Your Favorite Freeware for Windows

[Garibaldi]

Wow that looks interesting, never heard of it before?

As for graphics programs, The Gimp looks great but haven't had a good look at it yet. I've tried PhotoShop, but I always fall back on the old familiar Ulead PhotoImpact 3.02 SE that came freely bundled with an old computer mag CD, ages ago. It does everything I want (and more)! PhotoShop looked too hard, ha

The GIMP is great (IMO)! It has alot of the features that photoshop has, yet its free. I don't have photoshop here but The GIMP takes care of all my image manipulation needs.

[racer-x]

For those curious as to what Wax2 can do, I made quick little image animation. I took a winter picture and added some animated snow to it:
wax.wmv

Keep in mind that the quality sufferd when encoding to wmv. The original is nice and crisp.

[housepig]

good source for neat little freeware apps:

Shell Extension City.

as for Inkscape, I was looking for something that could do vector graphics, and I found a prog called Sodipodi that was *nix ported to Windows, but it wouldn't install properly. While browsing for information, I found Inkscape, which is a fork of Sodipodi.

d/l'd it, installed it and it worked great. haven't been doing a lot of that kind of graphic work, so I haven't upgraded from 0.37 yet.

[racer-x]

Thanks again housepig for the Inkscape link.

I couldn't get the latest version(I kept getting broken downloads and currupt files), but I did get version 0.401. It looks very promising. I did manage to crash it once, but it's pretty stable.

[housepig]

I couldn't get the latest version(I kept getting broken downloads and currupt files), but I did get version 0.401.

from peeking at the SourceForge download page, it looks like 0.401 is the most current Windows version.

[ViRaL1]

Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Almost a necessity online.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

[Conquest10]

Panotools

[ChrisX]

Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Almost a necessity online.

http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

I forgot about that one.

Macromedia shockwave and flash player as an add on to your browser is another necessity on viewing images or something online.

There is a test to see if your PC is updated or check out: http://www.macromedia.com/downloads/

[Conquest10]

Macromedia shockwave and flash player as an add on to your browser is another necessity on viewing images or something online.

Not really. I don't have it nor want to. I'm not missing anythting.

[ViRaL1]

There are some damn funny flash animations out there. But then again, maybe you have some other app / plug-in that plays flash.

[ChrisX]

Macromedia shockwave and flash player as an add on to your browser is another necessity on viewing images or something online.

Not really. I don't have it nor want to. I'm not missing anything.

Please yourself and some webpages don't work well without the add on apps for your browser to view the photos or graphics.

Some websites do have the option to get out the flash for normal html.

So, sometimes you don't have too.

There are some damn funny flash animations out there. But then again, maybe you have some other app / plug-in that plays flash.

There aren't funny flash animations out there and they are commonly in use worldwide on lots of well known websites.

One is called Macromedia Flash Player 7.

The flash images are faster to download than .jpg and .jpeg images and this is the advantage of them.

These are examples of needing the apps installed for viewing of photos to work:

MSNBC's This Week in Pictures

Tsunami Flash

Normally a web surfer doesn't worry a thing, it is automatically downloaded and installed when you visit a site requiring software to install or to update.

I usually sometimes update the apps manually as I quite frequently view pictures requiring these apps for the images to work.


ChrisX

[reboot]

Virtualdub (all variations).
Avast anti-virus (runs circles around AVG, although a slightly larger footprint).
Zwei-Stein.
Goldwave/Audacity (take your pick).
Cdex.
Ffmpeggui.
Gspot.
Dvdx.
Fairuse Wizard.
VCDGear.
Dvdinfo Pro. (adware).
Eudora. (adware).
Videolan. (great player).
EasyCleaner (from toniarts).
Spyware blaster.
Popup stopper (from panicware.com).
Freecell (oh the hours I've wasted!).
Last but not least, Push the Freakin' Button. A tool that I've had since Win95. Automatically pushes any button you want, in any app running in Windows. Saves about a gazillion mouse clicks every day! http://www.tlhouse.co.uk/PTFBPro/
(appears that it's not free any more, sorry).
Update! Free version here: http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4416.html

[Skith]

7-zip (Freeware zip/rar/ etc. file compression utility.
http://www.7-zip.org/

Mother Board Monitor (monitors pc health/temp/fan speeds, voltage, etc.)
http://mbm.livewiredev.com/

DVD Identifier (finds DVD media ID codes, and write speeds)
http://dvd.identifier.cdfreaks.com/

AutoStreamer (for making slipstreamed WinXP Install CD's - download link is near the bottom of the page)
http://www.windowsubcd.com/downloads.htm

EAC (digital audio extractor for CDs)
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

CD Check (file checksum generator and verificator, also allows file comparision, graphical interface. Free for home/personal/non commercial use.)
http://www.elpros.si/CDCheck/download.php

