How to Run Windows, Mac, and Linux Side by Side and Pain-Free with VirtualBox
Running multiple operating systems side-by-side gives you the chance to test applications, run platform-specific software, and tons more without ever rebooting. It's also extremely cool. Here's how to run Windows, Mac, and Linux simultaneously and pain-free as possible.
To get a quick idea of where we're headed, check out the video above, which demonstrates my Windows 7 system running OS X and Ubuntu through VirtualBox. Below, we'll build on on the basics you learned in our beginner's guide to creating virtual machines with VirtualBox. We'll show you how to easily install new operating systems (including Mac OS X and Linux) and optimize your installation with shared folders and software to help your virtual machines communicate with your main OS. We'll also do a little extra work to get the newest release of Snow Leopard to play nice, even though it's not fully supported yet. Although we're using Windows 7 64-bit as our base OS, VirtualBox runs on nearly any OS, and these tips and tricks are applicable to any serious VirtualBox setup.
Why Virtualize?
Using virtualized operating systems presents all sorts of opportunities. You don't have to leave your primary and favored operating system to use tools found only in another operating system; you can run a copy of your current operating system to try out new tweaks, tricks, and software to ensure everything works well; you can test new software or browse in an entirely sandboxed OS. One of the great perks of running multiple operating systems in virtualization come with multiple monitors, you can spread out almost as though you had separate computers hooked up to the same keyboard and mouse.
What You'll Need?
You're most likely using a machine right now that would easily support at least one other operating system in virtualization, but likely more. Our test machine for this virtualization project is a modest rig we put together for around $400 nearly two years ago. It has an AMD quadcore processor, 8GB of RAM, and a basic graphics card with 256MB of RAM. The parts weren't cutting edge when we bought them—all of them were selected because they were on sale—and they're certainly not cutting edge now. With those specs, the machine easily runs Ubuntu, OS X Snow Leopard, and Windows 7 32-bit simultaneously—powered by a core OS of Windows 7-64 bit—without any problems. If you've got a reasonably new system with a good amount of RAM, you should be just fine.
Installing New Virtual Machines in VirtualBox
Again, if you're unfamiliar with virtual machines or VirtualBox, check out our beginner's guide. We won't be running through the basics of installation, but we will be highlighting some tricks to make your virtual machines run smoother. First, let's run through where you can get started installing various virtual machines (like Linux or OS X).
Grab a pre-configured VirtualBox image and don't sweat through installation of open-source operating systems. VirtualBoxImages.com catalogs pre-configured VirtualBox hard drive images (VDIs). While in most instances it isn't too much of a hassle to create your own fresh install, why bother with it if you don't need to? VirtualBoxImages is a great place to grab operating systems you want to try just for fun like ultra compact versions of Linux or even Android OS. When it comes to installing Windows and other commercial operating systems, you'll have to do it the manual way.
Step-by-step Mac OS X installation. If you're installing Snow Leopard make sure to check out a previous guide to installing Mac OS X in Windows to get OS X up and running. When you're done, come back; below we'll detail how to set up file sharing between your host OS and OS X.
Don't bother burning a disc if you already have the .ISO file on your computer. VirtualBox excels at installing operating systems off an .ISO. Just for fun we installed Windows XP off a CD and Windows 7 off an .ISO file simultaneously and it handled the dual install without a hiccup. Remember to add your .ISO files to the Virtual Media Manager or else they won't be available to your virtual operating systems.Take a Snapshot of What You've Done so Far
Copying, snapshotting, and cloning your virtual disks preserve your hard work. VirtualBox has several mechanisms in place for helping you to preserve all the setup and customization you've done. One of the first things you should do after successfully installing and customizing a virtual OS is to back it up.
Although installing operating systems with VirtualBox is a breeze most of the time, the few times it isn't you'll likely spend a lot of time searching for a solution and tinkering. Save yourself the headache of doing it again by backing up your new virtual disk. You'll also likely want to do the same after you get the machine set up with the tweaks detailed in the optimize section below, and any time you've taken some time to set something up that you don't want to hassle with again.
