Windows Internet Survival Kit

I've collected links here to some of the more useful Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 software needed to fully experience and survive in the Web. Just click on the link to each company's homepage and follow their download and installation procedures.

• Need a good image viewer? Try ACDSee and the very useful PicaView. Both are available at www.acdsystems.com/pages/
• AOL SuperFree Tools & MessageTosser Tired of popup ads? Sick of saying "Yes" to those "Would you like to stay online?" messages? With these programs running while you have AOL open you can automatically dismiss those messages and keep you online. The MessageTosser is a very small program that just dismisses the "Stay Online" popups, SuperFree Tools will let you customize many areas of AOL. Both require the Visual Basic 5 Runtime files, also available at the link above
• Online video formats: There's a few different ones. The two most common players are Quicktime 3 and the RealPlayer 5. Both have free versions of their player and you should definately download them. It's a long download at first, but they'll really serve you well.
• Someone sent you a file but you just can't open it? Try QuickView Plus 4.5! This program can open over 200 file formats, and can use your Netscape plugins to view even more file types. It'll integrate itself with Outlook, Eudora, Netscape mail and other programs. This is a VERY useful program.
• Having problems downloading files? If you are downloading large files and keep stalling halfway, try the freeware program Go!Zilla. It'll let you resume downloads if you have problems, and you can even schedule it to download at a certain time. It will automatically integrate itself with IE and Netscape.
• Want to make your own icons? Try either Microangelo or Axialis icons (they're what I used for my icon collections).
• Getting tired of Notepad? Try TextPad, the best Notepad replacement I've ever seen. Not freeware, but a great program and vast improvement.
• Ulead Photo Viewer 4.0 this free utility will let you view and convert 27 different image file types (just use "Save As").
• Wave Events This great utility will let you associate sounds with individual programs. For example, you could have Windows play Xena's battlecry when you start Netscape, and have Callisto hiss when you turn on your email program. The shareware version is $10, there's a freeware version as well called the "Sound Event Editor 97"
• Wondering where your connection is bad? Try NeoTrace. It'll show you graphically every step of the way from your computer to the web server you're viewing.
• Tired of your Windows 95 startup screen? Use the XrX Animated Logo Utility to create a new one.
• The Font Fairy get yourself some free fonts!
• If you are running Windows 95 and any Office 97 component (Word, Excel, etc), be sure to download the MS Paint95 update. This will let Paint read and write JPG and GIF files (you need to install any Office 97 program for this to work).
• Acrobat Reader. Used to open and print .PDF documents.
• WinZip A vital utility for any Web exploration, this is hands down the best zipping/unzipping program for Windows.
• PKZIP Another compression program. WinZip's predecessor. Really only needed if you're using DOS.
• LView A very useful program for viewing images in virtually any file format, and saving them as virtually any other type. Small but powerful.
• Eudora Light One of the very best e-mail clients around. The Lite version is freeware, upgrade to Pro later if you wish. Drop Microsoft Exchange and start with a real e-mail program. Supports MIME, BinHex and other formats, based on the POP 3 standard.
• Home Site The best HTML editor on the market
• WS_FTP LE The LE version is freeware, the Pro version costs $39. Definately one of the best FTP programs on the market.