Useful Freeware Apps

[ceramic'cow]

Right - We had one of these before, but it appears to have got lost in the reshuffle. I know that I for one found it pretty handy, so let's have your suggestions for useful programs that you can get for free, and I'll try and keep this first post updated.

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Security

AdAwareand Spybot S&D - both do spyware detection.]

AVG Free Edition - regularly-updated virus scanner.

Avira AntiVir Personal- Virus protection, including guard; free for personal use.

Comodo Firewall Pro - Firewall including malware defense, detailed adjustments (if wanted).

Zone Alarm - Firewall

Sophos Anti-Rootkit - Anti-Rootkit application.

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Internet

Mozilla Firefox - Fantastic free web browser that makes Internet Explorer look and feel positively archaic. 'Nuff said.

Mozilla Thunderbird - The e-mail client equivalent of Firefox. Not quite so revolutionary as Firefox, but does the job exactly as it's meant to.

Mozilla Sunbird - for those that want Outlook Calendar features but don't want outlook.

Pidgin - instant messenger that works across many different providers, ie. aol, MSN, yahoo.

Trillian - same as above.

Miranda IM - Basic, low-resource, fully customisable instant messaging client; protocols (ICQ, AIM, Jabber, MSN etc.) are added via plugins.

mIRC - Internet Relay Chat client.

SmartFTP - Clearly arranged FTP client that supports SFTP over SSH; compatible with RTSR FTP server ; free for non-commercial use.

SyncBack Freeware - Backup and synchronisation tool, highly customisable via GUI (include/exclude by file format/folder/date etc., exclude specific files etc.).

A Bit Torrent client that for some reason I can't manage a to post a link to. But I guess you could always Google It.

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Media (General)

ImgBurn - lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application.

DAEMON Tools Lite- Emulates optical devices so as to mount images (.iso, .nrg (Nero), .cue sheets etc.) you made of CDs, DVDs etc.

DVD Decrypter - Burns DVD images (.iso, .bin, .nrg etc.) or copies of audio and video files from DVD to DVD-R/RW; development discontinued due to legal issues; explanation available from Wikipedia.

DVD Shrink - Creates backups (harddrive images or burnable files) of DVDs; download locations for installation file here or via search engine.

IrfanView - Fast, low-resource graphics viewer, supporting a great variety of file formats, including full-screen slideshow functionality.

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Audio

dbPowerAmp - A neat little tool for converting your audio files between pretty much any and all formats you can think of. It comes ready with an MP3 codec, but there's a load more just waiting for you to download as needed HERE. (I only use the convertor tool linked above, but there's a suite of tools available - CD ripper, Audio player, etc.)

Mp3tag - very useful program for batch tagging of mp3s. Also FAST, unlike itunes and the like.

Audacity - audio editing and conversion.

Exact Audio Copy - CD Audio Extractor.

Medieval Cue Splitter [Formerly developed and distributed under brand of "Enfis The Paladin".] - Splits compressed audio files (.mp3, .ogg., .flac etc.) into separate tracks if you have/create the according cue sheet.

MP3Gain- Analyses and adjust the volume of .mp3 files, so as to make them sound roughly equally loud, by altering the ID tags; this is a lossless procedure that can be undone.
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Video

VLC - I reckon you're probably mostly well aware of this little gem, but it's a video player that will handle damned near anything you can throw at it. Great if you've got a video file that Windows Media Player can't handle, and it also has a reasonably small footprint

SUPER Video Converter- converts beween a huge number of formats. Very useful to convert movies into a format suitable for playback on ipods.

Handbrake - DVD to MPEG4 converter

K-Probe - DVD media quality testing software for Liteon drives.

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Other

Dosbox- a DOS emulator, so you can play all your old DOS games and apps.

7-Zip- File archiver supporting multiple formats (.zip, .rar, .7z etc.).

SiSoftware Sandra Lite- System analyser that tells you what hardware (mainboard, CPU, Ram, harddrives etc.) is in your computer; free for personal/educational use.

PortableApps - is a good resource for applications of all kinds that you can install and run from a USB disk, ie. you don't have to go through the painfull windows install process and have it dump files everywhere.