Shut down your virtual machine and exit VirtualBox before attempting to backup any of your disks. Once VirtualBox is shut down you can browse to the directory your VDI files are in. Copy the VDI file of each virtual operating system you wish to backup and put it on another disk or network drive. If any part of your customization involved tweaking the XML file associated with the virtual OS it would be wise of you to copy that along with the VDI file.
Significantly faster and easier than a total backup is a Snapshot. You can create one by pressing CTRL+S at anytime when your virtual OS is running.
Think of snapshots like the System Restore function in Windows. You can create a snapshot at anytime within your virtual machine to mark a restore point you may want to return to. It takes so little time to create them it's criminal to not do so before making a major change to your virtual OS or installing a big software suite.
Cloning is the most advanced technique for dealing with your virtual disks. Let's say you installed an OS that was a bit more hassle than you anticipated and you'd really like to make a perfect copy of it so you'll have a pure installation to study and a disposable one that you can really thrash around in. You can't just copy the VDI file because the unique identifier will conflict with the original VDI. You'll need to use the clone command from the command prompt. Refer to this portion of the official manual for explicit details. Your clone command should look something like
"C:\Program Files\Sun\xVM VirtualBox\VBoxManage.exe" clonevdi "Ubuntu 10.vdi" "Ubuntu 10 clone.vdi". This will assure your new virtual OS won't conflict with its twin.Optimize Your VirtualBox Installation
Always install Guest Additions. Guest Additions are special software for Windows, Linux, and Solaris operating systems that make your life as a virtual OS user much easier. Rather than muck around in configuration files and settings trying to resize your virtual OS resolution, for example, the Guest Addition enables dynamic resizing. It's always been easy to install in Windows but now it's just as easy to install in Linux, just mount the VboxGuestAdditions.iso from the
Devices -> CD/DVD Devicesmenu and then run the installation package inside.Set up a universal share. Hopping between virtual operating systems might be faster than hopping between two physical computers but it still suffers from one of the same hazards. It's easy to lose track of your files. If you're running Windows or Linux the Guest Additions installation takes care of the networking for you. If you're running Mac OS X you miss out on that, for lack of a Mac Guest Additions package. Don't worry though, setting up sharing from Windows (or any other Samba share) is simple.
Thanks to these handy instructions from VirtualBox forum member PaulsCode, you'll have no trouble setting up your cross-platform share.
- Share a folder from the actual host machine (from the OS, not through the vbox shared folders).
- Use NAT for your guest's network settings.
- From Mac OS X, Open "Finder" (looks like a square face, usually on the bottom-left).
- From the top menu, navigate to Go->Connect to Server.
- For "Server Address" enter smb://10.0.2.2
- Click "Connect".
- Enter your username and password (for the host machine).
Now you'll be able to access the same pool of files from all of your virtual machines which makes it even easier to switch OS-dependent tools while working on the same project.
At this point you've got your virtual operating systems installed, customized, linked to a shared folder, duplicated for your stress testing and mad scientist experiments, and backed up in case it all goes terribly wrong. With a good battery backup attached to your computer and virtual operating systems to do the heavy lifting and get abused by all your software installations you're in a perfect position to forget about rebooting your base OS and get busy playing with your virtual machines.
Jason Fitzpatrick is the Senior Writer at Lifehacker, an absurd fan of obscenely long uptimes, hates rearranging his workspace after a reboot, and knows that if you just give virtualization a try you'll be addicted too.
Send an email to Jason Fitzpatrick, the author of this post, at jason@lifehacker.com.
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Friday, August 27, 2010
How to Run Windows, Mac, and Linux Side by Side and Pain-Free with VirtualBox
Running multiple operating systems side-by-side gives you the chance to test applications, run platform-specific software, and tons more without ever rebooting. It's also extremely cool. Here's how to run Windows, Mac, and Linux simultaneously and pain-free as possible.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Whoops! The 10 Greatest (Accidental) Inventions of All Time
Whoops! The 10 Greatest (Accidental) Inventions of All Time
"Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits," Thomas Edison once said. But is hustling all it takes? Is progress always deliberate? Sometimes genius arrives not by choice—but by chance. Below are our ten favorite serendipitous innovations.
