Subscribe to CFJRob's great freeware list (aka "toolbox" for building a Windows-based (I know, I know :) ) computer for as little money as possible.
Note that this is a list that I recommend for every baseline installation...I will recommend various specialty applications over the course of my musings, but this is something that I believe everyone should install.
Enjoy - every product here is one that I use, or have used (and liked!) :)
System cleanup utility (good for routine system maintenance) - CCleaner, nCleaner Second - both are quality, but I would say CCleaner is a more intuitive to use. You can do a lot of damage with nCleaner Second if you are not careful!
Defragmenting your hard disk - MyDefrag (for more of you techie folks), Defraggler - Windows defragment is OK, but MyDefrag is light years quicker, and does a lot more optimization (move large files to the end of the volume, for example). Defraggler is a bit more user-friendly when it comes to appearance. Both are quality products.
Create PDFs - PDFCreator - Creates a new printer in your control panel, and allows you to convert anything that you print to a PDF. Note that this is not an editor, but you can create a PDF from any image, document, etc. simply by printing it to PDF (note that OpenOffice can save a document to PDF).
Read PDFs - Foxit PDF reader - Nice non-resource intensive PDF reading software.
Antivirus - Microsoft Security Essentials - Honorable mentions: Avast! Antivirus, Avira AntiVir. You should NEVER surf without some form of AV installed. Avast! is nice because it can scan your system for viruses while the screen saver is active, and protects your PC against multiple vectors. Want free AV for a Windows server? Use ClamWin (no real-time scanner, so you will have to run scheduled scans, but it works well).
Spyware Protection - ThreatFire, SuperAntiSpyware, MalwareBytes AntiMalware - Spyware sucks, and these tools do a great job of cleaning them up. I would recommend installing a combination of these utilities, using one to clean-up after the other.
Firewall - Comodo - Very configurable, excellent reviews.
Remote Control (Technical Support) - CrossLoop - This one is great for consultants and other at-home tech folks - totally secure and SO easy to use. Crossloop makes remote controlling mom's computer a dream. TeamViewer is also great.
Remote Control (Extending your office) - Logmein - Access your computer from a secure (256-bit encrypted) connection. You don't need someone on the other end to approve your connection (like Crossloop).
Screenshot Utility - FastStone Capture 5.3. If you can find it, use it. Newer versions are not free. Can't find it? Use Gadwin PrintScreen. Are you an advanced user? Screen Captor is superior to both utilities.
VPN - Hamachi - Connect two disparate networks together with little trouble. Great for hooking up with your buddies for online gaming, or home "family" support over the Internet.
File Recovery - PC Inspector File Restore, Recuva - Did you accidentally delete your files from your digital camera? Use this to restore it. Good for system drives as well.
Internet Browsing - FireFox - Tabbed browsing, all sorts of great add-ons available, spyware/popup blocker, best of all NO activex support. Chrome is my browser of choice for some no-frills fast web surfing.
Email Client - Thunderbird - Built in spam protection, RSS reader and more.
FTP Client - FileZilla, WinSCP - Secure FTP, save your sessions, easy drag & drop interface.
Office Productivity - Microsoft Live Office (online), Google Docs (online), Open Office (local install). The non-MS apps are MS Office compatible. Text, Spreadsheet, Presentation software -These will do for 90% of your low to middle of the road users.
Zip Archiving - IZArc - New to the list is 'IZArc', recommended by fellow freeware addict, Carputers. I have to agree. If you use WinZip, then you can use IZArc. Excellent interface, supports the widest amount of archive formats, great features, just great all around!
Keep track of startup programs - Sysinternals AutoRuns - Excellent tool to discover what the heck is running at startup - definitely for advanced users. Can produce a CSV file for viewing later (or to post to online support forums), etc. VERY thorough. You can use this to help you clean up malware that is slowing down your system. Also recommended is Hijack This, which features a huge user-community.
Graphics Editing - The Gimp - EXCELLENT freebie editor with a lot of built-in effects and layering capability. If you like the Photoshop interface, you can try GimpShop. Want something simpler? Use Paint.net.
