You may have wondered what the experts use for office, utility and Internet software. Though we may support the Microsoft foundation, you may be surprised to learn that many of us do not follow the over-marketed, hyped-up big name brands.
Let's start with the Internet and we'll work down through the various products related to it:
First, there are the browsers - the software you interact with most while using the Internet. I use three different browsers, for very specific reasons. My primary browser is Opera. I use Opera because it provides multi-page browsing in a single Window, it supports enough Java and JavaScript (with Sun's Java Runtime Engine installed) for most of the sites I visit. I also use Netscape because it gives me full control of being able to turn off Java and JavaScript so I can avoid pop-ups and various security threats. Netscape also support multi-page viewing in one window session, and I have a lot of bookmarks 'invested' in it. I use Internet Explorer only because a) it comes with the OS, b) I have to answer questions about it, and c) some narrow-minded webmasters write their site specifically for it and nothing else - a real shame. One other 'small' reason for all three is that I need to make sure you can navigate and read my web-site - so I check my work with all three browsers!The firewall/router unit keeps most of the "bad traffic" out of my home network, so my individual software firewalls on each desktop do not need to do so much work. Hardware firewalls do not typically block bad traffic coming from the individual PCs, in case a virus or worm gets into one of them. For this level of protection I typically use ZoneAlarm but constantly test a couple of my systems with the Sygate Personal Firewall. The personal/desktop/software firewalls alert me to applications that want to use my network and Internet connection. If a "bad program" gets onto one of my PCs, it never gets to the Internet, saving me bandwidth and potential identity theft and privacy issues.