Best programs in each category.

[TheNewbAvenger]

I know... the question is a little generic...

Best video player?
- VLC media player
- GOM Player
- Zoom Player

Freeware antivirus software?
avast! 4 Home Edition vs. Avira AntiVir Personal FREE Antivirus

Paid antivirus software?
ESET NOD32 Antivirus Home Edition vs. Kaspersky Anti-Virus 7.0

Best codec pack?
- XP Codec Pack
- K-Lite Codec Pack Basic
- Matroska Pack

[Lev]

What are your performance measures to define "best" in each category, otherwise all you are going to get is a list of people's personal favorites.

[TheNewbAvenger]

Originally Posted by Lev

What are your performance measures to define "best" in each category, otherwise all you are going to get is a list of people's personal favorites.

Well, I suppose for video players:
What plays the most amount of video files, and good subtitle support. Oh, and features.

For antivirus protection, NOT just scanning for viruses, and the like. I'm talking about proactiv protection; how the program would cope if a virus were to be installed.

And for best codec pack, whichever one allows the most playback amount of video files.

[bigbazza]

Welcome, TheNewbAvenger, to Major Geeks.

Probably not exactly what you are after, but a good place to start is the "Must Have Free downloads" at http://www.majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20
for lots of good FREE stuff.

Bazza

[Dreamer]

Your best bet for free anti-virus would be avast. Paid anti-virus is definitely Kaspersky. K-lite has the best codec pack I've used.

[Adrynalyne]

Originally Posted by scylla

VLC Media player is definitely one of the best ones out there. I haven't found a video format that I can't play so far.

Try .rm.