Reason im doing this as another seperate thread is because of other stuff and to get your opinions on these three final choices. Hope you all dont mind but-this will make it easier for me to sift through all the advice given in the other threads.

Anyway, ive decided to get one through: tigerdirect.com.

The othe stuff is,OK, once I do get one of the 3 models ill soon mention, what will I have to do and get for it--that will have me safely on the internet? What I mean is--will I have to buy several programs and such for it before i can get on the net? or will that stuff already come as part o the computer? Ive read where you can get automatic free updates on certain programs like Flash-plug in and for viris protections--and i had soemof that on my Dell that someone had set for these things to happen.

If I can get away with not having to buy other things for the new lap tp--would sure be nice since imscraping the bottom of the barrel with available money to spend.


The three choices as listed in tigerdirect.com that im interested in are:

Item nr: AQY-102231813 Acer Aspire for $400. I dint ge the time to write down the other info as wifi wasmessing up badly yesterday.

Choice 2: Item Nr: DEY 102301101 which is a Dell for $430.

Last one is Item Nr: OCE 102355225 for $480.

If you all have any free update sites for virus protection and upgrades to the Flash plug in and such? please post them here so I can easily keep track.

Anyway, thanks for all the other help and forhelp on this one.

Your second choice is out of stock. I wouldn't recommend it anyways as it was refurbished.

Either remaining choices would be more than adequate for home use. It depends on whether you want AMD or Intel proccessor. If I remember correctly, your needs are web surfing, light word processing and general home computer use. This would be my minimum specs for such a computer:

Duo processor (x2). With today's tech, why would you go with a single core considering the prices of a duo core is cheaper than what single core prices were in their day?

2 gigabytes of DD3 RAM. With extra slots for upgrade in the future. You may not need it though.

500 gigabytes of storage. More than enough. Hard drives are always upgradable.

2 usb ports minimum, DVD+/-R drive, RGB and HDMI port. Most laptops will have those at minimum. I would avoid notebooks and chromebooks; or anything with a Atom processor.

As to software you mentioned, Adobe Flash is free and so is the upgrades. If you want to actually create a Flash animation for a webpage, then you have to buy the product. As to antivirus programs, there are many free programs out there. Personally, I would avoid Norton and Kaspersky. They implant themselves deep into the computer that it makes it almost impossible to remove them completely without a complete wipe.

There are so many free programs like office suits, video/audio editors, etc. I haven't bought any retail program in a decade or more (the last was Intellicad for a few architectural projects).

Free anti virus is AVG. Just do a search.

__________________
Regards, Ron
USASA 1965/69

Thanks both of you. I coundlt get back on yesterday to reply. I was thinking more of bothfirst and last since I dont want a refurbished one.My brother talked me into getting the last one (my Dell that just died) but--I sawsomewhere a 2 yr warranty was about $30-40--whih is dabe for me. I never had to have the Dell repaired when I bought it fromMr. Notebook, so im more than sure this other will be good.

I ouldnt remember what it had been called-but that oe does sound like what I had. Muchos Gracias. :-))

I was going to say the same with flash, its free so you don't have to search for a free version. I don't even have it installed though, not much use for it.

How do you stream your porn?

__________________
SOS USA

Give the wife a massage and make my own

Just install an actual virus and cut out the middle man.

AVG has gone from nearly useless to pernicious.

You're better off with the free Micro$oft Defender.

There are free programs. I'm using a generic word processor now because I just don't need the Microsoft Word Suite I bought years ago. All I do is type letters. Nothing fancy

There are several well rated free virus protections: Avast, AVG, zone alarm. You can look up more.

Be SURE you have a firewall running whether you use Windows built in or another. AVG was very well rated but for the last few years, other people have done the same thing better. It still works well though.

WARNING: Free programs will get you to also install other programs bundled with them and everybody wants you to download their dang toolbar. Don't do it. Sometimes you aqcuire a lot of advertizing with many free programs, especially if they are downloaded from a different source than the people that created them. For instance. I can Google 'Download Free Gobbletygook' and it will have a dozen sites, only one of which are the real Gobbletygook people. The OTHER sites take free software and add their own adware, spyware, etc. for people to download.



Outfits like Mozilla/Sourceforge make loads of free software. I have a great recording studio editor they make called Audacity. They make a better web browser than Internet Explorer called Firefox. Almost anything is better than Internet Explorer.

It used to be that half the cost of the computer was software, but Windows has a lot of stuff built in. I don't do spreadsheets anymore so I don't use Excel. Ringo, it depends on what you are going to do with your computer. Like I recorded and printed CDs so I got Roxio to do that. My son was editing Videos and I got him something (I forget what) for that. Sometimes you can get by with the free stuff, sometimes if you want more you have to pay some.

I'm familiar with Acer and Dell and they are both good products. Acer has come a long way in 20 some odd years!

Actually there are a lot of good free programs out there that don't require toolbars and ****. Sourceforge is one place and the big well known projects like Mozilla's Firefox/Thunderbird, Apache Openoffice/LibreOffice. I've been running free open source software for a decade now.

tigerdirect screwed me out of a fair amount of money a year ago. Would not buy free gold bars from them. BEWARE!