PCs & Mobiles Forum - Useful Free Software Links (as recommended by forum users) - Page 1

Thought it might be handy to have a sticky with a list of software for various things, save people having to dig around old threads.

Just add suggestions to this one and I'll edit them into the first post every now and again.


Antivirus Software

Avast
Excellent interface, easy to use, sandboxing feature, good protection
http://www.avast.com/free-antivirus-download

Avira
Easy to use, good protection, but needs a bit of fiddling to disable nag screen
http://www.avira.com/en/avira-free-antivirus

MalwareBytes Anti-Malware
Possibly the most well known and used malware scanning and removal tool
http://www.malwarebytes.org/

ClamAV
Open source anti-virus engine, also runs on Linux, but unlikely to have as good a database as commercial products
http://www.clamav.net/lang/en/



Web Browsers

Firefox
One of the fastest, and the one with the most addons
http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/

Chrome
One of the fastest
https://www.google.com/chrome

Safari
The one with the most make text pretty options
http://www.apple.com/safari/download/

Opera
The one you think you heard about someone using once
http://www.opera.com/

IETester
A web developer that needs to check how things look in IE, but don't want to install lots of versions of IE?
http://www.my-debugbar.com/wiki/IETester/HomePage



Email Readers

Thunderbird
From the makers of Firefox, read emails and newsgroups, supports POP3/IMAP
http://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/



DVD/Video Players

Media Player Classic
Should play back almost anything!
http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/

VLC
For those that don't seem to like MPC, also does streaming of video across networks
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

ffdShow
If something doesn't play back because you are missing a codec, or you want to enhance the playback of video or audio, this is what you need. NOT a player, requires something like Media Player Classic as well.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/ffdshow.htm



Video Encoding/Recoding/Conversion

XMedia Recode
For encoding/re-encoding as things like DivX, Xvid, MKV, etc
http://www.xmedia-recode.de/download.html

Handbrake
For ripping DVDs to MPEG4 or H.264 (MKVs)
http://handbrake.fr/

VDownloader
Want to download a YouTube video? Or other streaming video or audio from the internet? Use this
http://vdownloader.com/



MP3 Players

Winamp
Supports all major audio formats, also video and includes music library and iPod support
http://www.winamp.com/



MP3 Utilities

MusicBrainz Picard
Automatic ID3 tag renaming based on extensive online database
http://musicbrainz.org/doc/MusicBrainz_Picard

MP3Tag
Comprehensive ID3 tag editor
http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

MP3 to iPhone/iPod Audio Book Converter
Also combines multiple files into one MP3
http://www.freeipodsoftware.com/



BitTorrent

uTorrent
Most popular bittorrent client
http://www.utorrent.com/

BitTorrent
Actually now the same as uTorrent (they bought it!), useful if you want to run two identical clients but tell them apart
http://www.bittorrent.com/



Hard Disk Utilities

TreeSize Free
Find out what is taking up all the space on your disk drive
http://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

UltraDefrag
The best and one of the not very prettiest disk defrag utilities
http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/

Unlocker
Ever been unable to delete a file in Explorer because Windows says it's in use? You can guess what this does then
http://www.emptyloop.com/unlocker/

Eraser
Wipe that hard disk before you throw it or give it away, nuke that folder with the naughty pictures in it
http://eraser.heidi.ie/

GParted
Partition editor, resizer, copier, just boot to the LIveCD!
http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

Clonezilla
Copy one hard drive to another, or many across a network, a free equivalent to Norton Ghost
http://www.clonezilla.org/

Parted Magic OS
A Live CD with various free partition and HDD management utilities (including GParted)
http://partedmagic.com/doku.php

EaseUs Partition Manager
Free version allows for most basic partition resizing, moving, copying, but doesn't work with Windows Server editions
http://www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm



Archive/Backup Utilities

7-Zip
For zipping/unzipping/raring, etc
http://www.7-zip.org/

Comodo Backup
For when the built in Windows backup isn't enough, like for instance you want to backup to a network drive
http://backup.comodo.com/

CDBurner XP
Remember when we all used Nero before it became bloatware? This is like that!
http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home

ImgBurn
Create and burn ISO images to CD/DVD
http://www.imgburn.com/



Windows Installation, Cleaning, Fixing and Optimising

Ninite
Install or update loads of free utilities and applications (including many on this thread) automatically
http://ninite.com/

PC Decrapifier
Automatically removes a host of rubbish apps installed on PCs and Notebooks so you don't have to
http://www.pcdecrapifier.com/

CCleaner
Cleans up temporary files and the windows registry
http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner



Remote Access

UltraVNC
Remote control your PC, from another PC, or your mobile, or well anything
http://www.uvnc.com/

TightVNC
Much like UltraVNC, also supports a Java viewer so you can remote control from a browser
http://www.tightvnc.com/

TeamViewer
Remote access via the browser, free for non commercial use
http://www.teamviewer.com/en/index.aspx

LogMeIn
Remote access via the browser, free for non commercial use
https://secure.logmein.com/UK/



Instant Messaging

Pidgin
Supports MSN, ICQ, Yahoo and a lot more
http://www.pidgin.im/



Images and Photography

RawTherapee
Can't afford Lightroom? Then try this!
http://rawtherapee.com/

BT747
GPS logging software, for getting that data off your logger and into one of many formats useful for geo-tagging photographs
http://www.bt747.org/

XnView
An all singing all dancing image viewer, with basic editing functions, useful if you want to crop or browse large folders filled with images
http://www.xnview.com/

GIMP
A sort of free equivalent to Photoshop
http://www.gimp.org/



Audio Editing and Creation

Audacity
Edit sound, supports most audio formats
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/



Emulation

VirtualBox
Run an old version of Windows, or DOS, or Linux, or Unix, inside a window. Also supports USB
https://www.virtualbox.org/

DOSBox
Run old DOS games under Windows (or Mac, or Linux)
http://www.dosbox.com/

Fuse
Spectrum emulator, probably the best, just add games from World of Spectrum
http://fuse-emulator.sourceforge.net/

Vice
Commodore 64 emulator (also emulates Vic 20 and C-128)
http://vice-emu.sourceforge.net/

MAME
Emulates loads and loads of arcade machines, requires ROMs to do anything useful
http://mamedev.org/

ClrMamePro
For making sure all your emulation roms are up to date
http://mamedev.emulab.it/clrmamepro/



Office Suites

LibreOffice
Began where OpenOffice left off
http://www.libreoffice.org/

Lotus Symphony
IBM's fork of OpenOffice, with more user friendly style toolbars
http://www-03.ibm.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home



General Applications

Stellarium
See what the stars are doing tonight
http://www.stellarium.org/



Editor
DVD REVIEWER
MYREVIEWER.COM

My Flickr Photostream

This item was edited on Wednesday, 15th February 2012, 18:32