Best Software for Netbooks

Music, Video and Photo

VLC Media Player, Free

Don’t swamp your netbook with a different player for every video codec when VLC will play them all, and with a tiny footprint.

WinAmp Media Player, Free

Forget iTunes on a netbook. It eats up a nice chunk of memory and tries to junk up your PC with the likes of QuickTime and Safari, too. WinAmp imposes far less of a load and won’t try to drag along any filthy friends, either.

Google Picasa, Free

Most netbooks really don’t have too much spare hard drive for storing loads of photos, so getting them off your netbook quickly and on to the Web just makes sense. Google’s Picasa photo suite makes it simple to organize and upload your photos to online galleries quickly and painlessly.

XBMC

Want to use your netbook as an impromptu home media server for streaming YouTube, Hulu, and other Internet-based video content? XBMC offers a slick interface that makes it easier to browse through and play shows and movies, without sucking up a lot of system resources. Note that most netbooks still won’t be able to drive video at high resolutions (like 1080p), though.