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#2 All Time Best Freeware – Avast & Avira I firmly believe that if everyone utilized Sandboxie, we’d pretty much put computer repair shops out of business – certainly as far as cleaning up malware infected machines is concerned anyway.
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If you don’t know what Sandboxie does, check this article out: Sandboxie: Why everyone should be using it. Since then, Sandboxie has held a permanent place on every machine I’ve owned, and I’ve written about and recommended Sandboxie many times. I openly admit, it took some time before I fully comprehended Sandboxie’s true value myself. In those days, terms such as “sandboxing” and “virtual environment” were practically unheard of. I was first introduced to this outstanding freeware not long after its initial release back in 2004 by the inimitable “Gizmo” Richards who continued to discuss and promote Sandboxie in his regular freeware newsletters. In my younger years, I thought oldies reminiscing about the ‘good old days’ was pretty boring, but now I have reached oldie status myself, I find I am doing the exact same thing… funny how that works.Īnyway, I thought it might be fun to take a look at some of the best freeware over the past decade or so and compile a list of my all time top 10 titles… so, here goes:Ĭriteria includes: Longevity (or withstanding the test of time), popularity, overall impact, and continuing support/development. It’s rare to come across a new freeware today which offers anything substantially different or over and above already established titles. These days, however, it seems every freeware category has been well and truly catered for and innovation has all but slowed to a crawl. I’ve been writing about freeware now for more than a decade, starting out working freelance when the likes of Clif Sipe and Ian “Gizmo” Richards ruled the roost, until around 7 years ago when I hooked up full time with Dave here at DCT.īack in the day, with new products constantly hitting the market place, there was always plenty to discuss and writing about freeware was a real buzz.
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