A couple updates to my experiment in Windows without the bullshit:
- E-Mail Client: The Interwebs
After playing around with every email client I could think of, and consulting with a knowledgeable friend about it, I realized that none of them do anything that I’m not already getting through Windows Live Mail (it already mimics the classic email client interface) or GMail (it is light years beyond the thick clients in terms of content management). Plus, I check my email once a day on my home computer, but I use the web interface 17 times a day at work; I need my mail in the cloud. There’s a decent Opera-style email client that you can get for Firefox. But if I’ve already got the browser open, why am I not just going to the website? Why add another layer of complexity to my life? - Media Player: VLC
Mostly because it’s not any of the other horrendous media players out there. Quicktime, Real Player, DivX, this means you. When Windows Media Player is the least disruptive of the bunch, you know you’re dealing with a rogue’s gallery of shitty software. I thought about Winamp, but not for very long. I’ve heard some good things about VLC, which seems to support just about all the codecs out there. And it doesn’t download a bunch of crap when you’re not looking. It’s Open Source, for whatever that’s worth. I’m sure that this subject would mean a lot more to me if I was a DVD pirate. - File Compression: 7-Zip
It does everything that WinZip does, plus more. It’s also free, doesn’t give me shareware guilt trips, or clog up my right-click menus with exhaustive shell extensions. - PDF Reader: Foxit Reader.
It seems to do just about everything a home user would need in terms of working with PDF files. Plus it’s not weighed down with a metric ton of resource-hogging bloat and incessant update checking. I’d have to pay for a full version to create PDF files with it. But I can’t recall many occasions where I needed to do that from my home PC.
More updates as they come.