Just about everyone who reads tech blogs has run into a title like “Essential Apps for Your New PC” or “These Apps Will Save Your Life”. The purpose of a netbook is to run light applications and use the web for most productivity. However, there are other offline uses like: ebook reader, journal,sketch book, media player, etc, etc. What I wasn’t able to find, when actually looking, however, was a list of lightweight, practical, free (preferably open source) and “cloudless” applications for a netbook running Windows XP. As far as I know, these apps will also run on Vista and Windows 7, the  exceptions being the XP-specific programs at the bottom.

Here is my list and some notes.

These are all you need for basic office applications. They are free, lightweight and highly customizable. They are  a word processor, a spread sheet application, a mind mapping software, a PDF reader and a Notepad replacement. Downloaded, they’re less than 50 MB—very impressive when compared to just about any office suite.

For media! MPlayer will handle anything you throw at it and has plenty of plugins to boot. MagicDisc allows you to mount any .ISO file as though you have a CD/DVD player on your netbook. Many netbooks don’t actually have an optical drive, so it’s very helpful.

Play safe online and use a free antivirus application that doesn’t bog down your machine. Of course, only use Home Edition for personal use. 7-Zip is an all-around useful archiving tool that makes opening archives of any type a snap. I originally mentioned universal uninstaller, but I think 7-zip is more reliable and is a more active project.

When you do go online, use these apps to make your life easier. Firefox and Thunderbird have a ton of addons to customize browsing and email just as you like it. If you use IE, though, IE7Pro is a great tool to customize it and block ads. Pidgin is your one stop shop for instant messaging. It can handle AIM, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber/XMPP, MSN Messenger, Yahoo! and more out of the box. It can also do Facebook chat and others with the aid of plugins.

Need to do some image editing without large, bulky software? Paint.net is a really robust application with a small footprint. Gadwin PrintScreen adds just enough extra to Windows’ builtin printscreen command to make it worth your while—without getting in the way or using extra resources.

What if something goes wrong on your netbook, or things are running slowly? Belarc Advisor and TinyResMeter are great trouble shooting tools. Only install Belarc for personal use.

And tools that should have been included in XP by default but were not:

  • Sync Toy – a simple folder synchronization tool for easy backups (will work on Vista/7)
  • Alt-Tab Replacement – a clearer way to switch between application windows
  • QuickMonth Calendar – mouse over your task bar date and see the whole month

I hope these suggestions help someone outfit their netbook and keep it running trim!