Internet
Mozilla FireFox may be one of the most popular alternative Web browsers in the market, but personally we prefer the latest Opera 9.50. Though it is still in beta testing, Opera has one killer feature--synchronization. Since UMPCs are laptop companions, it is a hassle having to keep transferring bookmarks from one PC to another. Opera 9.50 allows you to keep your bookmarks and speed dial settings constantly updated with an online server, which can be accessed from any PC using the same browser.Google Docs is an online productivity suite which allows you to store and work on Word documents, spreadsheets and even PowerPoint-like presentations. Since there is nothing to install on your system, this saves space on your UMPC. The only issue is that you need to be online for this alternative to work, and the speed of the application depends on your Internet connection.
Microsoft Live Messenger, Yahoo Messenger and Skype may have pretty interfaces, but they are also resource hogs. Miranda not only allows you to access contacts for most instant messaging clients on one interface, it doesn't require any installation at all. Hence, you can put Miranda on a USB flash drive and bring it to any PC for your chatting needs. It also has a wealth of user-created plugins which add features and functions to your messaging client.
Multimedia player
Windows Media Player may have a lot of cool features. Unfortunately, the latest version 11 is also slow to load and doesn't come with DivX, Xvid and other video compression codecs built-in. There are two alternatives available--GOM and VLC player. Each of these not only loads faster and has a smaller footprint, they also have most of the commonly used video codecs built into the player.
Image Editor
For image editing, there are two great freeware available--Picasa and GIMP. The former is more of a photo organizer with simple touch-up features, while the latter is a true-blue editor which can rival the popular Photoshop software.Utilities
Windows may have built-in ZIP compatibility, but go for IZarc and 7-ZIP which can handle almost any file compression formats out there. IZarc is even available in your right-click menu, greatly simplifying archive creation and unzipping.Foxit works with Adobe Acrobat files rather well and doesn't require much processing power or storage space, either. If you need more features, a paid version is also available. However, from our experience the free version is more than enough for most users.
One of the drawbacks of a UMPC is that most do not come with an optical drive. MagicDisc is a free software which creates CD/DVD image files that can be mounted like a real CD drive on your harddisk. You can even create multiple virtual optical drives, all of which act pretty much like the real deal.
