My Recommended Setup and Software for a Brand-New Windows 11 Install

More people use EDGE now rather than tired old Firefox.

Also, would not waste my dosh on malwarebytes - it just lives on its reputation now.

Recent statistics for desktops.

cereberus said:

More people use EDGE now rather than tired old Firefox.

Also, would not waste my dosh on malwarebytes - it just lives on its reputation now.

Recent statistics for desktops.


View attachment 36041

Click to expand...

Fair enough, and thanks for sharing those statistics! I used Edge for a while but I recently decided I don't want to use a Chromium-based browser if I can help it. It's just too much of a resource hog. And Firefox is light and quick and way less resource intensive.

Curious what you mean about Malwarebytes - I mostly use the free version, but I have a premium license (about 2 years left) on my main machine I bought for $1. It's actually come in handy on numerous occasions for me in the last 10 years.

davidvkimball said:

Fair enough, and thanks for sharing those statistics! I used Edge for a while but I recently decided I don't want to use a Chromium-based browser if I can help it. It's just too much of a resource hog. And Firefox is light and quick and way less resource intensive.

Curious what you mean about Malwarebytes - I mostly use the free version, but I have a premium license (about 2 years left) on my main machine I bought for $1. It's actually come in handy on numerous occasions for me in the last 10 years.

Click to expand...

Edge does not hog resources these days in my experience.

I used to use free version of MB but frankly it has picked up nothing that Defender did not find. Defender has come on a long way in last few years, and is up there with the best of them (according to most reviews I read).

Sure in the past MB was a good tool, but now I do not see it has enough benefits to be worth paying for.

I have not had a single infection for years now with Defender.

I tried paid version of MB on a trial and got fed up with its nagging, so uninstalled it.

The only reason I hope tools like MB survive is to ensure MS have competition and do not get complacent with Defender.

I believe there was a major improvement with Windows 10 when they made AV packages compulsory. I was for ever fixing virus infections on sibling/friends pcs back in (seriously inferior now) W7 days. I hardly need to to that nowadays.

In fact, most infections now are self inflicted by click happy users. As @NavyLCDR says on another post Common Sense is a rarity!

cereberus said:

View attachment 36041

Click to expand...

Still there are 0.75% IE users!
That's loyalty we don't find these days

@davidvkimball

Thank you nice info

qbittorrent -> free download manager

abactuon said:

qbittorrent -> free download manager

Click to expand...

Yep! I've got that on the list already.

If someone mentioned the "Classic Shell", I missed it. For me, it's a 'Must Have' for every OS after Win-7.
??? How could Firefox be old and tired, unless someone turned OFF updates???
Heck, they're up to level 104 now. Very few programs are so UP TO DATE! I've been with them since version 1.0..... I'll keep it!

There are more "Services" than ever, in Windows, and many can just be shut OFF to improve performance. I wrote a little program that shuts off a long list of "Services".
Kill WUDO and Cortana, for improved security!

In 'MSCONFIG' reduce the 30 sec. startup delay to 3 sec's for faster Startup. And, put my Quick Shutdown shortcut on the desktop or Task Tray for a five second shutdown.

These are all things I do to improve both performance and security....I've not even gotten into the software that I use, many of which I've used for Years. I also use several programs from Steve Gibson (Gibson Research) to increase system security.
Once you get past the GUI, there's really not a lot of difference between Windows 8.1, 10 and 11. Except it keeps getting less user friendly.

What I've mentioned here is just a brief overview, and not a detailed list, which would take too much time and space for this forum.

Sometimes, I've spent hours, just tweaking and tuning Windows (all versions) for peak performance and security. It's what I do!

Cheers mates, and Happy Computing,
TM

Nice list, but we all have our own preferences. For me it's the Brave browser; a combination of Defender, Hitman Pro, MRT, and mbar that run only when I start them; and Macrium Reflect. I did use WinAero Tweaker some time ago, but once those settings are set, is there any reason to keep Tweaker? I deleted it. I like Notepad++ for comparing text files (typically code files.)

Birk said:

Nice list, but we all have our own preferences. For me it's the Brave browser; a combination of Defender, Hitman Pro, MRT, and mbar that run only when I start them; and Macrium Reflect. I did use WinAero Tweaker some time ago, but once those settings are set, is there any reason to keep Tweaker? I deleted it. I like Notepad++ for comparing text files (typically code files.)

Click to expand...

Good point about Notepad++. I use it a lot also. Brave is excellent but I've never been able to make the switch.

I'm not familiar with Hitman Pro, MRT, mbar or Macrium Reflect - what are they?

And yeah the reason to keep Tweaker is when Windows updates and either messes with the registry or includes new, invasive features to shut off.

Hitman Pro is an anti-virus program the finds and fixes (so they say) rootkits: HitmanPro and HitmanPro.Alert. Advanced Malware Scanning, Detection and Removal Tools.

I had a rootkit once years ago and at the time my only solution was a Macrium boot disk image restore, followed by restoring all my data which was on a separate drive.

MRT is the Microsoft Malicious Software Removal Tool: Download Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool 64-bit from Official Microsoft Download Center

mbar is the MalwareBytes rootkit scanner/remover: Free Rootkit Scanner & Remover | Malwarebytes Anti Rookit

Macrium Reflect is the world-wide standard for disk backups. It will do incremental and individual partition backups too, but I only use it for full disk image backups: Reflect Free Edition

I forgot to add SyincBack Free. It synchs all my data files to an offline drive that is only online when I'm synching (or restoring something I deleted by mistake): Detailed backup software comparison - SyncBackPro, SyncBackSE and SyncBackFree

My list is a bit different

That's about it though.

davidvkimball said:

Good point about Notepad++

Click to expand...

No clones, only the original.

cereberus said:

Edge does not hog resources these days in my experience.

I used to use free version of MB but frankly it has picked up nothing that Defender did not find. Defender has come on a long way in last few years, and is up there with the best of them (according to most reviews I read).

Sure in the past MB was a good tool, but now I do not see it has enough benefits to be worth paying for.

I have not had a single infection for years now with Defender.

I tried paid version of MB on a trial and got fed up with its nagging, so uninstalled it.

The only reason I hope tools like MB survive is to ensure MS have competition and do not get complacent with Defender.

I believe there was a major improvement with Windows 10 when they made AV packages compulsory. I was for ever fixing virus infections on sibling/friends pcs back in (seriously inferior now) W7 days. I hardly need to to that nowadays.

In fact, most infections now are self inflicted by click happy users. As @NavyLCDR says on another post Common Sense is a rarity!

Click to expand...

"Edge does not hog resources these days in my experience.".....

Well recently I just Uninstalled Edge and and am happily using Firefox now simply because Edge for me, again for me,
was a huge Hog. Firefox opens fast its UI is sleek and modern and the transition effects are great. Web pages load fast and
all my sites connect, using Edge it started blocking half the sites I visited...sad...anyway this is ONLY my opinion.
However, regarding this mans opinion of what to install on Windows 11. Well, I like the entire list actually of programs to install.
And I highly recommend Bitwarden, Love it.