Awesome Free Software

[Skyalmian]

I was marveling at a lot of the free software that's out there and felt like making a tribute to it all by informing everyone of the really great free software that I know of (which is, to say, not a lot). Add whatever free software you know of if you want.

Apache HTTP Server
http://www.apache.org/
Popular HTTP server software.
Windows 2003/XP/2000/NT/9x, Netware 5.x+, OS/2, most versions of Unix, etc.

Bazooka Scanner
http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/in ... bassmanual
Anti-spyware scanner.
Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP

BitTornado
http://www.bittornado.com/
Experimental BitTorrent client.
Windows

Blender
http://www.blender.org/
Open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.
Windows (95,98,ME,2000,XP), Mac OS X, Linux (i386 and PPC), FreeBSD 4.2, Irix 6.5 and Solaris 6.8

FFDShow
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow/
Audio/Video codec suite.
Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP)

FLAC
http://flac.sourceforge.net/
\"Free Lossless Audio Codec\"
Windows, \"unix\" (Linux, *BSD, Solaris, OS X, IRIX), BeOS, OS/2, and Amiga

GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/
Adobe Photoshop alternative.
Windows 98/ME/NT4/2000/XP, Linux (Debian testing, Debian unstable (deb), Fedora Core 3 (RPM), SuSE 9.2 (RPM), Gentoo Portage, Slackware, FreeBSD, Sun Solaris: Blastwave Software Distribution), Mac OS X

Media Player Classic
http://gabest.org/
Extended version of the plain Windows Media Player.
32-bit MS Windows (95/98), 32-bit MS Windows (NT/2000/XP), All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP), Win2K, WinXP

Miranda Instant Messenger
http://www.miranda-im.org/
Minimalistic, open source multiprotocol instant messaging application for Microsoft Windows that supports ICQ, AIM, MSN/.NET, IRC, Yahoo!, Jabber and Google Talk, Skype, Gadu-Gadu, QQ, Tlen, BNet, and NetSend via plugins.
Windows Only, but some Linux users have reported success at running Miranda with WINE.

Mozilla Firefox
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Popular web browser.
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux i686

Mozilla Seamonkey
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/seamonkey/
Continuation of the Mozilla Suite web browser.
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux (x86), Linux/x86_64, Linux/Fedora RPMs, OS/2, Solaris 2.8 (SPARC) - GTK1

Mozilla Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
Popular web mail client.
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux i686

MP3 Tools
- LAME
http://www.mp3dev.org/
Can be compiled as a shared library (Linux/UNIX), DLL or ACM codec (Windows).
- RazorLAME GUI
http://www.dors.de/razorlame/
Win9x, NT4, Win2K, WinXP

OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/
Microsoft Office alternative.
Windows, GNU/Linux (\"Linux\"), Sun Solaris, Mac OS X (under X11), and FreeBSD

PHPBB
http://www.phpbb.com/
Server forum software.

Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/news/index.html
http://www.spywarewarrior.com/rogue_anti-spyware.htm

Teamspeak 2 Client / Server
http://www.goteamspeak.com/
Microsoft Windows 98/ME/NT/2000/XP, Linux

Trillian
http://www.trillian.cc/
AIM/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo/IRC client.
Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP Home, XP Professional

TrueCrypt
http://www.truecrypt.org/
Create an encrypted [secret] drive.
Windows 2000/2003/XP/Vista, Mac OS X, Linux

VDMSound
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/
Soundcard emulator for old DOS games.
32-bit MS Windows (NT/2000/XP), All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP), Win2K, WinXP

VideoLAN VLC Media Player
http://www.videolan.org/
Binaries (Windows, Mac OS X, BeOS, Debian GNU/Linux, Ubuntu Linux, Mandriva Linux, Fedora Core, Familiar Linux, YOPY/Linupy, Zaurus, SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, WinCE / PocketPC, Slackware Linux, ALT Linux), Compile Needed (NetBSD, OpenBSD, FreeBSD, Solaris, QNX, Gentoo Linux, Crux Linux)

Winamp
http://www.oldversion.com/
Audio player.
Windows 98 SE, Windows ME, Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows 2003

