The Old "Best Free Software" Thread (Windows Mostly)

 
User avatar
Richard S.
Mayor
Posts: 15183
Joined: Fri. Oct. 01, 2004 8:35 pm
Location: NEPA
Stoker Coal Boiler: Van Wert VA1200
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/Anthracite

Post by Richard S. » Fri. Oct. 27, 2006 2:44 am

You always see it in most forums, "What's the best! Oh..... and it has to be free." In most cases "the best" is usually paid for and much more than most people are ever going to spend. There are of course some notable exceptions. I have a laundry list of free tools I use, many of them for video and digital image work. There are literally thousands of very good free programs that rarely make it to the mainstream.

I'm not referring to the software you see advertised, or any of that garbage that installs a few "extras" along with what you were expecting. I'm referring to software made from people in the open source community and a few companies that offer limited versions of there products for free. A good place to look is http://sourceforge.net/ I'll list some of the ones I use, If you have any please feel free to post them and I'll add them to the list.

Note that with the exception of paint.net I've used and installed all these programs and in most cases for many years over many versions. I've had no trouble with any spy-ware or viruses with any of them nor have I heard of any trouble with any them. If anything most remove a lot crap like the Real Media Alternative program listed under Media Players.

Some of these programs are not completely free and may only be used in non-commercial environment or may be working demos. Be sure to read the license.