1. The Microwave - Percy L. Spencer
Percy Spencer, an engineer at Raytheon after his WWI stint in the Navy, was known as an electronics genius. In 1945, Spencer was fiddling with a microwave-emitting magnetron—used in the guts of radar arrays—when he felt a strange sensation in his pants. A sizzling, even. Spencer paused and found that a chocolate bar in his pocket had started to melt. Figuring that the microwave radiation of the magnetron was to blame (or to credit, as it would turn out), Spencer immediately set out to realize the culinary potential at work. The end result was the microwave oven—savior of eager snackers and single dudes worldwide.
2. Saccharin - Ira Remsen, Constantin Fahlberg
In 1879, Ira Remsen and Constantin Fahlberg, at work in a laboratory at Johns Hopkins University, paused to eat. Fahlberg had neglected to wash his hands before the meal—which usually leads to a quick death for most chemists, but led to him noticing an oddly sweet flavor during his meal. Artificial sweetener! The duo published their findings together, but it was only Fahlberg's name that made it onto the (incredibly lucrative) patent, now found in pink packets at tables everywhere. That is to say, Remsen got screwed—he later remarked, "Fahlberg is a scoundrel. It nauseates me to hear my name mentioned in the same breath with him."
3. Slinky - Richard James
In 1943, Navy engineer Richard James was trying to figure out how to use springs to keep the sensitive instruments aboard ships from rocking themselves to death, when he knocked one of his prototypes over. Instead of crashing to the floor, it gracefully sprang downward, and then righted itself. So pointless—so nimble—so slinky. The spring became a goofy toy of many childhoods—that is before every kid inevitably gets theirs all twisted up and ruins it. 300 million sold worldwide!
4. Play-Doh - Kutol Products
Before being found ground into the rugs of child-rearing homes everywhere, Play-Doh was ironically created to be a cleaning product. The paste was first marketed as a treatment for filthy wallpaper—before the company that produced it began to go down the tubes. The discovery that saved Kutol Products—headed for bankruptcy—wasn't that their wall cleaner worked particularly well, but that schoolchildren were beginning to use it to create Christmas ornaments as arts and crafts projects. By removing the compound's cleanser and adding colors and a fresh scent, Kutol spun their wallpaper saver into one of the most iconic toys of all time—and brought mega-success to a company headed for destruction. Sometimes, you don't even know how brilliant you are until someone notices for you.
5. Super Glue - Harry Coover
In what have been a very messy moment of discovery in 1942, Dr. Harry Coover of Eastman-Kodak Laboratories found that a substance he created—cyanoacrylate—was a miserable failure. It was not, to his dismay, at all suited for a new precision gun sight as he had hoped—it infuriatingly stuck to everything it touched. So it was forgotten. Six years later, while overseeing an experimental new design for airplane canopies, Coover found himself stuck in the same gooey mess with a familiar foe—cyanacrylate was proving useless as ever. But this time, Coover observed that the stuff formed an incredibly strong bond without needing heat. Coover and his team tinkered with sticking various objects in their lab together, and realized they had finally stumbled upon a use for the maddening goop. Coover slapped a patent on his discovery, and in 1958, a full 16 years after he first got stuck, cyanoacrylate was being sold on shelves.
6. Teflon - Roy Plunkett
The next time you make a frustration-free omelette, thank chemist Roy Plunkett, who experienced immense frustration while inadvertently inventing Teflon in 1938. Plunkett had hoped to create a new variety of chlorofluorocarbons (better known as universally-despised CFCs), when he came back to check on his experiment in a refrigeration chamber. When he inspected a canister that was supposed to be full of gas, he found that it appeared to have vanished—leaving behind only a few white flakes. Plunkett was intrigued by these mysterious chemical bits, and began at once to experiment with their properties. The new substance proved to be a fantastic lubricant with an extremely high melting point—perfect at first for military gear, and now the stuff found finely applied across your non-stick cookware.
