Computer Software Freeware that I use and recommend

Having just completed my second week of unemployment, I'm starting to go a little stir crazy and I'm trying to catch up on some household tasks that I was able to avoid while working. I was doing some computer cleanup and thought I'd share a list of some of the most useful free software I've found in the last few years. I use most of these on a regular basis and I can vouch for their quality and freedom from spyware and adware. All have been used on Windows XP, but if you're using a different OS, especially Vista, your mileage may vary.

Please add your own recommendations for useful freeware in this thread.

Digital Imaging Programs

Autostitch
http://www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch/autostitch.html

This is a program for stitching multiple exposures into a panoramic image, and it works great. I used the program to stitch together four separate images into the picture of Wrigley Field below:



Picasa
http://picasa.google.com/

Picasa is Google's free digital image organizing and editing program. It's great if you have a lot of digital pictures on your hard drive and can never find the one you're looking for. It also has the best red eye correction utility I've seen

FastStone Image Viewer
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

XnView
http://perso.orange.fr/pierre.g/xnview/enhome.html

Irfanview
http://www.irfanview.com/

The three above are excellent viewing/editing/organizing programs.

Utilities

Foxit Reader
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

If you dislike the Adobe Acrobat reader as much as I do, this is an excellent small, fast, free alternative.

PrimoPDF
http://www.primopdf.com/Ahttp://www.primopdf.com

A great PDF creator that installs as a printer which you can use to create PDF files from any Windows application that allows print output.

Everest
http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4181.html

Everest is a well-known system information utility that is no longer being updated by its developer, but is still widely available. It will tell you just about everything you could possibly want to know about your system hardware and software.

Explorer XP
http://www.explorerxp.com/

From the developer's website:
ExplorerXP is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non - commercial use) file manager for Windows 2000/XP. Unlike the regular Windows Explorer, it displays the total size of each folder and allows you to browse multiple folders from a tabbed interface.
It's an excellent alternative to Windows Explorer.

Mozbackup
http://mozbackup.jasnapaka.com/

For those of you who use Mozilla, Firefox and/or Thunderbird, this is a nice little program that backs up all of the settings for those programs. I find it particularly useful for synchronizing settings for FF and Thunderbird between my desktop and notebook computers--back up the settings on one, and restore them on the other, and you have identical working copies.

Password Safe
http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/

A nice password organizer; will create and store strong passwords for all of your Internet sites.

Disk Cleaner
http://www.diskcleaner.nl/

A program I use almost every day. It's a small and fast utility that cleans up all kinds of cached data--temp files, IE, Opera and Firefox caches, cookies, etc.

Drive Manager
http://www.alexnolan.net/software/driveman.htm

A nice program to have if you have multiple drives--gives a lot of useful information about your storage devices, including size, space available, SMART data (diagnostic information) serial numbers, etc.

Process Explorer
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx

A great replacement for the Windows ctl-alt-delete Task Manager. It provides more information about the processes running in the background on your computer.

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

Thank's Jim, I just tried Autostitch: As you said: Great

Jim Wynne said:

Please add your own recommendations for useful freeware in this thread.

Click to expand...

Yep. Time for some exchange of hints Here we go:

Music

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Great little application for adjusting music files in all sorts of ways. Again, a bit tricky setting up (if you want it to handle mp3's), but no big deal. I am ever so slowly converting my old vinyl records and cassette tapes to mp3, and I use Audacity a lot.

Utilities

CCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/

system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history (highly configurable - it let's you keep the suff you want to keep).

FreshUI
http://www.freshui.com/
A very good tweaking tool that allows access to bags of hidden Windows settings.

Calculator plus
http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/outreach/dnloads/calcplus.mspx
Even Microsoft seems to consider the std calculator slightly inadequate. This one is better

Spybot
http://www.spybot.info/en/spybotsd/index.html
A very useful spyware remover.

Windows Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
Protection against pop-ups and spyware.