Image Touch Ups, Photo Processing - Picasa - Easy to use program that can help you catalog, view, burn, and touch-up photographs. Also, you can use Picasa to upload photos to your blog, and submit them to online digital image printing services. A digital camera's best friend. This program is fantastic for Grandma. She can quickly burn CD's of the grandkids with little instruction.
Image Thumbnail Viewer - The classic, Irfanview, my personal favorite - FastStone Viewer and another popular one, XNView.
CD Burning - CD Burner XP Pro - Supports burning from/to ISO image files, audio CD's, DVDs, etc. - Especially nice if you have a burner, but no longer have the OEM burning software that came with it. Other quality apps are Infra Recorder and Express Burner Free.
Backup software - Syncback - Backup to/from an FTP location, compress and encrypt data, supports directory synchronization, and much, much more.
Mail Archiving/backup - This is more or less a subset of 'Backup' above, MailStore is fantastic.
Online storage - DropBox - get 2Gb free, and for every person you recommend (and they sign up and install), you get an additional 250Mb of free storage. I love DropBox because of it's cross-platform support (I can get to my files on my Android phone).
DVD viewing (video) - VLC Media Player - Play your DVD/VCD/MPEG videos from a single player. Works GREAT! You can use VLC to watch DVDs without re-installing the OEM DVD software. You can also use it to convert videos (transcode).
Video conversion - Any Video Converter Free. Convert a video file to a myriad of different formats, great for copying videos to your IPod, Zune, or other personal media player.
Video codecs - K-Lite codec pack - this will enable your computer to play just about any video type out there.
RSS News Reader - Google Reader (online). Keep up with your online news and blogs (*ahem*, like this one?). I'm really liking the new Google Reader Play feature.
Multi-IM/chat client - Pidgin, and if you don't use IRC, then Digsby is for you!
More as I find 'em.
-Updated 11/16/2010
38 comments:
Open Office as FTP Client ?!?
Your "old friend" Red.. :-)
Whoops - :) Looks like I need to edit that post.
Something went awry there.
Thanks Red for checking in on me :)
Rob
..talking 'bout Antivirus and FTP client there are good news whit Portable project for Filezilla (FTP) and Claim (Antivirus). You can use them froma anUSB key without installing anything on your system.
Check it out on http://portableapps.com/
Red.
My 2 cents for antivirus is AVG by Grisoft.
I like IzArc for zip/archiving - it is faster than 7zip, current, and painless. Winzip users will like and be familiar with the interface.
I'll be linking this post on my Free Software pages if you don't mind:
http://newsandtips.carputers.net/carputers-links/links-to-free-software/
Carputers,
I just checked out your page, and...VERY nice list of resources! I'll be linking back to you as well. Thanks for that :)
Best,
Rob
I just found a fantastic free tool you should check out if you have not already done so. (http://www.numbergo.com)
The 'Foxit PDF reader' link redirects to Adobe reader...
Got this fixed - thanks anon! ;)
You have also AlZip for free, and GomPlayer which can easily replace VLC because of a much better UI !
MediaCoder can do the same job, and more, than super...
Trusty
I've had good luck with Spybot Spybot and
and Spyware Blaster as well.
Although Spybots, teatimer background service can be a cpu hog at times. I use Spybot and Ad-Aware 2008 in tandem, between the two of them they catch pretty much everything.
Spyware Blaster works similar to IE-SpyAds by preventing the installation of spyware, and supports both Firefox and Internet Explorer.
Good list. Some of them are on my list too. Others I don't know but I take a look!
May I suggest xplorer2 for File utilities? www.zabkat.com
As you know Rob, we all at CrossLoop, love you!! A big Thanks for sharing us with your audience!
Hi Max,
Great list. Thanks for sharing. I totally agree with the choice of Screen Cap tool. I also use FS Capture 5.3.
It's no problem finding it ...
http://www.aplusfreeware.com/categories/mmedia/FastStoneCapture.html
I've had it bookmarked at my wiki since it went shareware.
http://freewarewiki.com/FastStoneCapture
I also had many people disagree with my choice of FS Capture as "the best".
There is no accounting for taste. It's a huge factor when it comes to any software.
100-downloads.com has a lot of freeware. Start reviewing bud!