7. Bakelite - Leo Baekeland
In 1907, shellac was commonly used to insulate the innards of early electronics—think radios and telephones. This was fine, aside from the fact that shellac is made from Asian beetle poop, and not exactly the cheapest or easiest way to insulate a wire. What Belgian chemist Leo Baekeland found in instead was—get ready—polyoxybenzylmethylenglycolanhydride, the world's first synthetic plastic, commonly known as Bakelite. This pioneering plastic was moldable into virtually any shape, in any color, and could hold its form against high temperatures and daily wear—making it a star among manufacturers, jewelers, and industrial designers.
8. Pacemaker - Wilson Greatbatch
An assistant professor at the University of Buffalo thought he had ruined his project. Instead of picking a 10,000-ohm resistor out of a box to use on a heart-recording prototype, Wilson Greatbatch took the 1-megaohm variety. The resulting circuit produced a signal that sounded for 1.8 milliseconds, and then paused for a second—a dead ringer for the human heart. Greatbatch realized the precise current could regulate a pulse, overriding the imperfect heartbeat of the ill. Before this point, pacemakers were television-sized, cumbersome things that were temporarily attached to patients from the outside. But now the effect could be achieved with a small circuit, perfect to tuck into someone's chest.
9. Velcro - George de Mestral
A dog invented velcro.Alright, that's something of an exaggeration, but a dog did play an instrumental role. Swiss engineer George de Mestral was out for a hunting trip with his pooch, and noticed the annoying tendency of burrs to stick to its fur (and his socks). Later, looking under a microscope, Mestral observed the tiny "hooks" that stuck burrs to fabrics and furs. Mestral experimented for years with a variety of textiles before arriving at the newly invented nylon—though it wasn't until two decades later that NASA's fondness for velcro popularized the tech.
10. X-Rays - Wilhelm Roentgen
Okay, yes, x-rays are a phenomenon of the natural world, and thus can't be created. But sshhh! The story of their discovery is a fascinating one of incredible chance. In 1895, German physicist Wilhelm Roentgen was performing a routine experiment involving cathode rays, when he noticed that a piece of fluorescent cardboard was lighting up from across the room. A thick screen had been placed between his cathode emitter and the radiated cardboard, proving that particles of light were passing through solid objects. Amazed, Roentgen quickly found that brilliant images could be produced with this incredible radiation—the first of their kind being a skeletal image of his wife's hand.Eureka is our week-long meditation on the wonders of invention, inventors and genius.
Illustration by our contributing illustrator Sam Spratt. Check out Sam's portfolio and become a fan of his Facebook Artist's Page.
Send an email to Sam Biddle, the author of this post, at sbiddle@gizmodo.com.
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Why Linux is Better Than Windoze
Having Linux on your PC, either primary or secondary has many benefits. Some of the obvious ones are:
Forget about viruses:
If your computer shuts itself down without asking you, if strange windows with text you don't understand and all kinds of advertisements appear when you don't ask for them, if emails get sent to all your contacts without your knowing it, then your computer probably has a virus. The main reason for this is because it runs Windows.
Linux hardly has any viruses. And that's not like "Oh well, not very often, you know". That's like "If you've ever heard of a real Linux virus, please tell me". Of course, a Linux virus is not impossible to get. However, Linux makes it very hard for this to happen, for several reasons:
Linux uses smart authorization management. In Windows you (and any program you install) usually have the right to do pretty much anything to the system. If you feel like punishing your PC because it just let your precious work disappear, you can go inside the system folder and delete whatever you want: Windows won't complain. Of course, the next time you reboot, trouble begins. But imagine that if you can delete this system stuff, other programs can, too, or just mess it up. Linux doesn't allow that. Every time you request to do something that has to do with the system, an administrator password is required (and if you're not an administrator on this system, you simply can't do it). Viruses can't just go around and delete or modify what they want in the system; they don't have the authorization for that.
