by Joseph Eaves

Created on: February 06, 2009

Investing in a laptop is an exciting prospect for anyone who has ever thought about the advantages of a portable computer. It provides everything your huge, lumbering, loud, ugly desktop can, in one light, sleek, stylish machine, on the go. Laptops can be used for a whole range of tasks but most commonly, they are used for browsing the internet and editing work. In today's world, however, laptops are increasingly used as substitutes to their desktop cousins. People are using them for storage for their music and film collections, playing games and media creation/editing. In this article, i will outline my list of the Essential Programs Everyone Should Have On Their Laptop.

Operating System (O/S):

I do not class this as a program, rather the foundation software that programs run on, but i will discuss it none-the-less. There are a whole host of O/S's out there for you to choose from but, chances are, you are one of the 80% of the population that has grown up with Microsoft Windows. Windows is a feature rich O/S with excellent application and game support. A computer will more than likely be bundled with *a* Windows operating system so you're probably not aware of the price being paid for the O/S. It's expensive. The only reason it costs so much is because of the support. Otherwise, Windows isn't brilliant. It is slow, power hungry, prone to crashes and vulnerable to viruses. Linux is a less supported operating system in the way of games and applications but on the plus side it is free. Absolutely, no strings attached, FREE! It isn't resource heavy nor is it slow. There have been a total of 36 viruses on the Linux operating system in its lifespan and it almost never crashes. Linux is easily the best suited O/S for a laptop and so i recommend it whole heartedly for the purposes of this article. Here is the best Linux for beginners and Here is a guide on how to install it.

Internet Browser:

Internet Explorer is the most widespread, well known internet browser out there. This is due to the fact it comes preinstalled with every Windows operating system. Subsequently, Microsoft have not needed to make their browser any better than the basic requirements of the average user. Firefox, on the other hand, is an excellent internet browser with a diverse range of add ons and plug-ins that carry out a whole host of helpful, useful, usable, fun and plainly cool tasks. Firefox is free and much, much faster than Internet Explorer and is much better looking. You can download Firefox

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