5 Software Programs Essential for Students

When I was a young student, I had a large box on my desk filled with floppy disks. This was my software collection, and while most of it was shareware games and the odd ends of files I had saved, there were a few genuine software gems in there. As I progressed in my academic career, I found my software needs changing to match the ready availability of advanced programs that were continuously being released. Even today - long past my academic aspirations - I find myself teaching my students about some software they need, but might not have heard about. I've made a list of what I feel are the most important, and have listed the attributes of each that earns them a place on this list. Here they are, in no particular order because it'd be like comparing apples and oranges. All of these deserve a place in the "floppy disk" collection of college students.

Starting out with #5: OpenOffice. A free collection of office productivity software that will be very familiar to anyone who uses Microsoft Office, this software suite wins out over its Microsoft competitor because it's free, and because it can export to PDF files - a functionality I always found lacking in the versions of Office that I used to use. OpenOffice takes a little getting used to, particularly the constant error messages that seem to occur when you don't save a file - the software keeps wanting to send an "error report" to the publishers, and it slows down the rapid opening / closing of files that is sometimes necessary when I'm looking for something. Of course, it's possible that this error has nothing to do with OpenOffice, and is indicative of some type of virus on my computer. Which brings me to...

#4: AVG Antivirus. It works, it's small / simple, and it's free. It's hard to argue with that trio of attributes, especially when you don't often find them together in commercial software packages. AVG is the software I always turn to when a friend or family member needs help dealing with a possible spyware / virus infection, which happens more often than I would like. Avoiding a computer virus infection is critical for a student. Nothing is worse than trying to beat a class deadline only to find out that your computer - with all of your notes, and that half-finished term paper - is busy reformatting its own hard-drive while you're completely paralyzed with 573 popup ads. Depending on how you configure it, AVG can be set to run in the background at a particular time / day of the week, so unless you have a virus problem actually occur you can rest assured that your PC is being regularly scanned for both spyware and most known computer viruses. AVG is a good, solid piece of software, and is much less "bloated" than some of its commercial competitors like Norton.

#3: CCleaner. It's free, it's simple to use, and it completely wipes all traces of your computer activity from the hard drive. This includes cookies, internet browsing history, recent documents menus - the list is huge, and you can select precisely what you want to have erased. Part of this software functionality involves finding / removing junk files that some programs leave behind, and which do nothing but take up valuable hard drive space. Some people may not understand the need for privacy protection as a student, but very often you find yourself using a "common" / shared computer with the rest of the class. Do you really want everyone else reading that email you just sent your girlfriend? Do you want the rest of your freshman high school class to know that you are a secret member of the "My Little Pony" online fan club? None of these things are embarrassing in and of themselves, of course, but people are so silly about some things. How about preventing people from stealing the fantastic essay topic you've been researching online? Just save yourself the trouble and run CCleaner at the end of your computer session - it takes less than a minute to complete, and when you leave the computer it's like you were never there. The computer will also run smoother without all of the junk programs on there. Which brings me to....

#2: Advanced System Cleaner. Again, free to use - an important quality for a student! This program is dead simple to use. Anyone could set it up, and run it to its full utility. It (rapidly) checks your PC for spyware, for hijacked security settings, for junk files, for registry errors, among other things, and then automatically fixes everything for you. It just takes a few mouse clicks, and it doesn't drown you in computer jargon. It does its job very, very well - even people who swear that their computer is well-maintained are often astonished by the problems this program finds, and solves. It's not just cosmetic, either; there is usually a dramatic stability and speed increase of the computer after finishing a scan by this software. Just like AVG Antivirus, you can schedule this software to scan in the background and automatically fix things on a schedule, so you never really have to think about it and your computer remains squeaky clean and running at top speed. Student computers usually aren't very high end, and are exposed to all types of malware as the student surfs around the Internet. At the same time, you need a dependable computer to meet those last minute deadlines. Those two things are at conflict, and Advanced System Cleaner is a free and safe way to keep your computer performing its best.

Finally, the #1 software for students: Google Chrome. I'm not going to bog this article down with endless discussions of the virtues of this web browser over other web browsers. Here's what you need to know: I've been using web browsers from the very beginning - before there really was a Web. I've seen all types, and paid all manner of dollar amounts for the ability to "surf the Internet". Google Chrome is dependable. It's powerful. And it's fast. How fast? Check out this cute video: www.youtube.com.

You need a web browser on your computer. For many people - and I would venture to say, most students - the browser is the most heavily-used software on the hard drive. It needs to be the very best, and the easiest to use. Google Chrome meets all of the necessary criteria, and even better: it's free. That's a phrase that most students are always happy to hear.