Windows Sysinternals
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysi ... fault.aspx
(Personal Favorites)
- Access Enumerator (displays access to directories, files, and registry keys)
- Autorun Monitor (displays everything loaded at startup)
- File Monitor (monitors file activity in realtime)
- NewSID (changes a computer's SID)
- Pagefile Defragmentor (defragments pagefile and registry hives)
- Process Explorer (ultimate Windows Task Manager)
- Registry Monitor (monitors registry changes in realtime)
- Rootkit Revealer (scans system for rootkit-based malware)
- Share Enumerator (view file share security settings on network to find security holes)
- TCP View (shows all open TCP and UDP endpoints)
- TDI Monitor (TCP/IP monitor)
Windows

Wireshark
http://www.wireshark.org/
Packet monitor.
Windows, Mac OS X, Linux

Wordpress
http://www.wordpress.org/
Server blog software.
Windows, Unix/Linux

Last Update: 2009-06-04 @ 06:26 CDT

[Grendel]

AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic
http://www.free-av.com/antivirus/allinonen.html

Windows Defender
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/securit ... fault.mspx

XP Setup
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/SupportCD/XPSecrets.html

Packet monitor
http://www.ethereal.com/

[Krom]

http://www.utorrent.com/
Uses less then one quarter the system resources and CPU time of the other clients.

http://cccp-project.net/
Smallest codec pack ever, decodes almost everything, installs almost nothing. Centered around FFDShow, comes with Media Player Classic and Zoom Player.

http://www.grc.com/wizmo/wizmo.htm
Steve Gibson's Wizmo Windows Gizmo, useful in various ways, but I just use it to shut off my monitors in one click.

http://www.msschulte.de/index.php?page=40
Easy Hash, drag and drop file verification.

http://www.download.com/HkSFV/3000-2248_4-10157350.html
HkSFV, when you need to hash/verify more then one file at a time using SFV or MD5 files.

http://www.smartftp.com/
FTP client for when you need to get something big done.

http://www.mirc.org
Eliteist IRC client.

[Jeff250]

Ubuntu Linux
http://www.ubuntu.com
Free operating system that comes with a lot of the above either preinstalled or within a couple of clicks of being installed.

[Nosferatu]

Daaam Im finding Im agreeing with almost all of these.

Although I kinda like Filezilla
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
for my FTP client.

Oh and BTW, Wireshark just happens to be Ethereal. They changed their name.

[Stryker]

ConTEXT Programmer's Editor
http://www.context.cx/
Offers markup and advanced text editing for any programming language under the sun (and some that aren't)

SQLyog
http://www.webyog.com/en/
A free MySQL management program--the free version comes with a simple nag, but no feature limitations

Avast! Antivirus
http://www.avast.com/
Avast is, hands down, THE most fully-featured, powerful, and well-supported piece of freeware I've ever encountered. Did I mention that it kills virii too?

Spybot S&D
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html
Spybot is an extremely powerful anti-spyware program, and gives you quite a bit of customizability to boot.

[Kyouryuu]

7-Zip
http://www.7-zip.org
File archiving tool that supports creation of .7z, .zip, .gzip, etc. and the extraction of .rar, .cab, .arj, and others.

Ad-Aware SE Personal
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware
Scan for spyware with this useful tool.

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net
An essential freeware audio editor and recorder.

Avant Browser
http://www.avantbrowser.com
If you're stuck at a lame web portal that insists on using genuine Internet Explorer 6, this can make it more bearable.

AVG Anti-Virus
http://free.grisoft.com
A decent anti-virus programs that's lightweight on resources and doesn't wrap tentacles around everything on your computer.

CDex
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos
Audio CD ripper and format converter between compressed and uncompressed audio formats. Can rip to MP3, OGG, etc.

Crack Attack
http://aluminumangel.org/attack
An OpenGL version of the popular and infamously addictive Nintendo game, Tetris Attack.

Crimson Editor
http://www.crimsoneditor.com
Tabbed Notepad clone. It also does syntax highlighting for many languages.

foobar2000
http://www.foobar2000.org
A minimalist audio player that supports several formats and is quite small.

IrfanView
http://www.irfanview.com
Graphics viewer for basic graphics editing, along with batch processing.

Nexuiz
http://www.alientrap.org/nexuiz
A fast-paced deathmatch game based on a heavily-modified Quake 3 engine.