Productivity
  • OpenOffice -OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.
Digital Image Software
  • Irfanview -A must have for anyone that has digital images. This is a image utility program for simple viewing to batch processing for stamping EXIF data and watermarks, resizing, cropping etc. This will do all those little tasks, if you just want to manage photos and not edit them extensively this is the only image tool you will ever need. I haven't tried the latest version but the one I did had a slightlty clunky interface.
  • Neat Image -Just what the name implies, noise reduction. This works great for cleaning up screenshots of video from old VHS or if you're scaling images up it will remove a lot of artifacts. Excellent program.
  • Gimp -A complete digital image editing package. I myself use a suite of paid for programs but I have tried this one and it has as many features as you can expect to find in any paid for version. For a novice it will do whatever you want.
  • Paint.NET -Don't go to paint.net because they don't have the site, why in the world would you name a program by domain if you don't own it. Anyhow I haven't used this but the screenshots look sweet and have seen it recommended many times.
Audio and Video Tools
  • GSpot -Don't laugh... GSpot is a codec identifier. If you can't play a video Gspot will identify the codec you need. Here's a quick tip that may keep you sane at some point in the future. Don't install codec packs, use Gspot to identify and only install what you need. Codec packs can cause issues immediately after installation or worse days, months even years down the road when other codecs are installed that do the same thing. You can avoid most of these possible conflicts by not installing packs.
  • VirtualDub -For processing video prior to encoding. Has hundreds of filters available for noise reduction, B&W, deinterlacing etc. A must have for anyone doing any serious video work. Other features include audio extraction and sequential frame extraction to images. The list is endless, a very good utility program.
  • Divx2DVD -Divx2DVD (now ConvertXToDVD) is a program that will convert a variety of video sources directly to a DVD format which you can burn to DVD with your burning application. It's fast and very easy to use, the old free version has limited options. Additionally the encode quality is not the best but it's not the worst either.
  • Camstudio -Desktop video capture, this will capture whatever is you see on your desktop to a video file. Haven't tried it myself for this but it should even work for games if you have a fast enough system. Great tool if you want to make a presentation or try and make a tutorial on how to use some software. This is the free version, there is a version available that cost money but in this case it has less features. Interesting story at the bottom of this page if you're interested.
  • Audacity -Full featured Audio Editor.
  • Vob2MPG -This tool will rip DVD Vob's to a MPEG file. It will not work on commercial discs protected by encryption. Very handy if you have a DVD recorder or video camera that records directly to DVDs.
  • Windows Media Encoder -Yea I know it's a MS product... It is free. Windows Movie Maker which is probably already installed on your computer will do some of what this does but if you need the ultimate control over many aspects of a video you want to encode to WMV this is the tool. Ideal for web content. Has some other features such as being able to set up a steaming video right from your computer.... camera not included.
Media Players
  • VLC -VLC is a media player that will play just about anything without having to install anything but the player itself including MPEG2, DVDs and AC3.
  • Real Alternative -This is one of my favorites. The last time I installed the official version of Real Media player was the final straw. I want to play video with it, that's all. Until I found this program I simply didn't watch any content with a .RM extension. This will play Real Media files and others without all the baggage that comes with the official install.
  • Quicktime Alternative -Same as above except for Apples Quicktime format.
Computer Security, Utilities and Other Misc. Software
  • AMP Font Viewer and Manager -Manage and view fonts at a glance. A world of difference than trying to do it through windows. Lot's features most notably the ability to group fonts and install or uninstall on demand.
  • CCleaner -This will remove just about everything on your computer you do not need. History, Recently used file lists, temporary files etc. It will cover your tracks but more importantly it will remove a lot of stuff that will never go away otherwise such as install files from MS hotfix updates. Also has a registry cleaner, a word of caution although the cleaner part is harmless the registry cleaner is not. If you don't know what you are doing I'd suggest leaving it alone. If it isn't broke don't fix it, it's entirely possible to corrupt the registry with this tool. Worst case is your machine won't even boot into windows.
  • Free Fonts -Hundreds of free fonts, if you have ever gone in search of free fonts you know what a problem this can be. This site does reauire you register to download, it used to be free but they now send you a link vis emial for the download.
  • AVG Anti-Virus -Anti Virus, daily virus updates. Very good product, easily as good as the ones you pay for.
  • Zone Alarm -Firewall protection. Computer security is not complete without a good firewall. MS's built in firewall is a joke, this is one of the best. Make sure to disable MS's firewall before installing.
  • Ad-Aware SE -Spy-ware Removal.
  • Spybot-S&D -Another spy-ware removal tool, two is better than one. This one will get what Ad-Aware misses.
  • DBAN -Darik's Boot and Nuke, completely wipe a drive of all data. This overwrites all the data on your harddrive with dummy data. Files are never really gone until overwritten. Warning:This does exactly what it says it does. Clearly mark the floppy or whatever media you put it on. If you run this on your computer any files on it will be unrecoverable.
Web Tools
  • CoffeCup Free HTML Editor -A text editor for creating HTML, PHP and others.
  • Phpbb -Forum software, you're using a highly modified version of it right now. Requires a web host running PHP and a database.
  • Coppermine Photo Gallery -Online Image gallery, very powerful program with 100's of features such as guest comments, rating images etc. Really a file gallery because you can use it to manage and upload any type of file. Also allows for guest uploads if enabled. Requires a server running PHP and a database.
  • XAMPP -Unlike HTML files that just display contents that can be displayed in a browser PHP files cannot. XAMPP will allow you to do that. PHP is server side programming language that basically allows you to program what the page does when requested. This is actually more than just a PHP install, it's a complete server package for the most common things used on more than half the worlds servers. Includes PHP, MySql Database, Apache and PHPMyadmin. Download all the above and give it a try.
Other
  • Knoppix -Knoppix is a OS based on Linux. It runs on a live CD. Simply insert the CD into bootable drive, reboot and you're running a different OS. I'm not much of a Linux fan but if you want to give it try this is a easy place to start. This disc BTW could be very handy for recovering files from your HDD if for some reason Windows will not boot.


 
User avatar
spc
Member
Posts: 1801
Joined: Sat. Jan. 06, 2007 9:51 am
Location: Rhode Island

Post by spc » Sat. Apr. 05, 2008 9:48 am

Web browser: FireFox

Web Site, Domain Name, Email & Online Office Tools from Microsoft:OfficeLive
(Sign up for the Free Small Business account)

Supercharge your MP3 player: RockBox (be careful)

Remove malware, Adware, Antispyware, just about everything: SmitfraudFix

 
User avatar
Charlie Z
Member
Posts: 205
Joined: Sat. Dec. 23, 2006 9:39 am
Location: North Fork, NY

Post by Charlie Z » Tue. Apr. 15, 2008 6:45 pm

Lot's of good recommendations. I normally check tucows.com for freeware and shareware when I need a particular utility.