FSUM (another checksum generator and file verificion tool, allows checksum files with multiple hash types (CRC32, MD5, SHA, SHA1, and many more. Command Line only.)
http://www.slavasoft.com/fsum/

Driver Cleaner (cleans and removes all traces of old video card drivers, sound card drivers, and motherboard drivers. This is useful when upgrading drivers, as old components can cause problems. This tool is a MUST HAVE for anyone who upgrades said drivers, or is planning on switching video cards/sound cards. Solved all sorts of problems for me.
http://www.drivercleaner.net/

Have not tried this next one, but looks very powerful, but is probably only for advanced users. It generates "Parity Data" that can be used to reconstruct other data. Say you have 3 DVD's of Photos, video, etc. You can create a 4th set of data - parity information - (say on a CD) that can be used to reconstruct a set amount of data, if say some files on DVD2 and DVD3 became unreadable. The amount that can be recovered depends on the amount of parity data you created. This is where it gets confusing (at least to me).
Check it out, it is called QuickPar: http://www.quickpar.org.uk/

Edit: Almost forgot about Spybot Search and Destroy - spyware/adware removal tool.
http://www.spybot.info/en/index.html

[Josef K]

Winamp (version 2.x, though).

Convert. Useful for more than you'd think.

The Proxomitron. RIP Scott R. Lemmon

Logigamer for getting my twatting mouse to work the way that Logitech should have in the first place.

BNR. I use version 2 myself but v3.x shows promise.

GrabIt. Nice search facility in the latest version.

Gspot. Say no more...

Anything and everything from Sysinternals. Contig, Process Explorer, TCPView... the list is endless and shows that just because it's free - doesn't mean it's half-arsed.

[mastersmurfie]

Couple more that I wanted to add...

OneClickPlay-random playlist of mp3s in a folder

http://www.topshareware.com/OneClickPlay-download-2516.htm

and JR Directory Printer

http://www.spadixbd.com/freetools/JDirPrint.htm

mastersmurfie

[Sifaga]

picasa 2

http://www.picasa.com/download/index.php

[888888]

Freeware is great. Here is the freeware I use, in order of most favorite on.

CDex
MP3 Tag Tools
DVD Shrink
Abiword
Kerio Personal Firewall
XP-AntiSpy
Ad-Aware
Daemon Tools
Firefox
Winamp
Real Alternative
Quicktime Alternative
BitTornado
Spybot S&D
SiSoft Sandra Standard
MakeTorrent
Speedfan
UMark
DVD Decrypter
CPU-Z
AviPreview

These are all awesome programs in my opinon and the creators deserve a lot of thanks.

[scardi]

And don't forget Rostrum camera freeware.
This program can create AVI video file that pans across still images, creating a panoramic effect.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/rostrumcam.html

[guns1inger]

Most of mine have been included so far, however I haven't seen these mentioned

VNC - Virtual Network Computing. Remote computing app - small, fast and brilliant.

Web Matrix - a free asp.net development tool, supported by M$

Spyware Blaster - stop the bastards getting in in the first place

[888888]

I forgot Explorer XP

http://www.explorerxp.com/

[Garibaldi]

And don't forget Rostrum camera freeware.
This program can create AVI video file that pans across still images, creating a panoramic effect.

http://www.snapfiles.com/get/rostrumcam.html

Do you mean like Ken Burns effects? Slide show movie maker can do that as well.

[scardi]

Hello Garibaldi

Slide Show Movie Maker creates slideshows with fade in and fade out effects in AVI format from still images
Rostrum Camera software creates an AVI file that pans across a single still image creating a panoramic effect. It is possible to create zoom in and zoom out effects as well.

[burnman99]

Here is a link for a collection of great open source software.

http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/

Enjoy!

Rog

[zleepy]

I noticed the DVD Shrink users did not list VOB Blanker.

Why? What's wrong with it?

[alsyed]

dvd decryptor
image tools
firefox
virtualdubmod
media player classic
msm messenger
skype
spybot
adaware
besweet (gui)

i'm sure i have more lol

[Capmaster]

DVDShrink (DUH!)
DVDDecrypter
Spybot
Hardcopy
Camstudio
Goldwave
...so many good ones

[hech54]

JR Directory Printer
http://www.spadixbd.com/freetools/JDirPrint.htm

Exellent program

[Ironballs]

my 2pence worth...

VNC
VLC
Virtuadub + derivatives
DVDDecrypter
DVDShrink
Headache
and Windows XP (woops)

[glockjs]

fixed the list. next page

[Shocker Milwaukee]

Intel Active Monitor (Intel only) http://www.intel.com/design/motherbd/active.htm

Atomic Clock Sync (because XP doesn't)
http://www.worldtimeserver.com/atomic-clock/

Kprobe