Notepad++
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Another excellent tabbed Notepad program with syntax highlighting.

Nvu
http://www.nvu.com/index.php
A standalone, WYSIWYG HTML editor based on Mozilla Composer.

Quintessential Player
http://www.quinnware.com
An alternative freeware player to Winamp. Does not have the robust plug-in support Winamp does, however.

Semagic
http://semagic.sourceforge.net
Update blogs like LiveJournal with this handy utility.

[Skyalmian]

Eraser
http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser
Completely removes sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.
32-bit MS Windows (95/98), 32-bit MS Windows (NT/2000/XP), All 32-bit MS Windows (95/98/NT/2000/XP), Win2K, WinXP

[Krom]

On that subject: DBAN (Darik's Boot and Nuke)
Easily create the floppy disk from hell, can permanently delete all data on every hard drive it sees with Department of Defense level security to ensure the data is absolutely unrecoverable.

[The Lion]

Let me make a tribute by informing everyone that many of these programs
are not actually freeware, but \"free software\", which is a philosophy that
dates way back into the 80's. It's older than the kernel Linux, and much
older than the Open Source movement, which merely advocates the
pragmatic benefits of sharing source code. Free Software is about freedom,
not price.

You read about it at http://www.gnu.org/

Freeware, on the other hand, may have some silly restrictions such as
not being allowed to modify and/or redistribute it.

[Nosferatu]

I found another one that Ive been liking alot on sourceforge, that I dont think I've seen mentioned yet. This one lets me can the Roxio/Nero bloatware.

http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

[Grendel]

eEye Blink PE (Personal Firewall, Identity Theft Protection, Intrusion Prevention, System Protection, & Vulnerability Assessment)

[Kyouryuu]

ISO Recorder
http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm
A Windows XP accessory that allows you to create and burn ISO images and more.

[Grendel]

KeyTweak -- lets you remap or disable keys in Windows. Tired of hitting the windows key in game ? Just disable it

[suicide eddie]

ccleaner: http://www.ccleaner.com/
xp housekeeping

filezilla ftp client and server http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/

cdburnerxp: http://www.cdburnerxp.se/
all format burning (hd coming soon)



update

comodo antivirus/firewall+ assorted networking apps

http://www.comodo.com/

[rijruna1]

here ya go fellas boot disc heaven
http://www.bootdisk.com/
cheers
rij

[Top Wop]

Im surprised no one has posted this yet, as this piece of software has great value (at least to me!)

UltraVNC: Its basically an open source version of PCAnywhere, but without the bloat and bugs.

http://www.uvnc.com/index.html

[MD-2389]

Theres also RealVNC and TightVNC. The latter I use more seeing as its the fastest of the two.

[Kilarin]

Zoom Player
http://www.inmatrix.com/zplayer/

Password Safe
http://passwordsafe.sourceforge.net/
This is a MUST HAVE application. Store all your passwords in an encrypted database.

SyncBack
http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware
great freeware backup utility

Mathematically Beautiful Screen Savers
http://www.mathsavers.com/savers.htm
They are... beyond describing. I still can spend hours staring at \"galaxies\"

Wallpaper Changer
http://www.wallpaperchanger.de/
Nice wallpaper managment utility, but it could use an update

FontView 2
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,48412,00.asp
Great font viewing utility

Multi Rename
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,4149,27023,00.asp
this Incredible tool lets you select multiple files and rename them according to patterns

NullSoft Scriptable Install System
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Download

NoteTab
http://www.notetab.com/
Only THE best text editor for windows on the market.

StereoPhoto Maker
http://stereo.jpn.org/eng/stphmkr/index.html
If you are interested in Stereo Photography, this is THE freeware package.

Celestia
http://www.shatters.net/celestia/download.html
Oh my. Explore the universe in 3D. Zoom past the sun, orbit the moon, chase the International Space Station. Wow!

Stellarium
http://stellarium.sourceforge.net/
INCREDIBLE free planitarium program.

