A top-selection of programs for everyone and everyday use - the very best, you simply can't do without it... or at least, these programs make computing a lot easier and more fun... And best of all, most of them are just for free (license : freeware) !

Remark: if you first want some more info on software distribution methods, and how to install/un-install programs onto your computer, then click here to go to the info-pages

(the info page overview will open in a new window, closing it brings you back here).

 

 

scroll down or click the buttons on the left - all linx will open in a new window

 

Image Viewers-Browsers

 

XnView

 

A very efficient multimedia viewer, browser and converter, packed with lots of extra features, but still very easy to use. It supports nearly all graphic file-formats, including multipage tiff, animated gif, and more. Other features are batch conversion, screen capture, slide show, contact sheets,...

Included are also some handy photo editing functions, together with photo filters and effects.

 

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.xnview.com

 

 

ShoView

 

A small image viewer-browser with build-in slideshow feature.

It can be used to automatically search for graphics sorted by

image-type ; displays windows icons and cursors as well.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : The NightOwl's Home - Freeware

 

Photo Processing

 

PhotoFiltre

 

An easy to use photo processing and image retouching program with lots of features you

normally only expect in expensive graphic software packages.

 

The very intuitive interface makes photo-adjustments from simple to advanced done by

a mouse click. Creating photo-frames, setting transparency, advanced text effects and

more can de done in an easy way.

 

Features include an image browser, plug-in management, image scanning, input from digital

photo camera or webcam, printing, transparency management, exporting to icons,

advanced text effects, textures, image-assembling, and many more.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.photofiltre.com

 

 

Paint.NET

 

Paint.NET started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by

Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it.

Originally intended as a free replacement for the Microsoft Paint software that comes with Windows,

it has grown into a powerful yet simple image and photo editor tool.

 

Features

 

Simple, intuitive, and innovative user interface

 

Every feature and user interface element was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly

learnable without assistance. In order to handle multiple images easily, Paint.NET uses a tabbed

document interface. The tabs display a live thumbnail of the image instead of a text description.

This makes navigation very simple and fast.

 

Layers

 

Usually only found on expensive or complicated professional software, layers form the basis for a

rich image composition experience. You may think of them as a stack of transparency slides that,

when viewed together at the same time, form one image.

 

Active Online Community

 

Paint.NET has an online forum with a friendly, passionate, and ever-expanding community.

Be sure to check out the constantly growing list of tutorials and plug-ins!

 

Special Effects

 

Many special effects are included for enhancing and perfecting your images. Everything from

blurring, sharpening, red-eye removal, distortion, noise, and embossing are included. Also included

is our unique 3D Rotate/Zoom effect that makes it very easy to add perspective and tilting.

 

Adjustments are also included which help you tweak an image's brightness, contrast, hue, saturation,

curves, and levels. You can also convert an image to black and white, or sepia-toned.

 

Powerful Tools

 

Paint.NET includes simple tools for drawing shapes, including an easy-to-use curve tool for drawing

splines or Bezier curves. The Gradient tool, new for 3.0, has been cited as an innovative improvement

over similar tools provided by other software. The facilities for creating and working with selections is

powerful, yet still simple enough to be picked up quickly. Other powerful tools include the Magic Wand

for selecting regions of similar color, and the Clone Stamp for copying or erasing portions of an image.

There is also a simple text editor, a tool for zooming, and a Recolor tool.

 

Unlimited History

 

Everybody makes mistakes, and everybody changes their mind. To accommodate this, every action

you perform on an image is recorded in the History window and may be undone. Once you've undone

an action, you can also redo it. The length of the history is only limited by available disk space.

 

Open Source and Free

 

Paint.NET is provided free-of-charge, and the source code (all 140,000+ lines of it) is also available

for free under generous licensing terms. The bulk of Paint.NET is written in C#, with only a small

amount of code related to setup and shell-integration written in C++.

 

Paint.NET is a trademark of Rick Brewster. All other trademarks are the property of their respective

owners. Paint.Net / Text is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 United

States License. For more info see the Paint.NET website.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.getpaint.net

 

 

The Gimp

 

A freely distributed complete digital imaging solution - maybe the very best you can get !

 

Extremely powerful functions and tools create nearly endless possibilities making it possible

to do just about anything from simple image editing to the most complex photoprocessing

and image authoring procedures.

 

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program.

The GIMP is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.gimp.org

 

Drawing - Painting

 

Artweaver

 

Artweaver is a simple program for creative painting, offering lots of artistic effects. You can create

sketches from photos and experiment with a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is nearly

as realistic as possible (e.g. chalk, charcoal, pencils,...).

 

Included are all standard image editing tools like gradient, crop, fill and selection tools and effect filters

such as sharpen, blur,emboss, mosaic,...

