Google’s “Pack” is a winner

I am a “downloader”. I get a real kick out of downloading cool and/or useful programs — particularly when they’re free. A lot of you are “downloaders” too, and one of this site’s more popular items is the daily download link I post at the end of each article.
I also like that when I am considering spending money on a program, I can (usually) download a “trial”, which I can use to see if it works as I hope it will before I lay out my hard-earned cash. By taking advantage of these trials, I have avoided spending money on programs which caused instability or bogged down my system or just failed to live up to their promise; and, I have found some great programs (games, mostly, but that’s just me) that I would not have found otherwise.

Today I want to tell you about a “package” of downloads put together by Google. This one download includes some of the programs I have featured in my “Free link of the day”, and a couple that I haven’t (yet). The one (included) program that caused me to write today’s article is Spyware Doctor. Spyware Doctor is a for-pay anti-spyware tool that has consistently ranked number 1, or number 2, on the Best Anti-Spyware lists (currently number one). It is well-worth the $30 price.
The Google Pack includes an effective, though smaller, version of Spyware Doctor, as well as an impressive list of other applications.

One of the truly great features of the Google Pack is that you can pick-and-choose which of these options to download to your machine. (You could, conceivably, download a “pack” of one.) The default selections are shown here, but I would do a little checking and unchecking before I clicked the “Download” button.

First, uncheck the “make Google my Homepage” as you probably have already set your desired “Home” for your browser.
Also, uncheck the box for Adobe Reader. If you must have a “reader” to open PDF files, use any other free reader (unless you enjoy being hassled while you compute, and prefer a slow boot), such as PrimoPDF (included at the bottom of this article).
Do not check Real Player.

Those of you who are security conscious (hopefully all of you) should keep the checks in Norton Security Inspector (which includes antivirus and anti-spyware) and Spyware Doctor.

I have mentioned the others before, except for Google Talk, which is an IM, and Google Photos Screensaver.. which I can see no use for.

For those of you who want to take advantage of this unique download bundle offered by Google, click here.

Free link of the day: (Yes. Another one!) Those free “trial” programs I mentioned above are not always such a wonderful thing– particularly when they are ‘forced’ upon us against our will. Whenever you buy a new computer, it will come preloaded with all sorts of trialware (as it’s called) that most of us don’t want.
If you have just purchased a new PC (or are about to), download and run the wonderful PC Decrapifier and clean off that stuff.

Copyright 2007 © Tech Paul. All rights reserved.

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