,
I just picked up a new laptop and I'm looking to get my software sorted out bit by bit. For video, I already know I'll be using VLC, but besides that, what kind of free programs should I look into? Any suggestions?

It’d be a lot easier if you told us what you actually need them for.
What's the plan? What are you trying to get done?

Look, whenever I set up a fresh machine, I follow the same old routine:

7zip—handles RAR, ZIP, and basically everything else you'll ever touch.
For video, I usually go with Windows Media Player—you're using VLC right now, which is fine, but honestly? I’d suggest switching to Windows Media Player... it handles pretty much any format you'll run into and it doesn't hog your system resources like VLC does.
Revo Uninstaller. They still have a free version floating around, if they haven't pulled the plug on it yet...
An audio player—Winamp. You can probably just stick with VLC for that, I guess.
A PDF viewer—Foxit Reader. I prefer an older version because it actually respects your CPU. Using Adobe Acrobat Reader just to read a simple PDF is a total nightmare... it's way too bloated.
Image viewing—FastStone Image Viewer. It's a fantastic little tool... fast, lightweight, and totally free for looking through your photos.
Torrents—uTorrent 😁
PowerISO (not free, unfortunately)—only if you really need to mount media images and stuff like that.
And hey, if you end up catching a virus, just grab some free Norton and hope for the best.

I’ve actually never touched 7Zip. For file management, I stick with the free version of Total Commander—once you throw a few plugins at it, it handles all my zip, rar, and iso files without breaking a sweat.
I use VLC because it basically eats any video format for breakfast, plus it handles IPTV lists just fine.
Then there's IrfanView (the free one), which is great for viewing and editing photos if you load up some plugins. Just make sure you set it to "Images only" in the settings so it doesn't try to open your videos.
I haven't messed with torrents since back when I moved from dial-up to broadband—now that I'm on high-speed fiber, I just grab whatever software or OS updates I need directly and everything downloads fast and clean without any malware issues.
Since I'm getting a new laptop, it'll come with Windows 10, which already has Windows Defender built-in for free, so I'm good on the antivirus front.

https://ninite.com Check this out—you just pick whatever apps you need, hit download, and let it do its thing. It’ll grab everything and handle all the installations while you go grab a quick Starbucks run. 🙂