 

Artweaver has transparency and layering support.

 

It can load your photos as tracing images and recreate them as paintings. The most common graphic

file formats are supported. And there's also Pen Tablet support for a realistic feeling.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.artweaver.de

 

 

ArtRage

 

Ever wanted to play with paint? ArtRage lets you do it in an easy way.

Just get this stylish package and start painting from the moment you open it up.

You can paint with oils, sketch with pencils and much more.

Or load your photos as tracing images and recreate them as paintings.

 

License : FREEWARE (light version)

 

WEBSITE : http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html

 

Duplicate Search

 

DubDetector

 

Most large image collections often contain duplicate images under different names,

or slightly modified versions of the same images.

DupDetector will find and delete those duplicate or near duplicate images from your image collections.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.prismaticsoftware.com

 

Image Renamer

 

PixRenamer

 

PixRenamer is a small file renaming utility for the most common renaming tasks. It's basic features include the automatic preselection of different graphic file-formats and numbering options. Handy tool for renaming lots of photos imported from digital camera's, scanners or other sources.

 

Although the program is merely intended for the renaming of large quantities

of images, it can rename other kinds of files as well.

To make the -sometimes tricky- renaming process safer, by default the program will warn about renaming system critical files.

The straightforward interface is very easy to use, while the build-in safety features and alerts make it safe and suitable for everyone.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : The NightOwl's Home - Freeware

 

EXIF Tools

 

EXIFeditor

 

EXIFeditor is one of the few EXIF editing programs which will allow you to edit every EXIF tag within your digital photos. The program can also create and remove tags and the EXIF data can be exported to / imported from a file (CSV-format). Batch processing is possible on a unlimited number of photos. Once you've taken a few moments to become familiar with the interface, EXIFeditor is fast and easy to use.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.kiwiczech.net

 

 

Exifer

 

Manages the metadata (EXIF/IPTC) of pictures taken by digital cameras.

 

Because many image processing software destroys this metadata when saving such files,

the idea was to create a backup of the metadata before editing it in any software, and

then, after that to restore it back into the processed file.

 

Lots of features: supports EXIF and IPTC data in JPEG and TIFF files, reads and displays many camera maker-notes, backup, restore and compare metadata (EXIF/IPTC), image cropping (with aspect ratio), watermarks, customizable view of metadata, export/import of metadata (CSV, Canto Cumulus, descript.ion files), and more...

 

JPEG features: edit metadata, insert EXIF data from THM files, creating/inserting/rotating EXIF thumbnails, renaming and redating with various formats, lossless rotation,...

 

License : FREEWARE ("postcardware", see the website)

 

WEBSITE : http://www.exifer.friedemann.info

 

Image Morphing

 

info: image morphing is the process of mixing two or more images together in such a way that preset corresponding points will overflow into each other, resulting in a smoothly fading, moving image

 

 

SmartMorph

 

Full-featured and high-precision image morphing program - allows resizing and cropping to achieve the best morphing effects - the resulting animation can be computed and displayed in real-time and saved in AVI format.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://meesoft.logicnet.dk

 

 

Sqirlz Morph

 

Sqirlz Morph will do the morphing process in a fine and easy way. It allows you to mark features on several images, and the program will mix them together. Multi-morphing is available - any number of images can be morphed together. The morph animations can be saved as Macromedia Flash (SWF) files, AVI video clips, and also as bitmap and JPEG files.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.xiberpix.com

 

Image Effects (animated)

 

Sqirlz Water Reflections

 

Sqirlz Water Reflections is a way of adding pools of water and rain or snowfall effects to an image or AVI video. The pools can be of any shape and can be animated to give gentle rippling reflections of the scene above them.

 

The program offers many controls and effects, including a variety of ripples, perspectives, wave sizes, reflection colors, textures and more, making it an excellent tool to create water effects.

 

Animations can be saved as Macromedia Flash (SWF) files, animated GIF files, AVI video clips, and sets of bitmap, JPEG and TIFF files.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.xiberpix.com

 

Animated Gif Creator

 

UnFREEz

 

An incredibly tiny, super easy to use animated gif creation program. Just drag and drop, the program will take care of the rest. Maybe the most simple and easy anigif creator you can find.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.whitsoftdev.com

 

Media Players

 

Media Player Classic

 

A very good alternative for the standard windows media player.

Fast, simple and safe - opens a lot of different media formats.

 

Remark: Media Player Classic is also included in the K-Lite Mega Codec Pack

listed below under Video/Audio Codecs; see the info there before downloading.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli

 

Video Tools

 

VirtualDub

 

VirtualDub is a video capture and processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms.

