What Freeware Do You Use?

[jjkeenan 0]

heres my list.Firefox 3 - internet browserVLC Player - DVD and other video format playerAVAST Home - One of the best freeware antivirus on the planet FFDSHOW - Audio/Video Decoder that extends what your Media player can doutorrent - Micro-mini Torrent client for safe P2PBricopack Win Vista Inspirat - Makes XP look Vista without the bloatInfraRecorder - CD/DVD burning softwareMirandaIM - IRC/Messenger Software All these I install to all my system and it perfectly works well even on my older machine running on Pentium 3 with 256mb RAM! Whats nice about it is that it has all the features needed for almost any job. The rest, I would go for the commercial software... There is no better alternative than the original like:MS Office vs Open Office - Open office suffers compatibility and user friendliness Corel Draw vs Inksacpe - A lot of the tools is still needed and shortcut controls to be consideredPhotoshop vs Gimp - Well, photoshop is photoshop and with all the plug-ins... Its worth the investment

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

I'm sure my list will be pretty standard but here goes nothing. I'm listing basically whatever I think of that I got legally for free, regardless of freeware/opensource/etc classifications lol.Trillian (basic edition)GTalkGimpInkscapefirefoxchromeoperaeclipsenotepad++bluefishvarious linux distros and accompanying programsmsn webcam recorder (great lesser known app for people who do webcam meetings at work where important info is shared quickly)skypethunderbirdI know there is a ton more but you get the idea. I use free when I can haha. Opensource and other free software has increased in quality dramatically since I've embarked on my adventure into tech-dom so it's always fun to see what is availible to the public if they take the time to scour the net.

[xpress 0]

Here is the freeware softwares I am using.1. Autostart and process viewer.2. AVIRA Personal antivirus.3. Ashampoo free firewall.4. Filezilla FTP client. 5. Opera and Firefox antivirus.6. WAMP server for PHP.7. Eclipse IDE.8. Utorrent for torrent downloads.9. VLC media player.10.Foxit reader for pdf files(Recently changed to Foxit from Sluggish Adobe Reader)

Edited November 14, 2008 by xpress (see edit history)

[docduke 0]

First and foremost, Linux: SuSE, Ubuntu, Debian, and the variant of Xandros that comes with the Asus Eee PC.

 

An early question in this thread was whether Free Download Manager is useful. Yes!!! Especially when downloading iso images of CDs or DVDs. My ISP is Comcast, and I couldn't understand why Torrent wasn't working the way many had claimed, until I started reading about Comcast's deliberate throttling of Torrent. For many Linux and other download servers, FDM will open up 8 simultaneous connections to the server, and run the Comcast connection at full speed, 750 KB/s here. I don't know why Comcast allows that, but won't allow Torrents to do the same thing, but I've gotten the message!

 

Next, don't forget Java! I prefer to program in Python, but Java is easier to get set up on Windows, Linux, Mac (I'm told) and even Android phones, so it provides system-independent support of lots of other useful software. For example, Arachnophilia, which I like when I'm constructing web pages from scratch.

 

Actually, I most frequently construct a (custom) web page by composing it in Wikipedia (my local, free of course, copy) and then copying and pasting the html from there.

 

I don't think anyone has mentioned Open Office yet. Except for Firefox and Thunderbird, that is probably the free software I use most often. The writer, spreadsheet and graphics tools are great for normal activities. Gimp in Linux is where I go if more powerful graphics tools are needed (but I have trouble remembering how to use it! )

 

Regarding Thunderbird add-ons, it is worth mentioning one built-in. Click Tools | Options | Advanced | Certificates, and you will find that Thunderbird has encryption built in! All that is missing is your personal certificate. If you go looking for certificate vendors, you will find most of them want money to generate a certificate for you.

 

There are two exceptions that I know of: Thawte and Comodo. Thawte wants positive ID for you (Passport, etc.). Comodo just wants your name, country and a valid email address (at least, that's the case for a U.S. resident).

