Free Software - Recommendations

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
if this is a competition now xD

theni recommend Maxthon web browser, i found it probably at least 10% faster than firefox and chrome and can also display pages under any popular web engine

also if you want portable apps then i recommend portableapps.com got loads of popular programs all in a portable version including games and ideal if you are using multiple desktops
 

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Nice work, keep them coming! :D

I've made several backups of this list and I promise to spend some time tomorrow adding full descriptions plus hyperlinks to everything. :)
 

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
nice, i definitely love piriform, delivering paid programs for free, especially CCleaner, thats worth £20 to me
 

Dave159

Active member
MachStudio pro

Hi,

MachStudio pro is a powerful raytracer. It originaly cost $4000 but it is now free.
I have downloaded it but neither my notebook or desktop can run it, because
they need to have the latest graphics chips. MachStudio interest me because
it makes use of the gpu for very fast rendering.

Thats one of many reasons why i'm going to order a PC from pcspecialist
in a few weeks.

http://download.cnet.com/MachStudio-Pro/3000-6677_4-75498419.html

Dave
 

Finn

Enthusiast
Dexpot http://www.dexpot.de/

A virtual desktop util, only free for non-commercial use however.

Dropbox http://www.dropbox.com/

Easy way to share files between computers/family/friends. Gives you a local folder that is automatically syncronised between each PC you run it on and backed up online, you can also set files to be shared where you get a link that can be sent to other people allowing them to download it. By default you get 2GB free but you can get more by referring other people. If you're feeling generous sign up using this referrel link http://db.tt/O4EeS5Q and you'll start off with a little extra space and i'll get some extra space for free too.

Foobar2000 http://www.foobar2000.org

Music player, emphasis on being as lightweight as possible.

notepad++ http://notepad-plus-plus.org/

A free text editor/notepad replacement essential if you regularly edit text files (programming/web-design etc) or ever use notepad.

Synergy http://synergy-foss.org/

If you have multiple pcs hooked up to their own displays but want to share a keyboard & mouse, this is what you want.

RocketDock http://rocketdock.com/

An application dock, one of many but I particularly like this one.

Launchy http://www.launchy.net/

Hit the bind key (i user ctrl-alt-space) and it pops up, type what you want and it runs it, never have to reach for the mouse just to use the start menu again. You can also setup keyphrases for google search, google calculator etc.

BitVise Tunnlier http://www.bitvise.com/tunnelier
PuTTY / KiTTY http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/ / http://kitty.9bis.com/

SSH clients, personally if you're just running a CLI I prefer Kitty, but for tunnels I prefer Tunnelier since it just happily sits in the system tray.

Ninite http://ninite.com/

Should be your first port of call after a reformat, gives you a single installer that will install/update a ton of free apps at once

TeraCopy http://codesector.com/teracopy

Replacement for explorer file copy, shows speed, ETA etc.

TrueCrypt http://www.truecrypt.org

Fantastic hard drive encryption software

UltraVNC http://www.uvnc.com/

My preferred VNC client/server. VNC is similar to remote desktop in that it allows you to connect and control your computer remotely

WinMerge http://winmerge.org/

Fantastic textfile diffing/merging tool
 

mishra

Rising Star
7-zip - Open source Windows utility for manipulating archives. Formats 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR are supported fully, other formats can be unpacked. - can't beat 7zip really with anything else.
Putty - An open source telnet and SSH Client for the Windows and Unix platforms. Includes FAQ, documentation and contact information. - simple and effective, yeah I know there are plenty other tools like this - but somehow I like only this one :)
Total Commander - a file manager replacement for Windows - for whoever remember days of Norton Commander this is the same + lots of new features made for windows as oppose to DOS
...and trusty:
Deemon Tools Lite - for loading on the fly ISO images
SyncBack - for performing backups

... above is the software I could not live without

ps. Ahh, just noticed 7zip already on the list
 
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JSanderson99

Bronze Level Poster
a really good list of programs here. I also recommend an app called speedfan. this allows you to control the speeds of your fans (some laptops and custom motherboards tend to not work, mostly for desktops with proper fans). this also allows you to set temp warnings for the cpu, and display the cpu temp on the bottom right corner of windows.
 

JSanderson99

Bronze Level Poster
7-zip - Open source Windows utility for manipulating archives. Formats 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR are supported fully, other formats can be unpacked. - can't beat 7zip really with anything else.
Putty - An open source telnet and SSH Client for the Windows and Unix platforms. Includes FAQ, documentation and contact information. - simple and effective, yeah I know there are plenty other tools like this - but somehow I like only this one :)
Total Commander - a file manager replacement for Windows - for whoever remember days of Norton Commander this is the same + lots of new features made for windows as oppose to DOS
...and trusty:
Deemon Tools Lite - for loading on the fly ISO images
SyncBack - for performing backups

... above is the software I could not live without

ps. Ahh, just noticed 7zip already on the list

I'm not disagreeing, 7-zip is a good program, I would suggest WinRAR because even though its a free trial, it seems to last forever and not seem to need to pay for it? I also notice that WinRAR tends to run faster for bigger files from my experience.
 

JSanderson99

Bronze Level Poster
I also recommend this website to everyone: https://ninite.com/
this website allows you to download multiple programs at once from a list without any adware or anything. it has browsers, anti-viruses, programs like WinRAR/7-zip and many more.
 
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