 

The program is streamlined for fast linear video operations, without the need of the full editing power of a general-purpose video-processor. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

 

VirtualDub is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.virtualdub.org

 

 

RAD Video Tools

 

The RAD Video Tools give you everything you need to create, use, convert and distribute your video files. Nearly all video file-formats can be handled. The RAD Video Tools include both the popular codecs, Bink and Smacker. They include the compressors, sound mixers, players, and general graphics and sound converters.

 

The RAD Video Tools can even compile Bink or Smacker files into EXE files for self-running stand-alone videos (the player is bundled into the EXE file, so the user doesn't need to download anything else); and the creation of windows screen savers is also supported.

 

The Bink and Smacker players can be distributed free of charge, and a pop-up credit window will appear at closing (you can license a non-logo/credit window version of the player as well).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

 

Video/Audio Codecs

 

info: codec stands for "compressor-decompressor" - it's a piece of software needed for the

encoding and decoding (playback) of the different sorts (formats) of multimedia files

(audio and video)

 

codecs are used in combination with a media player and will allow the player to open (play)

the appropriate file format - codecs may come as a single codec or bundled in a "codec pack"

 

 

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack

 

Maybe the best solution for playing virtually all your media files.

 

A very complete codec and codec-related tools package, containing everything you need to

play all the popular and even some rare media formats.

 

The package is always up-to-date with the latest versions of the codecs.

 

It's very well tested, so that it doesn't contain any conflicting codecs, and it tries to avoid

potential problems with existing codecs and even fixes some problems.

 

The user-friendly installation can be set to default or fully customizable for advanced users.

 

The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack also includes Media Player Classic, and the QuickTime and Real

Alternatives, making it possible to play nearly all your media files with just one player.

 

Remark: as there are different packages from small to extra-large (the Mega Codec Pack), you

can select which package is most suitable for your needs - all info at the link below.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.codecguide.com/index.html

 

 

VideoInspector

 

Power tool designed to provide you with as much information as possible about your video files.

With VideoInspector you'll know why your video file has no sound or refuses to play correctly

the program will help you installing the required codecs (coder/decoder software - see below)

for an optimal performance - it also can search your system to find which codecs are available

and it can process multiple video files and export its results as HTML or plain text files

(in case you need some codec, see the codec pack below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.kcsoftwares.com

 

Sound Recording

 

Audacity ®

 

Cross-platform sound editor: Audacity is an easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for

Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

 

Audacity can record and edit sounds, record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital

recordings or CDs. It can edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files, cut, copy, splice, and

mix sounds together, change the speed or pitch of a recording, and more.

 

Audacity is free open source software, developed by a group of volunteers and distributed

under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://audacity.sourceforge.net

 

MP3 Tag Tools

 

info: besides the filename of an mp3 soundtrack, several other information is embedded into the music-file, such as the name of the artist, the music genre, the year and so on; this information is stored in several fields, known as the mp3 "tags", which can be edited, corrected, deleted and/or completed using an Mp3 tag utility program.

 

 

Mp3 Tag Tools - ID3 Tag Editing Tool

 

Mp3 Tag Tools will edit and manage the Mp3 Tags in a fast and intuitive way. The program can accurately read all MPEG info, and append bit rate and mode to filenames. It has several features, such as mass tagging, writing tags from filenames, renaming files from tags using custom formats, and lyrics and picture tagging. It can also cleanup filenames, correct their case, organize mp3 files from tag info, and more. It's a complete, yet easy to use, mp3 tag editing solution.

 

Mp3 Tag Tools is free open software, distributed under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://sourceforge.net/projects/massid3lib

 

Audio Convertor

 

Free Mp3 to WMA Converter

 

A very handy tool to convert different audio file formats into each other (Mp3, Wma, AAC, Ogg vorbis, Wav). It includes a Tag Editor and all the necessary options you need.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://koyotstar.free.fr

 

 

Jodix Free WMA to Mp3 Converter

 

Free WMA to Mp3 Converter converts Windows Media Audio (wma) and Windows Media Video files (wmv, asf) files to Mp3 with just a few clicks. Files can be selected or dragged one by one or processed in batch.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.Jodix.com

 

Voice Techno

 

DeskBot

 

Free multi-functional text and clipboard reader featuring animated talking characters.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.bellcraft.com/deskbot

 

Music Notation

 

Finale NotePad ®

 

Your invitation to the world of music notation software: find out how fun and easy it is to

transform your musical ideas into beautifully printed music!

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.finalemusic.com

 

CD/DVD Burner

 

CDBurnerXP Pro

 

Excellent, full-featured and easy to use CD/DVD burning program.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.cdburnerxp.se

 

 

InfraRecorder

 

Full featured CD/DVD burning solution.

Easy to use application interface with Windows Explorer integration.

 

Create custom data, audio and mixed-mode projects and record them to physical discs as well as disc images.