Other great freeware sites:
http://mike.dutch.home.comcast.net
http://www.techsupportalert.com/
No IM client?
Check out Digsby...
http://www.digsby.com/
Great page. You solved my in-laws anti-virus and anti-spyware problems in one fell swoop. I even tried avast! when AVG kicked the bucket for a time last weekend. Thanks for posting this. Do you keep all the freeware in the toolbox?
Brian
How about superantispyware for a antivirus. I have had the best luck with it removing antispyware 2008 and other trojans/rogues. Tow other programs i use are Spiceworks for network inventory/helpdesk and The Dude for network monitoring
VLC is good since it has its own codecs, however, there is nothing that can beat KMPlayer with K-lite codec pack. KMPlayer has the best interface and superior configuration control. No other player (GOMplayer, bsplayer...) cannot compete. And everything is for free :)
Great list and service. Use many already and learned of new ones from you. Consider adding reQuall (voice to email productivity tool). This was an alternate to Jott I was using to capture 20 second ideas and notes.
bobk
A great Screenshot Utility is Greenshot (http://greenshot.sourceforge.net)
I've been using it for the last 6 months and it's superb!
Simon
@Simon:
I tested Greenshot a few months back in my Screen Capture shootout...it didn't fare very well, unfortunately. It is lacking in some features and has a very large memory footprint:
The great free screen capture shootout for Windows
Hey! This is a little freeware which can be incredible helpful! If you can, please write something about it!
Earnings Tracker is a free accounting software tool aimed at micro businesses (typically less than five employees) to keep track of their revenue and spending. Earnings Tracker enables monthly invoice, salary, income tax, national insurance, pension contributions, and expense amounts to be entered. It automatically calculates the amount of VAT owed, the size of dividends that can be taken by shareholders, the retention rate, and any corporation / business tax due.
Free download link: http://www.ziddu.com/download/3901337/earnings-tracker_v5.zip.html
"KMPlayer has the best interface and superior configuration control. "
Agreed although some versions are a little wobly on xp I have found.
VLC while less than exciting seems very reliable.
I have no experience of SuperAntiSpyware but according to their web page the free version have no real-time scanning...
Threatfire is really good though besides some bugs in the advanced configuration options.
I have used SpywareTerminator which has worked very well for me. It's free for personal and commercial use and seems to catch most bad apps and their behaviour.
//Jon
Thanks Rob for this.Like gointern I think KMP is the best and i use it in mt Home Stereo System but I am yet to try it with the K-Lite codec Pack. I'll do so soon.
rtipping, try the latest version of KMP and you will be impressed.
For category: Remote Control (Technical Support), I'll recommend TeamViewer... Easy as 1-2-3, it's free, secure and requires simple installation only to side which is giving that support. Other side doesn't need to install anything, just run small application.
Why was Spyware Terminator removed from the list? I have been using it with no problems. My anniversary edition of AdAware was awful.
What!? No mention of Sandboxie!?!? Shame on y'all ;-)
http://www.sandboxie.com/
This is certainly something that I believe everyone should install.
ATB,
Ian..
Good list...thanks so much for sharing this informative post.
my two cents is for AVAST
Foxit incorrectly handled fillable form fields in PDF documents when I tried it several months ago.
Boy some really good freebies here - - perhaps a lot of this 'tool box' should be included in new P.C. purchases, to heck with some of the crap they give you in the box.
I built my first P.C., I call him F.E.S. (Frank-En-Stein), because I had to put all those parts together, so I could say: "It's alive, IT'S ALIVE!". L.o.L.
I'm a VISTA 64 user, would you mind posting this one on your site please? Great for us Vista Tweakers:
http://www.tweakvista.com/
I think someome else might enjoy it.
Be SAFE, Be WELL - - PEACE To ALL. . .
-Lone Wolf
I sure wish Sandboxie would have worked for Vista 64 - - BRILLIANT idea, thanks for adding this!
-Lone Wolf
Whaa?! ImgBurn for all your burning needs is truly outstanding software - simple to use but feature rich, lightweight, fast and really reliable.
Maybe the best burning software ever.
Must be included for consideration.
Another excellent site is www.topfreeware.net
Your link to Hijack This is a bad link.
Post a Comment