 

There is a temptation to divide "free" software into the Windows, Mac and the Linux worlds, but Live CDs are creating a whole new system-independent class of software for any computer that can boot from a CD. One I have just found, and hope I am going to like (I've downloaded it but not yet tried it), is Clonezilla. It is based on Partition Image (which I use and like) and related products, and is designed for backup and restore tasks.

 

I hope a few of these items are of interest to Xisto readers!

[magiccode91405241511 0]

I'am currently use little,Eclipse IDENotepad++Foxit ReaderGIMPInkscapeFirefox 2.0.xWink ( Screen Recording software )utorrent

[orcaz 0]

The freewares that I use are:7-Zip BonkEnc - i use it for cd ripping and converting music filesCrap CleanerCDBurnerXPEraser - use this to securely delete ur files...Filezillafoobar2000Hamachi - use it for VLAN gamingHijackThisK Lite Codec Pack - allows me to play almost all kinds of video or audio files in Windows Media PlayerMozilla FirefoxNotepad++PDFCreator + GhostscriptWindows Live Messenger

[Sellaman 0]

I wonder of any of you guys have heard of Chikka. My wife and I use it all the time and it's freeware. It sends text messages to mobile phones to almost all parts of the world now.....for free.

[TheFury 0]

While i use windows Xp for my desktop, i use Andlinux for just about every other application that i use. I develop a game in C, so i use Kdevelop, Gcc, Svn, Konsole, Valgrind, Gdb and the like daily + all the normal productivity apps Open Office, Mozilla, Filezilla. Pretty much open source and open software is my day to day computing experience.For those that have never heard of Andlinux, check it out, its a port of the Linux kernel to windows, and it means you can run Linux at native speeds within a 32 bit windows environment. There is no emulation hassles associated with it like you have with Cygwin or Vmware. Just pure Linux with Xp's somewhat ugly window dressing.

Edited December 3, 2008 by The_Fury (see edit history)

[Quatrux 4]

Well, so I thought to list what I'm using free too, freeware is usually good :rolleyes:Firefox, Opera as my web browsers, I also have Google chrome installed, as it is using webkit, I don't really need Safari for windows, because it's using the same engine.Skype, Pidgin, XChat free compiled windows version by SilvereX to chat ;]Winamp, VLC and Quick Time Alternative with k-lite codec Pack for my media, music and movies.. I also can include Last.fm software here to show my stats on the net..Gimp and Paint.net to Edit images, irfan view to view images, but for jpg,png and gif I'm using the simple Windows image viewer.. it works alright for me just to look at pictures/photos..I have Open Office, but usually I use Windows Office, because most of the work is required to be done with it in work and university..Visual Studio 6 and Visual studio 2005 for programming c,c++c# and directX, never paid for it, so I guess it counts as freeware? I'm not creating anything serious to register :PNotepad2 as alternative to Notepad, it's free, I used to use Notepad++, but I don't anymore..I have Clam win free antivirus ans spy bot search and destroy and adaware the freeware version, but usually I don't need those, I think the only good thing is teat timer, which looks on my registry.. ;]I also use CCleaner and CleanUp! to clean up most of my temp files and etc.Lets don't forget, that I'm using 7-zip File manager for my archives and CDBurnerXP to burn my CDs or create .iso files ;]I also use uTorrent for torrents and ApexDC++ to connect to a DC++ Hub, a lot of years ago I used to use Emule and Soulseek, but I don't anymore..For my WAMP I am using Wampserver, which in my opinion is really good and for my FTP client, I never found anything better on Windows than Filezilla FTP Client :PFor viewing PDF files, I use Adobe acrobat, which sometimes can be slow, but I also have Sumatra PDF viewer which can be much faster..To use IE6 and IE7 I'm using MultipleIE with which that can be possible, as I remember it also works on Vista ;]Tried a lot of other software too, blender, inkscape and so on, but in the list I think it's the main software I'm using!