[BUBBALOU]

Tomato Router Firmware

Lean Upgrade for Linux based routers

IE Linksys WRT54G ver1-4

Routers that are known to work with Tomato:

* Linksys WRT54G v1-v4, WRT54GS v1-v4, WRT54GL v1.x, WRTSL54GS (no USB support)
* Buffalo WHR-G54S, WHR-HP-G54, WZR-G54, WBR2-G54, WBR-G54, WZR-HP-G54, WZR-RS-G54, WZR-RS-G54HP, WVR-G54-NF, WHR2-A54-G54, WHR3-AG54
* Asus WL500G Premium (no USB support), WL500GE
* Sparklan WX6615GT, Fuji RT390W, Microsoft MN-700

This will not work on Linksys WRT54G/GS v5 or newer WRT54G/GS routers.

[grizz]

http://www.e-sword.net/'

Free Bible Software download. Better than most \"for purchase\" programs.

[Skyalmian]

Aegisub
http://www.aegisub.net/
Soft subtitling software; primarily uses Advanced SubStation Alpha (*.ass)
Windows, Linux, FreeBSD

MKVtoolnix
http://www.bunkus.org/videotools/mkvtoolnix/
Program used to make *.MKV video files without changing the quality of the video and audio files used; essentially creates a \"zip\" of video, audio, and subtitle files. Example of use: a RAW anime video, an .ass subtitle file, and the fonts used for the subtitles put into an .mkv.
Windows, Debian, FreeBSD, Gentoo, MacOS X 10.4, Mandriva, NetBSD, Fedora Core 5 and 6, Slackware 10.2 and 11.0, OpenSuSE 10.x, Ubuntu \"Dapper Drake\", \"Edgy Eft\" and \"Feisty Fawn\", Zenwalk Linux.

[CritterB]

Here's new one I just started playing with that shows you the contents of you hard drive. I used it to find a whole bunch of large files I'd forgotten about and then deleted from my hard disk.:

Sequoiaview: http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onder ... quoiaview/

[heftig]

DOSBox

A powerful DOS emulator designed to run DOS games.

Unlike VDMSound, it emulates a complete 80386 computer, making it hardware-independent. It runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and other systems.

I use it to play old games under Vista 64 (which has no support for 16-bit executables at all).

[Nosferatu]

DOSBox

A powerful DOS emulator designed to run DOS games.

Unlike VDMSound, it emulates a complete 80386 computer, making it hardware-independent. It runs on Windows, Mac OSX, Linux and other systems.

I use it to play old games under Vista 64 (which has no support for 16-bit executables at all).

I'm a big fan of DOSBOX myself. As of version .65, they fixed some pretty nasty issues with their old joystick emulation. Now you can use a USB stick just as if it were still an old analog.

[fliptw]

that means I can play TIE Fighter again.

properly I hope

[WillyP]

Free Download Manager Seems like faster downloads than FF, but I haven't actually timed any. Lots of other features, too.

Wikka Wikki free, open source wikki, written in php.

Simple Machines Forum Forum software, written in php.

[AlphaDoG]

Thanks for all these links. I'm in download heaven.

[WillyP]

FireFTP is an FTP plugin for FireFox.

[TechPro]

Servant Salamander is an excellant two-pane file manager. Ver 1.52 is Freeware. (Versions 2.0 and 2.5 are not.)

Paint.NET is an excellant Photoshop like program with lots of plug-ins ... including a plug-in that allows it to open and save Photoshop files.
Requires Microsoft's .NET Framework 2.0.

Stardock LogonStudio let's you create custom logon screens for XP.

Logon Loader lets you swap logon screens easily.

CutePDF is a free PDF writer that works really well.

NetStumbler (or \"Network Stumbler\") is an excellant wireless signal scanner/analyzer. One of the \"tools of choice\" when \"WarDriving\".

Notefish makes internet research simple. Notefish is the easiest way to save, organize and share snippets of internet web pages that you find. You can customize the resulting notes by moving them around, changing their colors, organizing them into sections, and share them with others - all from your web browser. People use Notefish for researching purchases, travel, jobs, and other tasks requiring information gathering. ... You can get it for both FireFox and IE. Download Linky

PowerShell (Free from Microsoft) is a powerfull command line shell and scripting language ... that many are finding easy to learn and use.

Network Notepad is a Free proggy for creating interactive network diagrams.

[CritterB]

Here's another one I've been using a lot. It's Foxit Reader and I use it instead of adobe to open pdf files lately as it's much faster.

