Verified answer

OpenOffice

Firefox + AdBlock Plus

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Sun Java

Adobe Flash Player

Avira Antivirus

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware

Sources + Links listed in order.

-Matt

Install an office suite. You can buy an older version of MS Office on Ebay and outside of the new car smell these will do whatever you need in terms of spreadsheet, word processing etc. Get a version that carries Word, Excel, Powerpoint and Access. Outlook would be good too.

Acrobat reader is a free download as are Shockwave and Flash Player.

I am a big fan of a reference suite (dictionary, encyclopedia…). Not to sound like a salesman but MS Encarta is a good choice also an old version can be had on ebay cheap.

Antivirus software will slow down a computer, especially an older one. It is a trade off.

Another method for protecting your computer and its content is to periodically back up your data. Strive to save everything to a single location. You can use subfolders within that location of course. If you have a few gig of data, a sizable flash drive will do as will burned DVD. If you have a lot of data, a separate computer or external hard drive is the way to go.

Back up between 2 and 4 times a year. When the machine sloww down or gets annoying, or ceases to work, you can reinstall OS and all software. Then you copy your most recent backup onto the machine and it runs like the first day you got it.

essential programs you will need are

1)A good anti virus software .Here are some good ones

http://avira.com/ excellent detection of various threats /infections and does not slow the machine down.Avira offer a free version and a premium version which you pay for .

2)http://kaspersky.com/ .excellent detection .however can be quite heavy on system resources.

they offer a free trial of the software before purchasing .

3)http://eset.com/ . eset offer an excellent anti virus called EsentNOD32 .it has very good detection rates and does not slow the computer down .they offer a free trial before purchasing

4)http://avast.com/ .again excellent detection and a superb free version with many features .

Anyone one of those four programs will help protect your machine from the the many threats on the internet .( Remember only run one anti virus program as more than one will conflict )

It is also a plus to have an anti spyware software running along side your anti virus .in my opinion the best one is http://superantispyware.com/ (if your anti virus software has an anti spyware feature then there really is no need for this though )

Another essential program to download aswell as your anti virus is http://malwarebytes.org/ . use this program once or twice a week to scan for the various infections that can sneak into a computer .it can detect many infections and remove them and this program is free .

Other than that make sure your firewall is turned on or if you wish to use a personal firewall there are many good ones such as http://pctools.com/firewall and http://comodo.com/ also offer a good one .

Also make sure you have the latests operating system updates installed and your java updates http://java.com/ -<for information.

and finally i recommend downloading a safer web browser such as mozilla firefox http://firefox.com/ <_ they offer an excellent web browser which i use myself .it is free and there are excellent add-ons for the browser to enhance security while using the internet aswell as many other add-ons .

Good luck and i hope i have helped you .

Anti-virus and anti-malware programs are a must.

use winzip 12 or winrar to compress stuffs. it helps a lot