Well, after running the same old machine for 14 years, I finally went out today and bought a moderately priced new one... Nothing "super" just hopefully more useable than the old one.

New one has Intel i.5 chip, a 1 tb hard drive, a decent LED 24" monitor, wireless keyboard and mouse and a cheapo printer/flatbed scanner. Also picked up a few 16 Mb flashdrives, and a 2 tb separate hard disk. (Want to keep my CAD programs and drawings on it.) Was going to upgrade the RAM to 10 Gb from 6 Gb, but the geeks at the store talked me out of it...said I'd likely never need it, but that if it turns out I do they'll install another 6 Gb for $100.

The only thing that REALLY irks me is Microsoft's rip off policy now of making a person re-buy Office, Outlook, Excel, Word, and all that just to be able to run their new Windows program and actually do anything with it.

(I paid for it for my old computer and don't intend to pay for it again just to move it onto my new one, wherever I don't absolutely have to. Hell, I won't be using it any more on the old machine....I won't be using the old machine at all.)

So...I'm looking for other than Microsoft brand software which can be picked for nothing or almost nothing on the internet.

What would you recommend as replacements for
Word, Outlook, Explorer, and so on which are free, or almost so, and work reliably even if not as handily? I don't think I'll have to worry about anti-vrus, as my ISP provides one as part of their services.

Try Open Office. It is free, open-source software that can do practically everything MS Office can do. I used this for to years until my employer gave us MS Office licenses.

In addition to the above, I would install a firewall (I use Comodo) and at least two anti-virus programs (like Avira and MalwareBytes' AntiMalWare) to fill the gaps left open by the ISP's software.

George

Thank you George!! That "open office" looks as if it may be a real good item to have.