 

Supports recording to dual-layer DVD's.

Blank (erase) rewritable discs using different methods.

Record disc images (ISO and BIN/CUE).

Fixate discs (write lead-out information to prevent further data from being added to the disc).

Scan the SCSI/IDE bus for devices and collect information about their capabilities.

Create disc copies, on the fly and using a temporary disc image.

Import session data from multi-session discs and add more sessions to them.

Display disc information.

Save audio and data tracks to files (.wav, .wma, .ogg, .mp3 and .iso).

 

InfraRecorder is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net

 

Audio-CD Ripper

 

CDex

 

Handy tool to do all sorts of things audio related - mainly focused on ripping and converting.

Easily convert your home cd collection into a mp3 collection.

Built-in support for many encoders.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdexos

 

 

FairStars CD Ripper

 

Powerful audio-cd ripping software with a well-designed, easy-to-use interface (skin support).

Rips audio tracks to WMA, MP3, OGG, VQF, FLAC, APE and WAV format files on-the-fly.

Supports normalization (automatic volume adjustment) when ripping - supports ID3 tags.

Playback with built-in player.

Supports multiple CD/DVD drivers.

Free CDDB (querying/submitting cd disc info from/to the freedb (Internet CD Database).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.fairstars.com

 

 

Audiograbber

 

Audiograbber grabs digital audio from cd's. It copies the audio digitally -not through the

soundcard- which enables you to make perfect copies of the originals. It can even perform

a test to see that the copies really are perfect. Audiograbber can also automatically normalize

the music, delete silence from the start and/or end of tracks, and send them to a variety or

external MP3 encoders, such as Fraunhofers L3enc, or even use some MP3/WMA encoders internally for automatic creation of MP3's. Audiograbber can download and upload disc info from

freedb, an Internet compact disc database. You can even record your vinyl LP's or cassette

tapes with Audiograbber and make wav's or MP3's of them. There are a lot more functions in

the program, nearly anything one can wish.

 

All that comes with a nice and easy understandable user interface and a good help file with

descriptions of all functions and settings. The program is very flexible and configurable and

still easy to understand. It works with almost all CD-ROM drives that can read digital audio.

 

Another great thing with this software is that it does not put a single file in your windows

directories! No DLL's, OCX's, device drivers, spyware, adware or whatever else that messes

up the system. Not a single entry in the registry or win.ini. If you delete the Audiograbber

directory it's all gone, that's it!

 

Audiograbber used to be shareware but is now released as freeware!

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.audiograbber.com-us.net

 

WordProcessing

 

AbiWriter

 

A complete, full featured free and open source WordProcessor with all the functions you need well-packed in an easy interface.

 

remark: Windows version included in the Ubuntu release

            (see below under operating systems - Linux)

 

License : FREEWARE (open source)

 

WEBSITE : http://www.ubuntu.com

 

OCR Software

 

Simple OCR

 

OCR stands for Optical Character Recognition. When a document is scanned, the scanner sends an image to the computer. To make a scanned document editable in a word-processor, the text must be recognized by OCR software and converted to a normal text-document.

 

SimpleOCR has accurate character recognition capabilities without the complexity and expense of many other high-cost programs.

 

License : FREEWARE (machine-print recognition)

 

WEBSITE : http://www.simpleocr.com

 

Integrated Office Software Packages

 

OpenOffice.org

 

The complete free and open source solution for all home and business needs, including word-processing, database, and spreadsheet programs.

 

Runs on all major platforms.

OpenOffice.org is available in many different languages.

 

License : FREEWARE (open source)

 

WEBSITE : http://www.openoffice.org

 

 

Remark : "Open Office" is a registered trademark of the company Open Office (automation in Linux and open source). It has no formal relation with OpenOffice.org (open source office package).

Benelux - Dutch translation

Open Office is een geregistreerd handelsmerk van het bedrijf Open Office (automatisering met Linux en open source). Het heeft geen formele relatie met OpenOffice.org (open source kantoorpakket).

 

URL Managers

 

AM-DeadLink

 

Detects dead links and duplicates in your browser bookmarks or favorites.

Works with Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Netscape.

Additionally you can download FavIcons for Internet Explorer and Opera.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.aignes.com

 

NewsReader

 

Free Agent / Forté Agent

 

The top-rated Usenet newsreader on the internet and an excellent POP email client as well.

Fully automatic joining and decoding of newsgroup messages, lots of functions.

 

License : FREEWARE (FREE AGENT (LIGHT VERSION)) + FREE TRIAL FORTE AGENT

 

WEBSITE : http://www.forteinc.com/main/homepage.php

 

Website Rippers

 

NetMasher

 

A simple to use application for stripping data from websites. It can copy an entire site,

or just selected sections, or only a specific type of content, such as images.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.paulalanfreshney.com/netmasher/index.htm

 

 

HTTrack

 

Easy to use offline browser utility. It allows you to download a website to a local

directory, building recursively all directories, getting HTML, images, and other files from

the server to your computer. HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure.

Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you can browse the

site from link to link, as if you were viewing it online. HTTrack can also update an existing

mirrored site, and resume interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has

an integrated help system.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.httrack.com

 

Instant Messenger

 

Miranda IM

 

Miranda IM is an open-source multi-protocol instant messaging client for Microsoft Windows.

 

It supports nearly all Instant Messaging protocols, so you just need only one program to chat.

Supported protocols are AIM (AOL Instant Messenger), Gadu-Gadu, IAX (Inter-Asterisk Exchange),

ICQ, IRC (Internet Relay Chat), Jabber, MSN, Netsend, Tlen, Yahoo, and more...

 

Miranda IM is small, easy, very light on system resources and extremely fast. Featuring a powerful

plugin-based framework, boasting over 350 plugins, Miranda IM is one of the most flexible and

customizable messaging clients you can get.

 

Miranda IM is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.miranda-im.org

 

 

Pidgin

 

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once. The program can log in to multiple accounts on multiple IM networks simultaneously.

 

Pidgin supports many features of the various networks, such as file transfer, away-messages, and typing notification. It also goes beyond that and provides many unique features. A few popular features are Buddy Pounces, which give the ability to notify you, send a message, play a sound, or run a program when a specific buddy goes away, signs online, or returns from idle; and plugins, consisting of text replacement, a buddy ticker, extended message notification, iconify on away, spell checking, tabbed conversations and more.

 

Pidgin is released under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.pidgin.im

 

VirusScan

 

AntiVir (Personal Edition)

 

AntiVir Personal Edition offers a complete and very effective protection against

computer viruses and other harmful programs on a single pc.

 

 

License : FREEWARE (FREE FOR PERSONAL USE)

 

WEBSITE : http://www.free-av.com

 

Anti-Spyware

 

SpyBot - Search & Destroy

 

Detects and removes spyware of different kinds from your computer.

The program comes also with some very useful extra system-check tools.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.safer-networking.org/index.php?page=spybotsd

 

 

Pc Tools ThreadFire (Free Edition)

 

ThreatFire does not rely on list of known security threads in order to protect you. The program monitors your computer at very low levels to seek out even deeply hidden threats. It protects you by intelligently blocking every suspicious program behavior using its advanced exclusive intelligent ActiveDefense technology.

 

The program is very easy to use and does not need any complicated installation. Its pre-configured settings give you the best protection, just "running-right-out-of-the-box".

 

 However, only for (very) advanced users, there's also an option to create your own custom detection rules.

 

Besides all this, ThreadFire runs on very low system resources, and can work seamlessly together with nearly all other protection and security software.

 

License : FREEWARE (free for non-commercial personal and home use)

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.threatfire.com

 

 

CWShredder

 

Removes the CoolWebSearch (CWS) trojan/hijacker malware

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.intermute.com/products/cwshredder.html

 

 

Bazooka

 

Very fast spyware scanner intended for the advanced power user.

 

It detects a multitude of spyware, adware, trojans, keyloggers and trackware components;

sources of irritation that antivirus software does not often deal with.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.kephyr.com

 

 

Hijack This

 

In-deep malware scanner, designed for the power user.

 

Detects browser hijackers (trojans) changing your homepage, start page, search page,

search assistant, and/or redirecting you to unwanted sites or search engines, creating pop-up ads and more.

 

After detection, you decide what to remove manually (advanced).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/index.html

 

 

ToolBar Cop

 

Removes third-party toolbar icons from the standard Internet Explorer toolbar.

You can select each entry and delete it manually (advanced).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.mvps.org/sramesh2k/toolbarcop.htm

 

File Shredder

 

AnalogX SuperShredder

 

Files which were deleted from a computer system in the normal way, can be restored most of the time. SuperShredder will definitely delete a file, without possibility to recover it.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.analogx.com

 

Text Tools

 

TXTcollector

 

TXTcollector grabs all text-files (*.txt) files from the directory of your choice and combines them into a new (larger) text file. Handy to grab a cd full of readme's and read them all in one go, or for combining lots of info files, network log files and more.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://bluefive.pair.com/txtcollector.htm

 

 

Foxit Reader

 

Free reader/viewer/printer for PDF documents.

 

This one is less than 1M, it needs no installation and opens up immediately.

Type on any pdf-document, print it out with your remarks.

Extremely easy to use.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.foxitsoftware.com

 

 

Easy PDF to Text Converter

 

Ever wanted to extract the text from pdf files...

