Least resource hungry apps

fozzybear

fozzybear

fozzybear

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I need to reinstall Windows 7 in the next few days because of a virus. Better safe than sorry.

I'm just wondering what the best apps/utilities are that take up the least resources. I realise there is probbaly a difference between the best and the least resource hungry apps.

Having gone through the sticky, I've got a few ideas of what I want. Just don't know which are memory hungry or not.

I need:

AV/Malware (free)
Music player
Video player that plays pretty much everything.
PDF
Browser
File sharing
Defragger (free)
Compression (free)

Also, I'm wondering what driver is best for a Radeon 7850 2GB. Is there just a basic driver without downloading the whole AMD CCC?

Cheers.
 
My selections:

- Video player that plays pretty much everything.
VideoLan or Media Player Classic

- PDF
SumatraPDF

- Compression (free)
7-zip

- Also, I'm wondering what driver is best for a Radeon 7850 2GB. Is there just a basic driver without downloading the whole AMD CCC?
If you select carefully from the AMD site they do a driver only package without the CCC. You can then use 3rdparty tools loaded on demand to tweak if needed.
 
Also once you have installed everything and your happy, make a system image backup either using the built in backup tool or something third party. This will save you reinstall time if you need to do it again.
 
fozzybear said:
I need to reinstall Windows 7 in the next few days because of a virus. Better safe than sorry.

I'm just wondering what the best apps/utilities are that take up the least resources. I realise there is probbaly a difference between the best and the least resource hungry apps.

Having gone through the sticky, I've got a few ideas of what I want. Just don't know which are memory hungry or not.

I need:

AV/Malware (free)
Music player
Video player that plays pretty much everything.
PDF
Browser
File sharing
Defragger (free)
Compression (free)

Also, I'm wondering what driver is best for a Radeon 7850 2GB. Is there just a basic driver without downloading the whole AMD CCC?

Cheers.
Click to expand...

Nobody can tell you what's going to work best for you. But as a general rule based on best performing apps that also have a very low footprint you won't go wrong with:

Comodo Internet Security (free) - about 10 to 20MB RAM usage
Media Player Classic Home Cinema - very low resources, DXVA, music & video
Foxit PDF - much less resources than Adobe Reader, better feature set
File sharing - qBittorrent (super low RAM, fastest client going with a brilliant built in search! No ads or crapware unlike uTorrent)
Defragger - Defraggler by Piriform
Compression - 7Zip or PeaZip (same thing under a different GUI essentially)
 
Cheers gents. I'll check them all out before I have to reinstall Windows on Tuesday.

Any other recommendations would be welcome.

If you select carefully from the AMD site they do a driver only package without the CCC. You can then use 3rdparty tools loaded on demand to tweak if needed.
Click to expand...

I'm struggling to find anything apart from the CCC package.

Could I just let Steam update my driver? Would Steam install the full CCC package?
 
Avast is another light anti-virus, it's sitting at just 5mb for me at the moment.

+1 to MPC-HC, but I prefer using MPC-BE: http://sourceforge.net/projects/mpcbe/

I think browsers will be resource hungry no matter which one you pick if you want a decent browser :p. Firefox, Chrome, Opera or even Internet Explorer will be fine.

7-Zip is what I use for file compression, seems very light and is pretty quick with compression/extracting.

For music and defragging, I use the stock Window stuff for that, it's good enough for my uses.


As for the AMD driver, during the installation setup, instead of express install, select custom, that way you can choose which AMD components to install.

And don't let Steam update drivers, this was a year ago but my friend did that and killed the OS. No idea if it still does that but better not take the risk.
 
Rainmaker said:
Comodo Internet Security (free) - about 10 to 20MB RAM usage
Click to expand...

Just given this a test run now.

It also installs a web browser (Comodo Dragon) that is basically Chrome under another name. It seems lightning fast and all the Chrome extensions work with it. I can see myself sticking with this.
 
fozzybear said:
Just given this a test run now.

It also installs a web browser (Comodo Dragon) that is basically Chrome under another name. It seems lightning fast and all the Chrome extensions work with it. I can see myself sticking with this.
Click to expand...

Sorry, yes, it also installs GeekBuddy on top as well. You can untick/de-select those during install but you have to choose custom installation. Regardless Dragon is a decent browser with some extra security tweaks on top of the usual Chrome base so it's worth using. Comodo Internet Security is very light, and works very well indeed. You'll struggle to find any real world malware that can get past it, provided you don't FUBAR the settings.
 
How much memory and CPU have you got at your disposal? Are we talking netbook or gaming rig? Because honestly, it would be easier just to avoid the known memory hogs rather than judge everything based on its resource usage.
 
I am currently using the budget family PC, bought about 4 years ago.

OS: Windows 7 Ultimate Service Pack 1, CPU: 2 x AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 5400+ @ 2812 MHz 1024 Kb Cache, MEM: 2047 Mb, ($memfree Mb) free, DISKS: total 302 Gb, 90.6 Gb free, GFX: NVIDIA GeForce 9500 GT 1024 Mb, SCREEN: PnP-Monitor (Standard), 1280 x 1024 @ 32 bit, AUDIO: Realtek High Definition Audio, UPTIME: 0 d, 4 h, 29 m
 
b3n said:
Ninite comes in handy on re-installations - http://goo.gl/P3HU
Click to expand...

Looks useful. Cheers.

I ended up with:

Comodo Internet Security
Foobar (with CaTRoX theme)
MPC-HC
7Zip
Foxit
Chrome

Will likely stick with the inbuilt Windows defragger.

Tried UTorrent and qBitTorrent. UTorrent kep installing browser extensions/toolbars despite me saying I didn't want them. qBitTorrent was flagged up as being suspicious so I didn't continue.
 
Actually, I've gone back to IE10 from Chrome now. Chrome was taking 10+ seconds to startup from a reboot. Liking IE10 but will use Firefox when visiting pages that need an adblocker.

Also, I've gone back to Avast as well. Needed to reinstall Windows yet again yesterday after Compro drivers soiled my system. :/
 
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