Don't pay $300 for your operating system:
(And don't copy them illegally)
You're probably saying to yourself : "Oh, I didn't pay for Windows". Are you absolutely sure ? If your computer came with a copy of Windows, then you paid for it, even if the store didn't tell you about that. The price for a Windows license amounts to an average of one fourth of each new computer's price. So unless you obtained Windows illegally, you probably paid for it. Where do you think Microsoft gets its money from?
On the other hand, you can get Linux completely free of charge. That's right, all these guys all around the world worked very hard to make a neat, secure, efficient, good-looking system, and they are giving their work away for everybody to use freely (if you wonder why these guys do such things, drop me an email and I'll try to explain the best I can :) ). Of course, some companies are making good business by selling support, documentation, hotline, etc., for their own version of Linux, and this is certainly a good thing. But most of the time, you won't need to pay a cent.
Freedom!
Linux and "Open Source" software are "free". This means their license is a "free license", and the most common is the GPL (General Public License). This license states that anyone is allowed to copy the software, see the source code (the "recipe"), modify it, and redistribute it as long as it remains licensed with the GPL.
So what do you care about freedom? Imagine that Microsoft disappears tomorrow (okay, that's not very likely, but what about in 5 years, 10 years?). Or imagine it suddenly triples the price for a Windows or Office license. If you're tied to Windows, there's nothing you can do. You (or your business) relies on this one company, on its software, and you can't possibly make things work without it (what good is a computer without an operating system?). Isn't that a serious problem? You're depending on one single company and trusting it wholeheartedly to let something so important nowadays as your computers work the way they should. If Microsoft decides to charge $1000 for the next version of Windows, there's nothing you can do about it (except switch to Linux, of course). If Windows has a bug that bothers you very much and Microsoft won't fix it, there's nothing you can do (and submitting bugs to Microsoft isn't that easy, see the "Report bugs" section).
With Open Source, if a particular project or support company dies, all the code remains open to the community and people can keep improving it. If this project is especially useful to you, you can even do this yourself. If a particular bug annoys you, you can submit it, talk with the developers, but even better, you can fix it yourself (or hire someone to do so), and send the changes back to the upstream developers so that everyone gets the improvement as well. You're free to do (nearly) whatever you want with the software.
Update all your software with a single click:
Windows has a pretty convenient tool called "Windows update", which allows you to update your system with the latest updates available.
But what about all your non-Microsoft software ? Adobe applications ? ZIP compressor ? Burning program ? Non-Microsoft web browsers and email clients, etc. ? You need to update all of them, one by one. And that takes time, since each one of them has its own (auto-)updating system.
Linux has a central place called the "Package manager", which takes care of everything installed on your system, but also every single piece of software your computer has. So if you want to keep everything up-to-date, the only thing you need to do is press the "Install Updates" button down there :
Are your tired of restarting your computer all the time?
Have you just upgraded one or two little things on your Windows system with "Windows update"? Please reboot. Have you just installed some new software? Please reboot. Does your system seem unstable? Try to reboot, everything will probably work better after that.
Windows always asks you to restart your computer, and that can be annoying (maybe you happen to have a long download going on, and you don't want to interrupt it just because you updated a few pieces of your system). But even if you click "Restart later", Windows still keeps bothering you every ten minutes to let you know that you really should restart the computer. And if you happen to be away from your computer and you didn't see the question, it will happily reboot automatically. Bye bye long download.
Linux basically doesn't need to restart. Whether you install new software (even very big programs) or perform routine upgrades for your system, you will not be asked to restart the computer. It is only necessary when a part from the heart of the system has been updated, and that only happens once every several weeks.
Do you know Internet servers? They're the big computers that answer you when you ask for a web page, and send the information to your browser. Most of them run Linux, and since they need to always be available (a visitor could come anytime), they aren't restarted very often (services aren't available while the system is starting). Actually, many of them haven't restarted for several years. Linux is stable, it runs perfectly well without restarting all the time.
