There are hundreds of web sites with tons of information and fun. Someone said it’s a knowledge bank but to me it is more than that.
There are various reasons for surfing net. I take advantage of huge technical data / information available on various sites, Email, Photo sharing with relatives. I collect lot of information and share with my colleagues and this has become a habit. I keep at least an hour a day for surfing and have many cyber friends because of this hobby.
There are many sites but I shall mention here only few of those, which are trusted and may be useful to you. Sites, which I trust and visit quite frequently -
http://www.yahoo.com – Yahoo! provides almost all facilities that one can think of from a web site. I log on at least thrice in a day to this site for mail and news. You can also customize the homepage as per your need and they call it MY Yahoo! In My Yahoo, I have my briefcase where I store my data, photos etc. Their search engine is also quite powerful.
http://www.vsnl.net.in – visit this site mainly for mail account. I use their dial-up as a standby. News from Hindu is quite good and this site has some links to some useful Indian sites.
http://www.rediff.com – Their news update may the fastest among all Indian sites. Many a time they are faster than Z News etc. I also use their mail service. Their search engine is also quite fast and reasonably accurate. Shopping mart of this site do not cover all areas so cannot use this facility for sending gift to someone at a remote place. Their shopping mart is quite efficient and twice received refunds at a very reasonable time. Their USA site is also good for various reasons.
http://www.5star-shareware.com – This a UK based download site. I trust this site and it’s free from bugs. I have not faced problem due to bugs. Antivirus, utilities and games are there to download. Kids visit this site quite frequently for downloading demos before buying the full version of games.
Caution - There is one more site with similar name 5starshareware.com and do not have any experience of this site. Take care of the hyphen between 5star and shareware.
http://www.cocktail.com – Saturday night I visit this site to hunt for new cocktail for Sunday evening. I get lot of new ideas. In most of the cases, ingredients mentioned in the recipes are not available at Roha and so I have to alter the recipe according to the availability of ingredients and my choice. One can Sign-up for their free e-mail newsletter.
http://www.geocities.com - I visit this site to interact with different communities. I have few great cyber friends due to this site.
My homepage is hosted from this site and address is http://www.geocities.com/arunkumarroy . It is still in developing stage and there is no end to it. Like to join as a Guest Writer?
http://www.webshots.com - Once upon a time photography was my hobby. Nowadays do not get enough time for that but still search for good photos and appreciate if it is good. I use their desktop software for wallpaper and screensaver. Downloading of this software does not take much time. I also use their Photo Manager.
http://www.clipart.com - I download animation from this site and use them for presentation / PowerPoint slideshows. Use the links for the right Clip. My kids spent lot of time at this site.
http://www.real.com - We all visit this site for downloading games. I am not a big gamer but the kids are.
I visit sites of Intel, HP and Microsoft to download updates and for latest information about software & Hardware.
FYI -
Do not forget to take some precautionary measures to block cookies and viruses. To get protection from virus use updated version of anti-virus and to have control over cookies use features of IE6.
I have not written anything about MouthShut because you all know about this site.