[y4nzi 0]

Freeware is great! Most of the programs on my computer are actually freeware. Some of the programs I use include:Music - WinampWord Professing - Open Office (love the save as pdf option)Security - Spybot Search and DestroyInternet Browswer - Mozilla Firefox 3 and Google ChromeIM - Pidgin Instant Messaging (combines all my instant messaging accounts into one!)U torrent for downloadting torrentsVideo - VLC player (more compact and can handle more codecs than WMP)Imaging - GIMP (awesome program)

[iGuest 3]

My favorite freeware is LangOverSome Of My Favorite Freeware.

Hello,

I want to recommend you about my new software, it is called LangOver version 5.0.

You can download it for FREE from here:

http://www.langover.com/

LangOver 5.0 - is a freeware that helps when you tried to type in one language but the result was in another... Annoying, eh?! That's because the keyboard layout was in a wrong language, and you forgot to use "ALT+SHIFT"... NO MORE! With LangOver 5.0 you'll be able to convert your text quickly between languages. Just click "F10" and your text will be fixed! LangOver 5 is free and Supports ANY language! 

 

'F10'    Change language

'Shift+F10'    UpperLower Case

'F6'    Reverse a text

'Control+G'    Search in Google

'Control+T'    Translation New!

 

thanks,

Oded

http://www.langover.com/

 

http://www.langover.com/Screenshot.Gif

http://www.langover.com/images/icon32.Gif

http://www.langover.com/LangOver5_Setup.Msi

PAD FILE: 

http://repository.appvisor.com/info/app-81006740dab8/LangOver_pad.xml

-feedback by Oded Yehezkel

 

[ysNoi 0]

My favorite freeware is VirtualBox...

VirtualBox is an open source software for virtualization and this is what I'm using to install Windows System inside Linux.

You can check it on VirtualBox.org

[/b]5, 01:22 PM' post='44461']The list can be found here: The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

Oh and I really like this site...Really useful...

Thanks for sharing.

[8ennett 0]

I have to agree on one of the earlier posts, irfanview is an amazing tool which seems to be able to handle pretty much every multimedia format available to the public. I used to use it for my 3d graphics design, it renders dds and tga graphics perfectly and is also able to properly render DX meshes perfectly.

Thumbview Lite: Along with the many problems in reading and viewing tga and dds (especially dds) files, I found it really annoying that I couldn't view tga and dds thumbnails in explorer, png files as well (in XP and below) but thumbview lite was a great little addon for windows that supports .cut, .dcx, .dds, .mdl, .mng, .pcd, .pcx, .pic, .pix, .png, .pnm/.pbm/.pgm/.ppm, .psd/.pdd, .psp, .pxr, .sgi/.rgb, .tga/.vda/.icb/.vst, .tif/.tiff, .wal, .xpm thumbnails. Obviously from Vista+ a few of these formats are now supported by the windows thumbnail viewer, including png, but still no dds or tga which is why thumbview lite is still a great piece of software. There is a full featured version of the program as well capable of giving full control over the thumbnail extractor and offering the possibility to create your own, however I don't really have any need for that which is why I just stick with the lite version.

Also I use CoreFTP a hell of a lot when transferring videos, games and roms to my XBox (X2 chip with Evox dash)

[tansqrx 0]

Let me add my 2 cents.

 

General

 

allSnap (http://ivanheckman.com/allsnap/) – This is a small and free applications that makes Microsoft Windows windows snap together or on the edge of the desktop. I have been using this application since XP and I can tell a huge difference when it is not running. I know that Windows 7 has the Aero Snap feature but I find it annoying because it likes to resize or snap to the entire side of the desktop. allSnap takes the current windows and simply makes it snap. I have had some problems under x64. If you have multiple windows open all the time and like an organized desktop, give allSnap a try.