You'll probably not let your computer stay on for several weeks but the point is: the system won't bother you with restarting all the time.
For more reasons to get Linux go to http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/
You might not want to stop using Windows, but do give a try to Linux, you might like it so much that you will start using Linux for normal everyday usage. I tried Linux earlier this and now use XP only for playing games (FIFA08).
In my next post I will explain 'What are distros?' and how to chose the best one for you.
![[Image]](http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/Images/business_news.png)
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
Make Free Calls in Gmail With Google Voice
Make Free Calls in Gmail With Google Voice
Calling! In Gmail!. It's been rumored for a little bit, but now it's here. Merged. You can make phone calls from Gmail (without going to your GV page). And they're free to the US and Canada.
How's it going to work? You can make calls in Gmail, and then talk directly to your computer. Google says the call quality is "really good," even just using the standard mic and speaker in the laptop you have. They claim they have really good echo cancellation—the same one they use on the video/voice chat in Gmail.
You can make international calls as well ("competitive" rates, such as 2 cents a minute to call Paris).
How about receiving calls? If you have a Google Voice number, it'll bring up a popup in Gmail and you can answer there. There's also a button to switch from your Gmail to your other phones on your Google Voice account, to continue your call there. The Google chat option is in your Google Voice "phones" by default, so all you have to do is check the option.
Pricing
Calls to US and Canada will be free.
And these will be the rates internationally, to landlines.
And the rates for mobile, international.
Google's also going to be putting these red Google Voice phone booths in college campuses, airports and such so people can try out GV.
Google says this uses the Gizmo5 tech (the SIP, client-side calling app), and where they're putting their efforts right now. So they prefer the web-side calling rather than having you download and run an app.
The feature will be rolling out within the next few days.
Still no update on Google Voice number porting. Or MMS. They're saying that number porting is really hard to get right, because you need to talk to a support agent to talk you through the process. Google wants you to do it yourself, automated.
They want to continue to offer the free calling to US and Canada numbers, so they're hoping that the profit from the international calls will pay for the US/Canada service indefinitely.
You can use this as a Gmail user without a Google Voice account, but it will call out with a consistent number—not a customized number for you. If someone calls back that number, they'll hear a message that they got a call from a person using Gmail.
Hands-on
I just called Brian Barrett through Gmail. It already had his number in his contact list (because I had it already programmed in, while I was using Google Voice). Call went through fine, and Barrett said it sounded exciting, talking through a browser. Call quality was fine too, but that's mostly dependent on your Wi-Fi connection and the quality of microphone you have (I was using a headset).
Oh and here's a video demonstrating the feature:
Send an email to Jason Chen, the author of this post, at jchen@gizmodo.com.
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Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software
Superior Alternatives to Crappy Windows Software
It may be the year 2008, but a whole lot of sucktacular software still rears its ugly head on PC's everywhere, even when better-behaved options are freely available. Whether it's molasses-slow bloatware, shameless adware, anemic default apps, or "Your trial period has expired!" nagware, it's time to replace stinky Windows software with its superior (but lesser-known) alternative. Last week we asked what software you should never install on your PC, and over 200 comments later, you compiled quite a list. Today we're going to take a walk down the Crapware Hall of Shame, point and laugh at the worst offenders, and highlight some better choices. Photo by chelseagirl.Application to Avoid: Adobe Reader
Indictment: Bloatware
Superior Alternative(s): FoxIt Reader or Sumatra PDF
Notes: There are much worse offenders on this list than Adobe Reader, which has gotten more performant over the years. Keep in mind that Adobe deals with some PDF's (like ones with editable form fields) better than FoxIt. If you don't want to ditch Adobe Reader entirely, here's how to tweak Adobe 8 for speed.
Application to Avoid: AOL Instant Messenger
Indictment: One-trick pony with ads included made by a company that holds its customers hostage. (Speaking of, here's how to cancel your AOL account.)
