[Bort]

Hi all

I'm looking at a friends computer. It's not a great system, fairly old compared to modern day specs, but it'll run Windows XP and Chrome, etc. What it will be used for is the internet, and thats about it - facebook, online banking, youtube, that kind of thing. Oh, and Dr Who flash games for her son, lol. Oh, and her system will need to be as user-friendly as possible (Something happened to her internet explorer program, so she got me to look at it because her lack of internet was driving her nuts. She had Google Chrome already installed, but didn't know what it was for).

Unfortunately, neither of us has much in the way of spare cash, so just buying in everything I'd need to make it a decent secure system is completely out of the question. We have a legitimate copy of Windows XP for her machine (used to be mine, but I upgraded to Win7), but that's about it.

Can anyone make any suggestions as to other programs that could be used? I will need things like firewall, anti-virus, and general security stuff (adaware, etc). As I said, ideally for free lol.

Oh, and one last question...she is doing some course with a college, but they need her to do some work in Office. Can anyone tell me how easy it is to use OpenOffice if you know how to do the basics in MS Office? That would save her a few trips a week to the college just to abuse their computers.

Well, guys, thanks in advance for your replies. I look forward to reading them
Bort

[Fib]

I have a few suggestions:

CCleaner - Free windows clean up program. Deletes old files, attempts to correct registry errors, ect. Also has some other useful tools.

Avast Antivirus - Decent anti virus software. It has a free version, but also purchasable versions.

Windows Defender - Scans your computer for spyware, it also says it stops pop ups while on the internet. I've used this before, and it seems good.

I've heard OpenOffice being compared to MS Office 2003. I've also used it before. So if she's used MS Office at all before, then OpenOffice should be easy to get use to.

I would also suggest that you go through her hard drive and delete all unnecessary programs/files. It can be pretty tedious, but it is a good practice. Also, don't forget to check the programs that run on windows start up. Which can actually be done with CCleaner if you don't want to get into the start up folder/registry yourself.

I hope that helps!

This post has been edited by Fib: 10 May 2010 - 08:49 AM

[revolutionx]

Firewall - Zone Alarm, there's a free version - http://www.zonealarm...ee-firewall.htm

AVG anti virus - Free - http://download.cnet...cdlPid=11014801

Open Office is great, Writer is very similar to Word, (2003, not the new 2007 version). If you're familiar with any word processing software you'll get used to it very quickly.

If she's going to be doing any online banking, I would ditch IE, and go for Firefox, or Chrome,

(Edit, looks like a lot of this has been said in the previous post! )

[Nikhil_07n]

First of all, I totally agree with what Fib has suggested.

And as far as OpenOffice goes, the only problem is that it's a bit slower than MS Office(on my P4). Other than that, it's easy to use.

[VentiLator]

Antivirus: Avira Antivir or AVG.

Firewall: in my oppinion more confusing than usefull!

OpenOffice: its actually quite userfriendly but different to MS Office so she might be confused by that...

Additional tips: rename some desktop icons. e.g. Chrome to "Internet" and so on.

[Bort]

VentiLator, on 10 May 2010 - 09:21 AM, said:

Additional tips: rename some desktop icons. e.g. Chrome to "Internet" and so on.

I did this for her already lol.

Thanks for the advice and suggestions guys, much appreciated

I don't think I'll need to worry about cleaning out her files, etc. I was planning on completely formatting the hard drive and installing everything into a fresh XP install.

[Autocrat]

Open Office resembles earlier versions of MS Office. It does not look good. It is more like Office 2000 or 2003. If they are used to 2007 or later MS Office system, then I do not recommend OpenOffice. But even MS Office 2007 itself runs well on old PCs.

[Bort]

Maybe so Autocrat, but the reason I was looking at OpenOffice instead was because it is free. Plus, from what I've heard so far, she should be ok with it as she is most familiar with Office 2003.

[Dark_Necros]

this is completely optional, but look up something called launchy. it is a really god application launcher, and it is easy to use. completely free as well.

[trip2137]

My Recommendations...

Firewall: Comodo (runs also on 64Bit systems)
http://www.comodo.co...ty/firewall.php

Anti-Virus: Free-AV
http://free-av.de/en/index.html

XP-AntiSpy: Enables you to easily deactivate several features which perhaps are more confusing than useful (codec download, msn messenger, ...)
http://www.xp-antisp...php/en/download