This tool processes at very high speed and can convert multiple pdf files to text files at once

and it does not need Adobe Acrobat software.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.pdf-to-html-word.com/pdf-to-text

 

File & Dir Tools

 

JR Directory Printer

 

A fine file and directory printer utility which allows you to print a listing of every file contained within a directory and/or subdirectory. The result will be displayed in NotePad or in the default text editor, making it easy to print, modify and save the listing.

 

The program comes with some very handy options to modify the output, such as recurse sub-directories, file-name formatting (lowercase, dos-style, name length), show file-attributes,...

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.spadixbd.com/freetools

 

 

YourDir

 

An easy to use program to printout the directory structure and optionally the file listing.

The program can also create a jpeg-image of a the listing and/or export it to a CSV-file.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.primeoption.com.au/FreewareYourDir.htm

 

 

Lupas Rename

 

One of the best and most complete programs for file and folder renaming.

Besides simple renaming, it offers a lot of useful features, such as replacing/inserting substrings, crop-function, case-conversion and many more.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://rename.lupasfreeware.org

or : http://www.azheavymetal.com/~lupasrename/lupasrename.php

 

File Compression

 

7-Zip

 

A good and easy file unpacking/packing tool, suitable for the most common archiving tasks.

 

Supported archive-formats:

Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR

Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS

 

 High compression ratio in the new 7z format with LZMA compression

 

Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats

Self-extracting capability for 7z format

Integration with Windows Shell

Powerful File Manager

Powerful command line version

 

7-Zip is open source software. Most of the source code is under the GNU LGPL license (see below).

 The unRAR code is under a mixed license: GNU LGPL + unRAR restrictions. License information can

be found at the 7-Zip website.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.7-zip.org

 

 

 

ExtractNow

 

A simple utility that allows you to extract multiple files quickly and easily. ExtractNow can

bundle compressed files and extract their contents in one fell swoop. The program has a very

clean and easy to use interface. It supports the two most popular compression formats, ZIP

and RAR, as well as a handful of other formats. Simple but not simplistic, this is a powerful

and reliable program that will be of use to anyone who manages many compressed files.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.extractnow.com

 

Font Viewer

 

FontPage

 

FontPage makes it easy to examine and compare all of the fonts on your system; you can view any typeface in bold, italic, underline and also 3D. In addition, you can also compare two selected fonts and preview fonts that are not yet installed on your system.

 

FontPage can also print a sample page for selected fonts or print a list of all installed fonts.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://bluefive.pair.com/fontpage.htm

 

Icon Design

 

MiTeC Icon Explorer

 

Application for browsing, searching, extracting and managing icon files and libraries.

This tool allows managing icon libraries, stand-alone icons and executables containing icons as resources. It supports also 32-bit icons. The program searches a specified path with directory recursion and examines any file checking if it contains any icons. All icons will be extracted and can be saved as icons, individual icon images or bitmaps.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.mitec.cz

 

Screen Capture

 

AutoScreenRecorder

 

Screen recorder to save your screen activities into video files.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.wisdom-soft.com

 

 

A selection of fine system power tools and advanced utilities... intended for the power user

and everyone who likes to become one... Don't let the system control you anymore, take

over the controls so it's you who runs the machine...

 

Warning: These programs may contain extremely powerful features and are not intended to be

used by the novice user. Remember, "don't change a winning team": if your system is running

fine by now, don't try anything just for fun or without the need to modify your system,

unless you know exactly what you're doing and which may be the results of your actions.

 

Tweakers

 

Ms Powertoys - TweakUI

 

For Windows XP

 

Ms PowerToys contains a set of extra programs, adding more functionality to the Windows system. The MsTweakUI tweaking tool offers many features to fine-tune the system without the need of manually editing the registry. A fixed value in tweaking, personalizing and optimizing your system in a very safe way.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

 

 

Xteq X-Setup

 

The ultimate tool for system tuning, allowing you to change lots of settings that are normally hidden deeply into the system.

 

License : SHAREWARE - FREE TRIAL

 

WEBSITE : http://www.x-setup.net

 

Registry Tools

 

RegSeeker

 

A powerfull, yet safe to use registry cleaner (changes are restorable).

 

The program displays various information like startup entries, several histories, installed applications and much more.

 

Search for any item inside your registry, export/delete the results, open them in the registry.

RegSeeker also includes a tweaks panel to optimize your OS, and a file tool to search for duplicate files, bad shortcuts and more.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

 

 

Eusing Free Registry Cleaner

 

Registry repair software that allows you to safely clean and repair registry problems with a few simple mouse clicks.

The program scans the Windows registry for invalid or obsolete information and provides a list of the errors found. After fixing the invalid entries, the system will be more stable and run faster.

