ITPC Certified Computer Programs

        Alot of people's computers are slow because they like to download and install anything they can get their mouse on. The less you install on your computer, the better. Windows 10 has alot of features, so try to use them before adding on a program.


        These are the programs that I use on my computer. I have spent alot of time finding out which ones I think are the best at what they do. I will add or change these programs as I find better ones or new ones. I try to favor open source programs when possible.

Antivirus/Antispyware	I used to recommend Avast but they had some contriversial data harvesting. Nowadays I use the built-in Windows Security.
Password Manager	Keepass - https://keepass.info/download.html It's really important to quit using weak passwords: Keypass Guide.
Web Browser	Mozilla Firefox - http://www.mozilla.com/ Go away chrome, I <3 Firefox.
Start Menu Fix	Open Shell - https://github.com/Open-Shell/Open-Shell-Menu Customizable Windows 7 style start menu, replaces Classic Shell. Find "Releases" on the right side.
PDF Viewer	Adobe Acrobat - https://get.adobe.com/reader/ PDF Reader
Office	Libre Office - https://www.libreoffice.org/ Free version of Microsoft Office, almost as good for home use.
Web Design	I used to use Adobe Dreamweaver, nowdays though if you're looking to make a site Wordpress is probably going to be what you're looking for. You can host it yourself if your tech savvy or it's available through may different hosting providers.
Photo Editing	Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/ Photoshop Elements - https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop-premiere-elements.html Gimp is a very capable free program, but I definitely think Photoshop is better and it integrates with Premiere (below).
Audio/Video Editing	Premiere Elements - http://www.adobe.com/products/premiere-elements.html There's not really a good open source video editor out there (because of proprietary codecs). Premiere Elements is the consumer version of premiere pro, and pairs with photoshop elements like a fine wine if wine weren't nasty. For audio editing I use Audacity - http://web.audacityteam.org/ For MP3 volume leveling / normalization - http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/
3D Animation and Modeling	Blender - https://www.blender.org/download/ The entire "3D Pipeline".
Media Burning	Imgburn - http://www.imgburn.com/ Not only for burning isos, this baddy has a gui for buring files and folders too.
Media Player	VLC - http://www.videolan.org/ Kodi - http://www.kodi.tv/ Plex - https://www.plex.tv/ VLC is the go-to for basic playback, Kodi is an amazing piece of home theater pc software and Plex is a home media server.
Media Converter	Handbrake - https://handbrake.fr/ Convert Media to friendly formats like mkv.
DVD/Blu-Ray Backup	AnyDVD HD - https://www.redfox.bz/en/ BD-Rebuilder - http://forum.doom9.org/showthread.php?t=143716 Anydvd removes copy protection, BD-Rebuilder rebuilds the blu-ray so you can back it up and enjoy it with VLC or Kodi.
Game Streams	OBS Studio - https://obsproject.com/welcome Stream your games to twitch, requires a strong processor though.
Team Communication	Discord - https://discordapp.com/ For all your tactical communication uplink needs.
Virtualization	VirtualBox - http://www.virtualbox.org/ For a workstation I prefer this to the paid alternative that is vmware.
Visualization	Sound Spectrum - http://www.soundspectrum.com/ Awesome visualizer to hook up to your tv.
Remote Help	Team Viewer - https://www.teamviewer.com/en-us/ Help friends and family fix their computer remotely, because explaining over the phone is no fun.
P2P / Torrents	qBitorrent - https://www.qbittorrent.org/ Open source and ad-free.
VPN	Private Internet Access - https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/ For anonymity. Buy with a gift card for maximum powa.
FTP	File Zilla - http://filezilla-project.org/ They have both a client and a server.
Newsreader (Usenet)	Alt Binz - http://www.altbinz.net/ The paid version might be better, but the free version gets the job done. For usenet access- Usenet-News
Compression	7-Zip - https://www.7-zip.org/download.html Use http://www.quickpar.org.uk/ to make resillient files.
RAR Recovery	QuickPar - http://www.quickpar.org.uk/ Voodoo magic to repair damaged rar files with par2 files.
CPU Temp/Utilization	PCMeter (For temps and turbo speed) - http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/ All CPU Meter - http://8gadgetpack.net/ Bring back the Windows 7 widget to monitor ram and cpu usage/temperature.
SSH/Telnet Client	Putty - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ Free ssh and telnet client. I don't use this anymore, I use the Windows Subsystem for Linux
SSH Server	freeSSHd - http://www.freesshd.com/ Free ssh server. If you set it up as a service make sure to run the utility as an administrator or you'll open up a second instance and wonder why port 22 is in use.
Audio Mixing	Virtual Audio Cable - http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm Can be a pita to install on a 64 bit system, Click Here for a tutorial
Programming	Notepad++ - http://notepad-plus-plus.org/ Visual Studio Code https://code.visualstudio.com/ Notepad++ is a quick/lightweight code editor, Visual Code is what I use on projects. Throw in this for a good time.
Data Recovery	Recuva - http://www.piriform.com/recuva If the file hasn't been overwritten theres a good chance that the deep scan will recover it.
Exploration	Google Earth Pro - https://www.google.com/earth/versions/#download-pro A more powerful version than on your phone, has a flight simulator.
Dynamic DNS	DNS Exit - https://www.dnsexit.com/ Update DNS records to your home IP.