Superior Alternative(s): Digsby or Pidgin or Miranda or Trillian or Meebo
Notes: The moral of the story is you should avoid anything that comes on six zillion free CDs that swamp your apartment building's mailroom.
Application to Avoid: Browser Toolbars (that you didn't seek out yourself)
Indictment: Notorious for hijacking your browser, phoning home with your online activity, taking up precious real estate, and not offering any features you actually want.
Superior Alternative(s): Your browser's built-in search box and a few good bookmarklets
Notes: Don't get us wrong: Not all toolbars are bad, but do beware when they get tacked onto the end of a totally unrelated software installation and you have to opt OUT of them.
Application to Avoid: Internet Explorer (6 and 7)
Indictment: Lacks features any self-respecting modern web browser had two versions ago
Superior Alternative(s): Firefox
Notes: Because IE gloms onto the innards of your operating system so inextricably, you can't truly uninstall it. Just set your system's default browser to Firefox to avoid launching IE ever.
Application to Avoid: iTunes
Indictment: Too controlling, gleefully enforces DRM, can't monitor folders for new music
Superior Alternative(s): foobar200 (more on foobar2000), Songbird, or WinAmp
Notes: We—ok, I—actually like and use iTunes, ever since that time Steve Jobs waved that iPhone over my forehead and chanted. These recommendations only for those with particularly sensitive digital music sensibilities.
Application to Avoid: Java Runtime Environment
Indictment: You ugly and yo' Mama dresses you funny
Superior Alternative(s): None.
Notes: If you want to run a Java app, without the runtime you're SOL. Java, we love the idea of you. Just not the coffee cup staring at us from the system tray.
Application to Avoid: Limewire
Indictment: Where do we start? Haven't launched Limewire since our college days, and don't plan to ever look back
Superior Alternative(s): Frostwire
Notes: Bonus: Frostwire does BitTorrent, too.
Application to Avoid: MSN Messenger
Indictment: Little ugly non-faces with a red X over them plant themselves in your system tray with no obvious way to uninstall or quit it
Superior Alternative(s): Digsby or Pidgin or Miranda or Trillian or Meebo
Notes: Uninstall MSN Messenger by going to the "Add/Remove Windows Components" area in Control Panel's "Add/Remove Programs" area.
Application to Avoid: Nero Suite
Indictment: Costly
Superior Alternative(s): CDBurnerXP
Notes: The free CDBurnerXP may not do everything Nero does, but for the price it does a whole lot.
Application to Avoid: McAfee/Norton/Symantec Anti-Virus
Indictment: Naggy subscription costs after the free trial on your new PC runs out
Superior Alternative(s): AVG or Avast
Notes: See why many readers have ditched their AV software.
Application to Avoid: QuickTime
Indictment: Plants itself in your startup and system tray
Superior Alternative(s): QuickTime Alternative
Notes: While QuickTime doesn't annoy us THAT much, it still annoys us a little—especially since it comes with Apple's Software Update. (See Safari's Honorable Mention, below.)
Application to Avoid: RealPlayer
Indictment: We're still so traumatized about RealPlayer's repeated takeover of our PC back in 2004 we're seeing a special doctor that's killing that part of our memory
Superior Alternative(s): Real Alternative
Application to Avoid: Windows Media Player
Indictment: WTF interface, chokes on clips in common formats
Superior Alternative(s): VLC
Application to Avoid: WinZip
Indictment: Cost
Superior Alternative(s): 7-Zip or ALZip
Honorable mention: While Apple's Safari web browser for Windows itself is not crappy, Apple's Software Update trying to push it on you completely sucks. Here's how to opt out of installing Safari and stop the nag.What crappy apps or better alternatives did we miss? Did we wrongly accuse one of your favorites? Let us know in the comments.
Gina Trapani, the editor of Lifehacker, still hasn't forgiven RealPlayer. Her weekly feature, Geek to Live, appears every Monday on Lifehacker. Subscribe to the Geek to Live feed to get new installments in your newsreader.
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