Handy Free Software

Roadie · **on:** November 20, 2008, 02:11:15 PM

Following on from the Zonealarm thread i thought it might be a good thing to have a list of free software that you find useful or fun!

I'll start the ball rolling:

Process Explorer - Like Task Manager but much more detailed.
NetScan - A very handy utility that lets you scan IP ranges to see which are being used and also shows the shares available on each IP address. Very simple to use and very handy.
LanSpy - Similar to netscan but has a whole wealth of information about each IP address
CCleaner - Like Micah said very useful for cleaning out your computer
Picasa -Great photo organising tool has some very handy features
Firefox - A great browser that has gone from strength to strength
Thunderbird - Free email client from the makers of Firefox, and it is very good!
Filezilla - FTP program, fairly simple to use and works great
Rainmeter - No longer supported by the guy who made it but a great program that can tell you all sorts about the resources your computer is currently using and much more beside. Can be set up as an RSS feed, a photo frame or a random quote showing device plus more. I love this app!
Rainlendar - A very useful desktop calender i prefer the old version but the new one does have some nice features

That's all i can think of off the top of my head but if i come up with any more i'll list them!

What do you use?

Whoey · **Reply #1 on:** November 20, 2008, 02:28:02 PM

I use Picasa, Firefox, Thunderbird, Filezilla in both Windows and Linux

I also use Openoffice in win/linux

I use Pidgin for all my IM needs in win/linux - it supports nearly every protocol, so you can have all you IMs in one... real handy.

Benner · **Reply #2 on:** November 20, 2008, 03:50:07 PM

Just used that Ccleaner. Thanks for the tip!

Roadie · **Reply #3 on:** November 20, 2008, 03:56:15 PM

Quote from: Whoey on November 20, 2008, 02:28:02 PM

I use Picasa, Firefox, Thunderbird, Filezilla in both Windows and Linux

I also use Openoffice in win/linux

I use Pidgin for all my IM needs in win/linux - it supports nearly every protocol, so you can have all you IMs in one... real handy.

Doh forgot about OO and Pidgin (its my portable IM client of choice!)

VLC Player - A great free media player, uses it's own codecs so doesn't matter what else is installed on your system it will play just about any media file you throw at it

Audacity - Free audio editing and recording software.

Billy Audio Player - A great small mp3 player not the most advanced but what it does it does very well and quickly

geoemt · **Reply #4 on:** November 20, 2008, 05:35:10 PM

I use Picasa, Avast (antivirus), Winamp, and Openoffice among others.

A friend of mine suggested me to use www.portableapps.com but I have not really tried it, any comments about this?

Thanks
Guillermo

Roadie · **Reply #5 on:** November 20, 2008, 05:38:44 PM

Quote from: geoemt on November 20, 2008, 05:35:10 PM

I use Picasa, Avast (antivirus), Winamp, and Openoffice among others.

A friend of mine suggested me to use www.portableapps.com but I have not really tried it, any comments about this?

Thanks
Guillermo

Portableapps is a great bit of kit! Use it daily and not had any problems with it at all, i have Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Pidgin, FileZilla, VLC and a few other apps running on a 60GB hdd. Very handy!

Winamp is great too

Mike, Lord of the Spammers! · **Reply #6 on:** November 20, 2008, 07:21:10 PM

Technosorcery

Mike · **Reply #7 on:** November 20, 2008, 07:55:44 PM

Occasionally, we run into situations where "new" is not always better and we want the old, or previous version of the software. For those times, try Oldversion.com http://www.oldversion.com/

Mike

Whoey · **Reply #8 on:** November 20, 2008, 08:05:35 PM

I have some friends who are like that... they bought a new PC with Vista on it, and immediately wanted me to downgrade it to XP so some of their 8 year old software would work...

Mike · **Reply #9 on:** November 20, 2008, 08:18:55 PM

"Downgrade" to XP from Vista ......... interesting. I thought you were running Ubuntu? Why would you downgrade to any M$ stuff?

Mike

Whoey · **Reply #10 on:** November 20, 2008, 08:28:45 PM

I do run Ubuntu... and XP in a VM

Wife runs win2k since her DJ software only runs in windows...

I think she could switch too tho with the way Ubuntu is running these days...

NutSAK · **Reply #11 on:** December 12, 2008, 06:23:03 PM

WinFF is a GREAT free tool to convert video types/sizes/resolutions for media players, etc. I use it to convert video for my Sansa E260 w/Rockbox from all types of sources (DVD, AVI, Quicktime, Flash video, etc.) and to convert between DVD and AVI format for movie storage purposes.

It's actually a GUI for the command-line converter FFMPEG, which makes conversion much more user-friendly.