For maximum safety, Eusing Free Registry Cleaner will make a backup of the repaired entries. You will be able to restore any changes made using the software by choosing Restore registry backup.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.eusing.com

 

 

Lexun RegScrubXP

 

Safely cleans junk out of the Windows 2000/XP system registry (changes are restorable).

You can shift through a list of file extensions, company names, run upon startup programs,

Internet Explorer history, and uninstall programs to delete what you think is junk.

 

Tweak the registry with the easy to use build-in tweaker.

Contains an additional help file with dozens of tips and tweaks.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : get it from MajorGeeks at: http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=2048

 

 

SpyMe Tools

 

SpyMe Tools detects Registry and File changes by creating and comparing snapshots. If any application installs spyware, adware, dlls, programs, files, or any other type of file, picture, or program, etc. or when it makes any changes to the Registry's content, you will be able to see exactly where the modification occurred so you can take measures. Other features are the possibility to run in real-time modus and to create/restore registry backups.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE :  http://www.lcibrossolutions.com

 

Screen Resolution

 

XP QuickRes

 

Many websites are designed for optimal viewing in a certain screen resolution

(such as 800x600 or 1024x768 or other), which may be different to the one set on your system.

 

XP QuickRes is a fine system tray tool which will allow you to quickly and easily switch between resolutions, simply by right-clicking its icon in the system tray. Also very usefull for web-designers.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.dougknox.com

(note: once on the site, use the search function to find XP QuickRes)

 

System Cleanup

 

CCleaner

 

CrapCleaner is a fast system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system, allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up hard disk space. It also cleans traces of

your online activities such as your Internet history.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.ccleaner.com

 

 

 

Revo Uninstaller

 

An innovative uninstall utility, complete with a set of handy powerful cleanup tools

 

With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application's data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program's regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that usually are left over on your computer. Even if you have a broken installation, Revo Uninstaller scans for an application's data on your hard disk drives and in the Windows registry and shows all found files, folders and registry items so you can delete them.

With its unique "Hunter mode", Revo Uninstaller offers you some simple, easy to use, but effective and powerful approaches to manage (uninstall, stop, delete, disable from auto starting) and to get information about your installed and/or running applications.

 

Revo Uninstaller also comes with a set of handy and powerful tools to clean up your system.

Included are an Auto Start and Windows Tools Manager, a Junk Files Cleaner, several Cleaners for Browser, Office and Windows history files and more.

 

The Unrecoverable Delete Tool and the Evidence Remover are secure delete tools which will erase files and folders without the possibility of recovering them.

 

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.revouninstaller.com

 

System Info

 

Ms Sysinternals - Autoruns

 

This utility shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include the ones in the StartUp folder and the ones in the Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. Autoruns has the most comprehensive knowledge of auto-starting locations of any startup monitor (a starting list of auto-run locations was obtained from David Solomon's "Windows Internals" seminar). A "Hide Signed Microsoft Entries" option helps you to zoom in on third-party auto-starting images that have been added to your system.

 

An undispensable utility to get accurate and complete start-up system info and also a fine tool to detect any malware starting up and running on the system.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.sysinternals.com

 

 

Ms Sysinternals - Process Explorer

 

Process Explorer shows information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded. The Process Explorer display consists of two sub-windows. The top window always shows a list of the currently active processes, including the names of their owning accounts, whereas the information displayed in the bottom window depends on the mode that Process Explorer is in: if it is in handle mode you'll see the handles that the process selected in the top window has opened; if Process Explorer is in DLL mode you'll see the DLLs and memory-mapped files that the process has loaded. Process Explorer also has a powerful search capability that will quickly show you which processes have particular handles opened or DLLs loaded.

The unique capabilities of Process Explorer make it useful for tracking down DLL-version problems or handle leaks, and provide insight into the way Windows and applications work.
 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.sysinternals.com

 

 

 

Ms Sysinternals - Process Monitor

 

Process Monitor is an advanced monitoring tool for Windows that shows real-time file system, Registry and process/thread activity. Its uniquely powerful features will make it a core utility in your system troubleshooting and malware hunting toolkit.

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.sysinternals.com

 

 

Ms Sysinternals - BgInfo

 

A very handy tool for everyone who manages multiple computers. BgInfo automatically displays relevant information about a Windows computer on the desktop's background, such as the computer name, IP address, service pack version, and more. You can edit any field as well as the font and background colors, and can place it in your startup folder so that it runs every boot, or even configure it to display as the background for the logon screen.


