Free Software Picks

The following is a list of my Free Software picks. This list is intended for users of Windows, although some applications offer versions for alternative Operating Systems. While it is debatable whether each product on this list is the best in its field, there is no doubt that each ranks highly when it comes to quality and value. At the bottom of the page you will find helpful websites for finding the best free software.

Please be aware that using any of the following software is done at your own risk and neither I nor ATS can be held responsible for any system problems you might encounter if you decide to do so.

My Software Picks:

Anti-malware:
* avast! Free Antivirus

Compression Utility:
* 7Zip

CD/DVD Software:
* CDBurnerXP

Defragmentation Software:
* UltraDefrag

Email Program:
* Mozilla Thunderbird

File Transfer:
* FileZilla

Image Software:
* Paint.NET

Internet Browser:
* Mozilla Firefox

Messenger (Chat):
* Trillian

Messenger (Video):
* Skype

Office Software:
* OpenOffice

PDF Creator:
* doPDF

PDF Reader:
* Foxit Reader

System Cleaning:
* CCleaner

System Information:
* Speccy

Torrents:
* uTorrent

Video Converter:
* Xmedia Recode

----

Helpful websites:

* File Hippo
* Freeware Files
* CNET Downloads
* Source Forge

Don't forget to include any of the flavors of Linux, an excellent operating system and often overlooked.

No list would be entirely complete without a quick stop to Microsoft Sysinternals. I personally find Autoruns to be the most often used utility in my collection. It's basically a collecion of everything Microsoft should put into Windows but doesn't for whatever reason....yet still has there, free for download.

Originally posted by Wrabbit2000
No list would be entirely complete without a quick stop to Microsoft Sysinternals. I personally find Autoruns to be the most often used utility in my collection. It's basically a collecion of everything Microsoft should put into Windows but doesn't for whatever reason....yet still has there, free for download.

Very interesting, I have never seen this download package. Checking it out now.

NMAP + Metasploit

All you need for quite lots of fun

Softpedia is one of my favourite sites for software.

It has sections for Linux, Windows & Mac as well as some other useful stuff.

Piriform's "Crap Cleaner" is a must have for me.
It's nothing glamorous, but helps to clean out junk files on your PC. I use it at work, in particular, where we have roaming profiles limited to 50mb (that's right, megabytes) and need every spare kb I can get.

www.piriform.com

Free multimedia player:
* Daum PotPlayer

PDF Reader:
* Sumatra PDF

Productivity:
* Kingsoft Office Suite Free 2012

CD/DVD/Blu-ray burning:
* ImgBurn

Free photo editing and effects:
* PixBuilder Studio

Image viewer:
* IrfanView

Anti-Malware:
* Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

System tools:
* WSCC - Windows System Control Center GUI for Sysinternals Suite
* NirLauncher
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Helpful websites:
* SnapFiles
* Codecpack.co
* SourceForge
* MajorGeeks

I recommend a different PDF Reader:
Sumatra PDF - blog.kowalczyk.info...
Small (portable executable is ~4MB), extremely fast and very... yellow. Thankfuly, you can change the color It's faster than Foxit Reader and seems just as compatible.
edit - argh, Paul Kine was faster by a few miliseconds

Thank you for this most informative list!

Thanks for the list! I don't like Avast at all, slows down your computer pretty badly, blocks games from running etc., try AVG Free. I also use Spybot S&D, and Spywareblaster, never have any problems. Open Office rocks too-free Open Source word and excel-kiss it Microsoft.

Very interesting can anyone reccomend a free video editor other than the standard movie editor with Windows?

Originally posted by markygee
Very interesting can anyone reccomend a free video editor other than the standard movie editor with Windows?

Avidemux
VirtualDub

reply to post by markygee

You could try JahShaka 2.0

It's an Open Source and handy realtime editing and special effects system.

You can find it HERE

i have been using PageDefrag that is part of Sysinternals for years and it has stopped a lot of registry problems caused by fragmentation.

i was using PageDefrag long before i was bought by Microsoft.

i would not be without it even if i did not use the rest of Sysinternals.

technet.microsoft.com...

Originally posted by markygee
Very interesting can anyone reccomend a free video editor other than the standard movie editor with Windows?

If you mean something like Windows Movie Maker, I'm afraid there aren't any free alternatives. AviDemux and Virtualdub are quite a bit different - they will not let you, for example, to smoothly crossfade between different video clips, to add background music, etc. Their editing capabilities are very limited, like cutting fragments of a video. They are more like tools for video encoding, with filters to resize, crop, change contrast, saturation, etc.

VideoLan Movie Creator will be exactly the thing that is missing - a true, non-linear video editor, similar to commercial programs like Adobe Premiere or Sony Vegas - but it's still in early development, too early to get a useful program. There is an alpha version available to download somewhere, but it crashes constantly.

also good tools that I always use:

Keepass - Tool to organize all your accounts and password
Truecrypt - Create encrypted partitions or containers
Bokken - Open files to check for malicious code, have internal function to send to virustotal and threat expert to see if there is a match with known malicious code.
Freemind - Mind mapping tool

I would like to add one to your list if you don't mind...Blender is a free 3D program whic rivals any on the market and because of its license systems it will forever remain free and literally thousands of people are improving it and will continue to make it better.

Blender is released under the GNU Public License, as Free Software, and therefore can be distributed by anyone freely. However, the license requires that if you distribute Blender you must also make - on request - the source code available

Blender provides a broad spectrum of modeling, texturing, lighting, animation and video post-processing functionality in one package

Aimed at media professionals and artists world-wide, Blender can be used to create 3D visualizations, stills as well as broadcast and cinema quality videos, while the incorporation of a real-time 3D engine allows for the creation of 3D interactive content for stand-alone playback.

I have found many hours of pleasure using this program for various art projects I have put together. The program has been used to create very professional movies and TV ommercials...it is one of the best free programs avaiable....also used by several National Labs to simulate fluid dynamics...air flow patterens and how they develop...its an amazing work in progresss that is extremly powerful...its free at the link below...Thanks for the thread !

www.blender.org...

All nice and dandy..

Is there any software that tracks
other files use of internet/network??

Something like Processmanager..
But only keeps track of files that use
the network..

Information about filename, auther,
whos it conected to as who it relays
information TOO..

@Miccey

System Explorer
review: HERE

Extended Task Manager