Services

Services and Support

This page publishes links and documentation for digital services developed and supported
by the Dean's Office of the School of Philosophy at the University of Crete.

Basic computer use

For more efficient PC

How to make your computer faster?

Uninstall all untrustworthy programs

Programs that promise to increase speed, network, hard drive, and overall performance are not as effective as they claim and often slow down system performance. Do not trust programs when you have no way of verifying whether they actually deliver what they advertise/promise.

Use one, and no more than one, reliable antivirus/malware software program. Using these programs consumes a large percentage of your computer’s resources (memory, processing power) and cannot protect against misuse of your computer.

Set your computer for maximum performance rather than visual effects

Right-click on the “My Computer” icon and select “Properties”:

In the properties menu, select the “Advanced” tab and, in the next window titled “Performance Options,” select the “Visual Effects” tab. Select “Adjust for best performance”:

Disable visual effects on the desktop

Especially for older systems, select the classic desktop theme (Windows Classic). The setting can be adjusted in the display options:

Install the Linux operating system

e.g. Ubuntu, distribution 16.04

Recommended software

Email: Thunderbird
Music, audio playback: VLC, ΑΜΑROK
Office Suite: LibreOffice
Navigating the Internet: Firefox
Audio edit: Audacity
Image edit: GIMP
Computing platform: OCTAVE
Data management: Freemind

Open source software

This is software that is offered together with the code that creates it and, as a result, the user can modify it at will. In contrast, closed or commercial software is offered as an executable program and cannot be modified. Many important open source software programs are offered free of charge.

Why do we use open source software?

Due to:

the distribution of its code, open source software is characterized by participation and collaboration, and consequently promotes freedom of ideas and implementations, making it suitable for educational use
its low cost, which is very often zero, open source software is suitable for installation and use in organizations that want to reduce their costs, such as public organizations. In recent years, many countries/cities/organizations have adopted policies that are friendly to the installation and use of open source software.
In addition to the above, open source software is often a cornerstone for research, new implementations, and innovation.

Most of us use open source software, often for productive purposes and at no cost. Use one, and not more, reliable antivirus/malware software, etc. The use of such software consumes a large percentage of your computer’s resources (memory, processing power) and cannot protect against misuse of the computer.

Free, well-known, and widely used open source software

Some of the most well-known and widely used open source software available free of charge are as follows:

ANDROID: the dominant operating system for smart devices is a clone of Linux.
FIREFOX: the browser that has a very large share of internet usage, as well as the clone of Google’s browser CHROMIUM.
LIBRE OFFICE: the office organization platform (word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.) that anyone can download and use at any time and at no cost.
THUNDERBIRD: the well-known platform for managing email
KERNEL: the core of the Linux operating system.
APACHE WEB SERVER: hosts the vast majority of websites currently operating on the internet.
Linux & GNU: highly successful operating systems, dominating the server landscape.
ASTERISK: the best-known platform for voice transmission over the internet (VOIP).

Proponents of open source software often argue that without certain open source software, such as those mentioned above, and even more so without the open exchange of ideas and implementations without restrictions on use, the digital revolution would have been significantly delayed. Opponents of open source software often argue that many non-established open source programs are not sufficiently functional or stable.

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