Check it out: http://code.google.com/p/winff/

Whoey · **Reply #12 on:** December 12, 2008, 06:32:41 PM

Mediacoder is also a good tool for that:

http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

NutSAK · **Reply #13 on:** December 12, 2008, 08:08:22 PM

Quote from: Whoey on December 12, 2008, 06:32:41 PM

Mediacoder is also a good tool for that:

http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

Yes, it is also an FFMpeg frontend, and works well. I usually recommend WinFF as most find it a bit more user-friendly, however slightly less powerful.

eodtech · **Reply #14 on:** December 12, 2008, 08:29:12 PM

Freeware for the MAC

NeoOffice - Office clone

BEAN Word Processor

Cashbox- financial management

iBackup - backup with options

MemoBlock - Notepad application

Image Well - photo manipulation

NutSAK · **Reply #15 on:** December 12, 2008, 08:44:10 PM

DriveImageXML -- excellent free drive imaging and backup software for Windows. Allows you to image any logical drive with optional compression. Data is in an XML format, and you can browse or retrieve any file from an image or backup.

jzmtl · **Reply #16 on:** December 12, 2008, 11:22:43 PM

Quote from: Roadie on November 20, 2008, 03:56:15 PM

VLC Player - A great free media player, uses it's own codecs so doesn't matter what else is installed on your system it will play just about any media file you throw at it

I use MPC star and it works quite well, plays everything too.

Roadie · **Reply #17 on:** March 31, 2009, 04:04:33 PM

Launchy - A cool launcher program for windows, downloaded this yesterday and already love it!

Whoey · **Reply #18 on:** April 01, 2009, 10:58:33 AM

reminds me a bit of Avant Window Navigator for linux... http://wiki.awn-project.org/

Roadie · **Reply #19 on:** April 01, 2009, 11:39:11 AM

Quote from: Whoey on April 01, 2009, 10:58:33 AM

reminds me a bit of Avant Window Navigator for linux... http://wiki.awn-project.org/

Really? That looks more like a dock bar than Launchy, which is more of a type in the name of the program you want sort of program

Whoey · **Reply #20 on:** April 01, 2009, 11:46:16 AM

true I guess... I had awn for a bit, but I just use the default stuff in Ubuntu these days...

Roadie · **Reply #21 on:** April 04, 2009, 12:12:33 AM

I really am liking Launchy!! vlc [tab] folder\file [enter] and it loads it right up!!

No more opening folder after folder for me!

I'm a happy little bunny!

nuphoria · **Reply #22 on:** April 04, 2009, 05:01:31 AM

One of my main criteria for software is that it doesn't hog the system. You don't always have a choice but I've found some of the ones you have already mentioned such as VLC to be great. If you want to know what's slowing your system down, use Ctrl + Alt + Delete and look at the processes tab. I do like Firefox but it's fairly naughty in that dept.

I'm currently using a couple of things not mentioned yet - Faststone http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm which is a great image editor, and Abiword http://download.cnet.com/AbiWord/3000-2079_4-10030042.html?tag=mncol which is a stripped down word type program, compatible with the normal word file types.

Free software rules

Whoey · **Reply #23 on:** April 04, 2009, 10:27:57 AM

Considering I bought a new PC a little over a month ago, and it came preloaded with Vista... I have left Vista installed, but dual boot to Ubuntu 8.10. I think I've actually used Vista maybe 3 or 4 times since I got this machine. I probably still have a pile of stuff to setup in Vista, but can't be bothered. (Ubuntu is my default OS now) so most of what I use is free software, and most is dead easy to install (add/remove software from the menu) There's loads of help on the net for problems you may encounter, and everything just worked out of the box... I also run a Windows XP virtual machine for a few of the windows programs I can't live without just yet.

In Linux I use most of the same programs I used before in XP as I did with my old machine... Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, Filezilla, Pidgin, Vuze/Azureus, Picasa...

Mike · **Reply #24 on:** April 04, 2009, 05:28:50 PM

Malwarebytes.org has a nice free anti-malware piece of software. It's a lot like Ad-Aware or Spybot Search and Destroy. But when the tough gets going, I depend on Malwarebytes.org.

http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Mike

Rob · **Reply #25 on:** April 07, 2009, 11:52:17 PM

I didn't see anyone mention the free version of AVG anti-virus. http://free.avg.com Yeah, yeah I know get a Mac or run Linux and not worry about such things but I'm a Windows guy.

donvito · **Reply #26 on:** April 10, 2009, 06:24:17 PM

Thx for all the links guys, checking a few of them out.

Got a little Acer netbook for use on campus and work, using unsecured WiFi and running AVG free anti virus. Can anyone recommend a good free Firewall to minimize threat? I guess windows includes their firewall, but don't think it's good enough.

Thx V

Poncho65 · **Reply #27 on:** April 10, 2009, 08:46:03 PM

Anybody have any old games that ran on DOS and can't seem to run them now?

I like DOSbox http://www.dosbox.com/ You have to fool around with it a bit and get use to the DOS format again but it runs some of the oldies I remember from when I grew up

Also http://sourceforge.net/ is a great place to find all types of software

Whoey · **Reply #28 on:** April 13, 2009, 04:13:38 PM

Quote from: donvito on April 10, 2009, 06:24:17 PM

Thx for all the links guys, checking a few of them out.

Got a little Acer netbook for use on campus and work, using unsecured WiFi and running AVG free anti virus. Can anyone recommend a good free Firewall to minimize threat? I guess windows includes their firewall, but don't think it's good enough.

Thx V

On way would be to keeping filesharing turned off, and having a password for your useraccount helps. also not using an admin account when possible.

otherwise the free version of zonealarm used to be ok as I recall... still on a netbook, you want as little as possible using up your resources.

Rob · **Reply #29 on:** April 13, 2009, 07:06:14 PM

I'll second zonealarm for a free firewall.

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