 
User avatar
WNY
Member
Posts: 6307
Joined: Mon. Nov. 14, 2005 8:40 am
Location: Cuba, NY
Hot Air Coal Stoker Stove: Keystoker 90K, Leisure Line Hyfire I
Coal Size/Type: Rice
Contact:

Post by WNY » Wed. Apr. 16, 2008 8:04 am

I use http://www.Cnet.com (Downloads) for software too.

Richard, your recommnedation for Infranview for graphics. Wow, that works great, especially the bulk resize to do whole directories.

 
User avatar
Richard S.
Mayor
Posts: 15183
Joined: Fri. Oct. 01, 2004 8:35 pm
Location: NEPA
Stoker Coal Boiler: Van Wert VA1200
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/Anthracite

Post by Richard S. » Wed. Apr. 16, 2008 8:57 am

Irfanview is a great program, I use it all the time. Its about the only thing most people need for image manipulation unless they need to do extensive corrections. There's a lot of plug-ins avaiable that will extend it capabilities, see the ones for EXIF and IPTC data: http://www.irfanview.com/plugins.htm

Here's tip about using it, if you have digital camera it embeds what is called EXIF data in the image. This data will contain the date and time the image was taken and can contain a numerous other things like the type of camera, if the flash fired etc. It will also have IPTC info, you can use irfanview to insert data such as copyright notice, where the image was taken, whos in the picture and just about any other information you want to include. All this information is contained as data and isn't on the image itself.

Taking it step further you can use irfanview to stamp any of this information including the date on the images in batch mode. So if you wanted to mark a bunch of images with the date taken you can do that, same thing with the IPTC information.

Another tool that will do this is called exifer which is geared more towards the exif information but does have some of the features of Irfanview. Should also be noted that both of these program do lossless .jpg rotation, if you have taken an image sideways with a camera you need to rotate it, many image manipulation programs will lose some quality during this process, the basic tools in WinXP for example will.

---------------------------------------------

I've come across another program that I have testing for the last week for spam called SpamPal :

This is a spam filter for outlook express, so far so good. Its caught all but few a spams and none of the email it labeled as spam has been real email. It works prety simple, it acts as proxy between Outlook and youe email server. It process all the email before sending it to Outlokk, if any email is considered spam it add ***SPAM*** to the Subject, you set up a filter in Outlook to move all email with that string of text to a specific folder.

It does slow down how fast the email will get in your inbox but its a small price to pay.
Last edited by Richard S. on Fri. Mar. 31, 2017 11:45 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Reason: <removed dead link>

 
User avatar
Rob R.
Site Moderator
Posts: 17979
Joined: Fri. Dec. 28, 2007 4:26 pm
Location: Chazy, NY
Stoker Coal Boiler: EFM 520
Hand Fed Coal Stove: Chubby Jr

Post by Rob R. » Fri. Apr. 18, 2008 11:19 am

I am a big fan of Avast Antivirus. Free for home use, works great.

 
User avatar
spc
Member
Posts: 1801
Joined: Sat. Jan. 06, 2007 9:51 am
Location: Rhode Island

Post by spc » Sat. Apr. 19, 2008 10:12 am

HOW TO MAKE A WIFI EXTENDER



 
chemung
Member
Posts: 138
Joined: Wed. Mar. 26, 2008 6:40 pm

Post by chemung » Wed. Jul. 09, 2008 10:16 am

Yep, I have most. What I really like about OpenOffice besides it's free is you can save a document in .pdf format. I like using .pdf on my web site. Most computers come with Adobe Reader installed plus I leave a link to get it if you don't have it.

A few I didn't see here that I like, all free:

Web Tools:
HTML-Kit - Web Site Editing Software

Color Picker - Captures any color on your screen and gives you the RGB and HEX values. (Not sure if it's still available).

FTP:
FileZilla - FTP Client

Imaging:
Easy Thumbnails - Makes single or batch thumbnails. Like it's name it's real easy to use.

Sorry I didn't place links to them. Just search their names on Google.