Because BGInfo simply writes a new desktop bitmap and exits, it does not consume the system resources, neither does it interfere with other applications.
 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.sysinternals.com

 

 

SIW - System Info for Windows

 

A powerful read-only / display-only system information tool that gathers detailed information

about system properties and settings. It displays detailed specs for motherboard, BIOS, CPU,

devices, memory, video, disk drives, ports, printers, operating system, installed programs,

processes, services, serial numbers (CD keys), users, open files, system uptime, network,

network shares, as well as real-time monitors for CPU, memory, page file usage, network

traffic and currently active network connections; it displays also passwords hidden behind

asterisks, installed codecs, and more SIW is a standalone tool that does not require installation.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www3.sympatico.ca/gtopala

 

Hard-Disk Tools

 

HD Tune

 

Hard Disk utility including benchmark test, detailed disk information, disk health check, temperature display, error scan. HD Tune may also work with other storage devices such as memory cards, USB sticks, iPods, etc.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.hdtune.com

 

 

HDD Health

 

Full featured hard-disk failure prediction agent. HDD Health installs in the system tray and monitors hard-disk(s) activity. It will send alerts in case of possible hard-disk troubles.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.panterasoft.com

 

Hex Editor

 

Hexplorer

 

A good binary (hex) file editor for Windows with an innovative visualisation and interpretation

of the binary file-data. If you know what this is all about, then download it!

 

If you want some info, read this: a hex-editor is a program to view and edit the raw file data.

Contrary to a text editor or a graphic editor, it doesn't format the file content, but it displays

it as it is; that's simply as binary data, allowing you to edit it hexadecimally. So it gives you

low level access to each kind of file, providing tools to operate on the data.

 

Hexplorer is distributed under the GNU General Public License (see below).

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://artemis.wszib.edu.pl/~mdudek

or : https://sourceforge.net/projects/hexplorer

 

Install Creator

 

Inno Setup

 

Maybe the best free installer creator you can get; the program rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability - amongst its many features are:

 

- supports all versions of Windows in use today; support for install of 64-bit applications

- single .exe creation for easy online distribution, support for disk spanning

- standard Windows 2000/XP-style wizard interface; customizable setup types

- complete uninstall capabilities

- integrated support for "deflate", bzip2, and 7-Zip LZMA file compression

- ability to compare file version info, replace in-use files,...

- register DLL/OCX's and type libraries; install fonts; creation of registry and .ini entries

- creation of shortcuts anywhere, including in the Start Menu and on the desktop

- support for multilingual installs

- support for passworded and encrypted installs

- support for silent install and uninstall

- integrated Pascal scripting engine (full source code is available (Borland Delphi 2.0-5.0))

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.jrsoftware.org

 

Unit Conversion

 

Convert

 

A very handy unit conversion program. It converts the most popular units of distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass, power, density, pressure, energy and many others

and it includes a feature to create custom conversions.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.joshmadison.com

 

Chemistry - Periodic Table

 

Periodic Table

 

Application containing all the elements of the Periodic Table along with images of the

elements in their natural state.

 

Lots of features included: detailed information on each element, images, glossary, graphs of important element properties, biographies of the element discoverers, and more. Interactive display allows you to view the states of the elements at any temperature.

 

License : FREEWARE

 

WEBSITE : http://www.paulalanfreshney.com/education/pt/index.htm

 

Linux

 

The Linux Operating System

 

The operating system that is causing a revolution in the world of computing

 

Linux is a free Unix-type operating system originally created by Linus Torvalds with

the assistance of developers around the world. Developed under the GNU General

Public License (see below), the source code for Linux is freely available to everyone.

 

License : FREEWARE (open source)

 

WEBSITE : http://www.linux.org or http://www.linuxbelgium.be

 

Linux - Ubuntu

 

Ubuntu - "Linux for human beings"

 

Ubuntu is a complete Linux-based operating system, freely available with both community and professional support. It is developed by a large community and we invite you to participate too!

 

The Ubuntu community is built on the ideas enshrined in the Ubuntu Philosophy: that software should be available free of charge, that software tools should be usable by people in their local language and despite any disabilities, and that people should have the freedom to customise and alter their software in whatever way they see fit.

 

These freedoms make Ubuntu fundamentally different from traditional proprietary software: not only are the tools you need available free of charge, you have the right to modify your software until it works the way you want it to.

 

Ubuntu is suitable for both desktop and server use. The current Ubuntu release supports PC (Intel x86), 64-bit PC (AMD64), UltraSPARC T1 (Sun Fire T1000 and T2000) and PowerPC (Apple iBook and Powerbook, G4 and G5) architectures.

 

Ubuntu includes more than 16000 pieces of software, but the core desktop installation fits on a single CD. Ubuntu covers every standard desktop application from word processing and spreadsheet applications to web server software and programming tools.

 

License : FREEWARE (open source)   -   Get it free on cd now !

 

 

WEBSITE : http://www.ubuntu.com

 

 

 

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Remark: click below to read more about free, open-source software distributed under the

GNU General Public License