Compression utilities are used to unpack software which you've downloaded from the internet. If you don't already have them, you'll need WinZip (for Windows PCs), or for Macintosh computers — either Stuffit Expander or MacZip.

Web Browsers are used to access text, graphical, and multimedia rich content on the world wide web. Netscape Communicator is one of the most popular and widely supported browser. It also includes graphical e-mail and newsgroup readers.

Telnet clients are used to connect to Bard's networked UNIX computing environment and can be used for checking email, reading newsgroup postings, file management, etc... Tera Term is a program for Windows, Better Telnet is a telnet program for the MacOS. PuTTY is a telnet/ssh (secure shell) program for windows.

FTP clients are used to transfer files from one computer to another. WS FTP is an ftp client for Windows based PCs, Fetch is it's Macintosh counterpart. FileZilla is an ftp client for windows that supports sftp (secure file transfer).

Anti-Virus programs will scan your computer for, and eliminate dangerous digital viruses that can be passed from computer-to-computer via floppy disk, or files downloaded from the internet.