Best Software for Netbooks

June 23, 2009 By Nick Mokey

Business and Productivity

Foxit’s ultra-lean PDF reader runs and opens documents so much faster than Adobe’s own bloated reader that it’s almost embarrassing. Forget netbooks, you’ll want to install this one on every system you own.

OpenOffice, Free

Many netbooks come preinstalled with this office suite for a reason. OK, that’s because it’s free. But it’s also lighter than the Microsoft equivalent, which makes it a winner from a performance perspective, too.

AVG Free Anti_Virus AVG Free Anti-Virus, Free

Yes, sadly you need to protect your netbook just as much as you need to protect your desktop. Even if you don’t have anything important stored on board, you probably have a ton of stored Internet passwords from surfing that you really wouldn’t want to fall into the hands of hackers. AVG may not have the prettiest user interface, but it will do the job without clogging up your machine, which is more than many commercial (*cough*Norton) AV products can claim.

Motzilla ThunderBird Mozilla ThunderBird, Free

Let’s be honest: You’re far better off with Web-based e-mail like Gmail if you’re really trying to keep the system load on your netbook low, but if you need a client for POP or IMAP e-mail, Thunderbird makes far more sense than Microsoft Outlook. When we compared memory footprint with the same inbox, Thunderbird consumed 33MB, while Outlook guzzled 111MB, which makes an enormous difference in app you’re going to have open all the time.

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Showing 11 comments

Netbookfiles.com at 3:06am 7th May 2010 no one mentioned about my netbook software site guys!

Please do check it out : http://www.netbookfiles.com

We have put a lot of man-hours into this.
Seriously at 9:58am 11th February 2010 Seriously...a statement like that... you should not be allowed to own a computer.
yoseff at 7:05pm 28th January 2010 definetley chrome over firefox. mozilla offers all of the plugs for html junkies and rss, but on a notebook, chrome is simply... simple.
woodyman11 at 7:45am 27th January 2010 i am not joking you guys these games are fine but why dont you download the project64k emulator and then you can play great games like zelda, goldeneye and mariokart etc.... and ohh thats right they are free too enjooooooooy!!!!!1
woodyman11 at 7:45am 27th January 2010 i am not joking you guys these games are fine but why dont you download the project64k emulator and then you can play great games like zelda, goldeneye and mariokart etc.... and ohh thats right they are free too enjoooooooooooy!!!!!1
Ian Bell at 8:57am 7th December 2009 Are you kidding me? Of course it is.
popo at 1:33am 7th December 2009 openoffice is not lighter than office 2007.
dang at 1:31am 25th November 2009 VLC player is pretty awesome
chris at 1:28am 25th November 2009 My favorite is the VCL player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html
Chris at 1:26am 25th November 2009 I'd like to add IRFAN as a phantastic, lean grafic viewer with the essential functions of cropping, resizing, adjusting pictures etc. http://www.irfanview.com/

Also, using Firefox with the plugins Fireshot for screenshots, cooliris and coolpreviews really helps.
czechod at 11:12am 20th November 2009 What's the best (free) software to play movies on a netbook? I installed Nero (8) but can't get any audio... ready to try something else. Suggestions?