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader ... reader.htm

[Nergen-Ak1-Defender]

Pencil - A free alernative to flash. Not as much features but has the same purpose.

http://www.les-stooges.org/pascal/pencil/

[delveneto]

I am a leftie but I can use the mouse with any hand. To avoid RSI (or to avoid worsen my RSI) I have two mice, one to the right, one to the left and so there is a problem: the buttons! When using the right mouse, I want the left button as primary; when using the left mouse, I want the opposite. Swapping mouse buttons via Control Panel is a pain so I use a small utility that makes swapping a breeze. Here's the link.

Swap Mouse Buttons

I would recommend to anyone that uses the mouse on only one hand to try and get used to use it on both, so you are going to distribute between both hands the load of your usual one million everyday clicks. Why not use only one only mouse? If it's a symmetrical mouse, ok, but I like a non-symmetrical mouse for my right hand (and a symmetrical for the left, since there is not a specific mouse that I know of that is only for lefties).

Some other useful freewares I use (many of them are already mentioned previously in this thread):

For creating photo albuns for the internet:
JAlbum

For compressing music:
Monkey's Audio

For adding folder size to Windows Explorer:
Folder Size for Windows

A couple of good freewares:
Collection 1
Collection 2

I specially love CurrPorts, from Nirsoft, but there are more interesting ones in these collections.

[TOR_LordRaven]

Audacity: Free Digital Audio Editor.

Has a neat feature that allows you to sample any audio you hear and export it to MP3.

Great if you cant access any torrent sites from work but want to get a song. Just search for the song on YouTube, start recording then start playing! Got a ton of songs on my iPod doing that

of course, if there are any system sounds (errors, notifications, etc.) they will be sampled as well, so turn those off first.

Or you can just use it to sample or open existing audio files and play around with them.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

[d3jake]

AP Tuner, shareware, but it only has a nag window that comes up everytime you run it if you don't register. Good program, for tuning an acoustic guitar.

AP Tuner

[Grendel]

CDBurnerXP

CDBurnerXP is a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.

Key Features
- burn all kinds of discs
- audio-CDs with or without gaps between tracks
- burn and create ISO files
- data verification after burning process
- create bootable discs
- multi-language interface
- bin/nrg → ISO converter, simple cover printing and much more!

Operating Systems: Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit!

It has several 'Modes', each one for performing a different task:

Read - Read a disc to an image file
Build - Create an image file from files on your computer or network - or you can write the files directly to a disc
Write - Write an image file to a disc
Verify - Check a disc is 100% readable. Optionally, you can also have ImgBurn compare it against a given image file to ensure the actual data is correct
Discovery - Put your drive / media to the test! Used in combination with DVDInfoPro, you can check the quality of the burns your drive is producing

ImgBurn supports a wide range of image file formats - including BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG and PDI.

[Sllik]

OMG.... they're not in here, anywhere. I'm ashamed of you.

NX (termserv/VNC replacement like no other)
- http://www.nomachine.com/

Synergy (share keyboard and mouse across endless hardware platforms, regardless of OS)
- http://synergy2.sourceforge.net/

I swear by both for work as well as home.

[TechPro]

Heh, I only just learned about Synergy two weeks ago. Now I've got my Office systems (both Windows and Mac) all sharing the same keyboard. Pretty cool just move the mouse to the edge of the screen and the mouse reappears on the other screen and the keyboard follows. Way better than using a KVM switch.

Cord is a Mac OS X remote desktop client for Microsoft Windows servers using the rdp protocol. Very cool (tho still in beta, occasional bugs)
http://cord.sourceforge.net/

[TechPro]

Krom mentioned this one in another thread ...

\"Core Temp\" (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/) is designed to read the core temperature of your processor. Instead of reading the BIOS' external temp sensor and deriving a temperature from that, Core Temp reads the \"DTS\" (Digital Thermal Sensor\" which both Intel and AMD recently released detailed, public information about.

• How it works: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/howitworks.html
• List of supported processors: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/supportlist.html
• Also has a nice graphing addon: http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/addons.html

Some feel that \"Real Temp\" (http://www.techpowerup.com/realtemp/) is more accurate. However it supports fewer processors.

[Grendel]

If Real Temp supports your CPU use it instead of CoreTemp. See this for some background info about DTS temperature measurement.