 

Process Explorer (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896653.aspx) – This is the Windows Task Manager the way it should be. Process Explorer is made by Sysinternals which was bought by Microsoft a few years ago. These guys are the high gurus of the Windows kernel and it shows in all of their software. Not only do you get all the information the standard task Manager gives you, you get very detailed information on each process such as network sockets and the program directory. Ever wanted to know what spawned those mysterious svchost.exe processes? Just look up the image and find out. It’s best to run as Administrator so you get full control and see all processes.

 

Autoruns (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx) – Another great tool from Sysinternals. This one finds every program that wants to start up when Windows turns on. Did I say every program? I mean EVERY program, down to the Internet Explorer add-ons. It can be complicated but just remember the more egregious offenders are usually located at the top.

 

Programming

 

Wireshark (https://www.wireshark.org/) – This open source network capture is the industry standard for monitoring network traffic. I do a lot of network programming so this is one of the first applications that I install.

 

Fiddler (https://www.telerik.com/download/fiddler) – Fiddler will capture HTTP and HTTPS traffic coming from either Internet Explorer or Firefox. This is great when you are only trying to capture network traffic from a web browser. Additionally, Fiddler will show you the captured traffic in several different views. For example, if you capture HTML, you can view the raw traffic (pieced back together if multiple packets), see the HTML displayed, hex, and many other views. Fiddler also has scripting and statistics reporting which makes this a very powerful tool for the price of nothing. The biggest reason I use Fiddler is to decode HTTPS traffic which is almost impossible with Wireshark.

 

Networking

 

uTorrent (I’m at work and can’t get the URL, just Google it) – Looking for the best way to download all of those completely legal Linux Distros? This is the only program to even consider. uTorrent is small, free, and doesn’t even require an install. I do wish it has blacklist filtering though.

Edited September 23, 2010 by tansqrx (see edit history)

[tansqrx 0]

Multimedia

 

VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) – The universe of media players and video CODECS is a strange and dark one. Sometimes a video will play on one player and flat out refuse to play on another. I have found that VLC plays just about anything that you throw at it and I have assigned to all of my video except WMV files to be played with VLC. I find that some WMV and IV50 files do not play nice so I resort to Windows Media Player for those. VLC will also automatically fix a bad AVI file and even play it while it is being downloaded (AKA opened by another process). If all else fails I will try Media Player Classic (mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/) which is bundled with my next freeware favorite.

 

K-Lite CODEC Pack (http://www.free-codecs.com/download/k_lite_codec_pack.htm) – This is basically a collection of just about every audio and video CODEC ever created. On a new install I usually install the Mega pack to get every CODEC. Once again the world of CODECS is a strange one so success is not always guaranteed.

 

Winamp (http://www.winamp.com/) – This one may be splitting hairs on freeware but I have never paid a dime and use it all the time. Yes there is a paid version but the free version handles everything I need. I like the interface much better than Windows media Player and I use it to sync my iPod without the concrete block tied around my ankle called iTunes. You need to be careful when you install. I disable all the crap such as the free music services, toolbar, Winamp agent, and even video support. I found that Winamp likes to steal the extensions to video files when you’re not looking so I don’t even give it a chance.

 

Security

 

TrueCrypt (http://truecrypt.sourceforge.net/) – The US government and many top companies will not let a laptop out of their building without some form of whole disk encryption on them. This should at least make you wonder why. The reason is if the laptop is stolen, sure the thief gets the hardware but they can’t access the much more valuable data. This is why I encrypt my laptop and even my desktop. Get TrueCrypt now and encrypt everything you value. Of course the desktop is less likely to be stolen but the risk is not zero and I’m sure you have some information on there that you wouldn’t like your neighborhood identity thief to see.

 

As you can see, I like freeware. I have a few more that I may add later. I love freeware because I am cheep and to be honest, in many categories, you can’t buy a better product even if you wanted to.