 
User avatar
av8r
Member
Posts: 1164
Joined: Thu. Dec. 06, 2007 12:07 pm
Location: Near Owego, NY
Hot Air Coal Stoker Furnace: Leisure Line Hearth with twin turbos (sounds like it)

Post by av8r » Sat. Oct. 11, 2008 9:57 pm

BartPE. Pre-installment environment. You can do all kinds of neat stuff with this including cleaning machines that cannot be cleaned any other way other than a rebuild.

 
User avatar
k9 Bara
Member
Posts: 499
Joined: Mon. Mar. 31, 2008 11:27 am
Location: Red Creek, Fair Haven area NY
Stoker Coal Boiler: 1996 EFM 520 DF
Coal Size/Type: Buck / Reading

Post by k9 Bara » Sun. Nov. 09, 2008 12:14 pm

Yes, BartPe is an awesome resource depending how it was compiled. It can also get you in a bit of trouble as well :devil: I have also used Hirem's and others... but bart is strong.

Anyone else here use the news groups? It's a great resource if you can get past the *censored*.

 
User avatar
Richard S.
Mayor
Posts: 15183
Joined: Fri. Oct. 01, 2004 8:35 pm
Location: NEPA
Stoker Coal Boiler: Van Wert VA1200
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/Anthracite

Post by Richard S. » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 11:24 pm

WinMerge where have you been my whole life.

The recent forum update was massive. Due to the custom code modifications I have made I need to merge the new code and updates into my existing files. If they were standard files I could just upload and overwrite the existing ones. phpBB provides a built in utility for patching files like mine which as I understand it works great however I simply don't trust anything automatic as I have been burned in the past by such features.

The old routine was download the patch file that looks like this:
patch.gif
.GIF | 43.2KB | patch.gif
Basically I'd have to open the indicated file, find the line it was referencing and change it. This patch file has 20,000 lines of text. :shock:

Enter WinMerge, Winmerge will compare two text files side by side and allow you to merge text from one document to the other. Everything is highlighted so it's easy to find. In this example The document on the left has single line of code that varies slightly from the other, right click and select copy to right. The second block of highlighting is my custom code which I want to keep so we just let it be. :D

Attachments

merge.gif
.GIF | 68.8KB | merge.gif

 
User avatar
Yanche
Member
Posts: 3026
Joined: Fri. Dec. 23, 2005 12:45 pm
Location: Sykesville, Maryland
Stoker Coal Boiler: Alternate Heating Systems S-130
Coal Size/Type: Anthracite Pea

Post by Yanche » Fri. Dec. 05, 2008 11:33 pm

Quite an improvement over the old unix "diff" command. :-) If I ever get back to coding I'll download it.

 
User avatar
Richard S.
Mayor
Posts: 15183
Joined: Fri. Oct. 01, 2004 8:35 pm
Location: NEPA
Stoker Coal Boiler: Van Wert VA1200
Coal Size/Type: Buckwheat/Anthracite

Post by Richard S. » Sat. Dec. 06, 2008 12:03 am

Well the patch file I gave the sceenshot of as I understand it can be used on a linux system to merge files but the issue arises as I pointed out where you have custom code. The phpbb updater which I haven't used I believe uses the patch file but if it finds any differences it will allow you to continue with changes or abort. Not sure if you manually apply edits when doing the update etc.

In any event I'm more comfortable seeing what is being changed, not only that it gives me chance to see where things are at. The old "Aha, that's where its at."

 
User avatar
pvolcko
Verified Business Rep.
Posts: 1063
Joined: Mon. Jan. 16, 2006 4:26 pm
Location: Syracuse, NY
Contact:

Post by pvolcko » Sat. Dec. 06, 2008 12:16 am

It's not free, but it is about the best merge util I've come across: Beyond Compare

 
User avatar
BearKnot
Member
Posts: 50
Joined: Wed. Mar. 05, 2008 10:42 am
Location: Near Mt Cheaha, Al.

Post by BearKnot » Mon. Dec. 08, 2008 8:55 pm

Ok,

FireFox http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Avast http://www.avast.com/index

Malwarebytes http://www.malwarebytes.org/

Spyware terminator http://www.spywareterminator.com/download/download.aspx

And an occasional trip to "PC Pitstop http://www.pcpitstop.com/

to see if my four barrel carb needs some acetone. :D


Post Reply

Return to “Technology”