/Claes

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

Heres some freeware apps that I added in another thread:

1. Office Suite. http://www.openoffice.org
A MS office alternative, just make sure you change the default save format to .doc from open office own format of .odt

2. Image editing. http://www.gimp.org
An alternative to Photoshop

3.Antivirus: http://free.grisoft.com
This along with common sense, i.e. not opening or downloading random files you dont know are safe, should keep your pc virus free. This is the one area I would recommend you spend some of you hard earned cash on but for those that don't have the money to spare this is much better than nothing at all and is probably better than some of the commerical apps on the market.

4. Email: http://shellter.sourceforge.net/evolution
Thunderbird is fine as an alternative to Outlook Express but if you want something closer to outlook, a calendar and contacts page, then this should suit your needs a bit better.

5. Webpage Design: http://www.nvu.com
An alternative to the likes of Dreamweaver

6. Sound Editing: http://audacity.sourceforge.net
I never do sound editing so dont really have nay description for this one.

7. Desktop Publishing: http://www.scribus.net
The stereotype says DTP use Macs but if you want to do some on your PC this app should do the job.

8. CD/DVD Burning: http://www.cdburnerxp.se
An alternative to the likes of Nero

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

A free conversion calculator that I've been using for the last five years or so can be downloaded here

http://joshmadison.com/software/convert/

Nice thread Jim and great idea. This could turn into something we might actually have to organize :mg:

Here's a freeware customer complaints and audit database.

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

http://www.sqconline.com/
http://www.schnauber.com/free-stuff.html
http://www.thequalityportal.com/

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

This isn't software, but a very useful set of templates for printing your own planner.

www.diyplanner.com Check out all their templates, available for all the common planner sizes.

Cheers,

Jen

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

Hi,

I use the Power Calculator from time to time, mostly for fun for all the digits you can get.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

RapidShare http://www.rapidshare.de/ for uploading and downloading large files that you want to send to someone. I use the "Free" method. I have to wait for a download ticket, but that is usually about 30 seconds or less.

VideoDownLoader http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php to grab videos from YouTube and other sites.

NIST Engineering Statistics Handbook http://www.itl.nist.gov/div898/handbook/
although this isn't a program as such.

VLC media player http://www.videolan.org/vlc/ to play FLV files. Note when installing, I override to turn off making it the default for playing all media files, and only use it for FLV files.

HJSplit http://www.freebyte.com/hjsplit/ for splitting and joining large files, including movie files.

Oscar's File Renamer http://www.mediachance.com/free/renamer.htm I use this one a lot. Use full text editing including search and replace to change file names.

nthClock http://www.anthemion.org/nthclock.html I have it load with startup.

NIST Time, click on Windows 95 and later in the right side-bar. I use the 32 bit version to set my computer clock.

Wes R.

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

Here's mine:
Adware-Spyware-Malware Detector/Remover:
Ad-aware SE Personal

High Quality CD Ripper/Converter
Exact Audio Copy
Great utility for rescuing the music off of a battle-scarred CD or just making a better MP3 copy for your player that Windoze Media Player.

Optical Drive Emulation
Daemon Tools
I have used a paid version of this called Alcohol 120% since my boys destroyed a $50 video game CD thus rendering the game unplayable since you could not "Insert CD to continue." You copy the original CD or DVD to your hard drive then "mount" it on a virtual drive. This can also give you a great boost in performance if your real optical drive is old and slow and your hard drive is newer and faster. Takes some work and PC knowledge to determine the original copy protection and make sure your "image" is valid, but I'm protecting about $2k worth of original game discs so it's worth it.

I'll second Claes on Audacity, CCleaner and Spybot.

Here's a link to a good list on CDFreaks. Lot's of tools for Audio and Video editing and copying plus the utilities to clean up the inevitable mess that's left behind.

Re: Freeware that I use and recommend

I have always been fond of this little utitlity

EasyCleaner

Cleans temp files, history, cookies, etc. Will identify bad registry entries. Will also identify duplicate files.