Favorite free apps

[WhollyHeretic]

Just thought I'd pick the brain of the other computer people here about what there favorite free apps are. These are just some small programs that make things a lot easier.

A couple of my favorites:

Daemon Tools: A CD/DVD drive emulation program. With the size of hard drives now it's nice to be able to just burn frequently used CD's to a hard drive and use Daemon Tools to run them.

http://www.download.com/Daemon-Tools/3000-7970_4-10497780.html?tag=lst-0-1

Printkey: It's a simple little program that I don't use that often but makes things much easier when you need a screen grab.

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22960,00.asp

Free Download Manager: A nice program that let's you pause downloads and is very useful for those still with slow connection speeds or when your downloading huge files

http://www.download.com/Free-Download-Manager/3000-2071_4-10522685.html?tag=lst-0-2

[KitchenWitch]

1. Firefox of course

AVG antivirus.

[OneGrassRoot]

20. Firefox vs. Panda?

Wondering if they're similar, with Firefox being free (and thus preferrable...lol).

Thanks!

[Lisa0825]

2. IrfanView

http://www.irfanview.com

Great little image program! Small program, opens quickly, easy to find your way around, and with just enough features to make quick adjustments to pictures, especially resizing and color adjustment. Also plays video and jas other functions, but I just use it for images.

I also like SmartFTP and Alleycode (for editing websites).

[Jersey Devil]

3. Crap Cleaner

http://www.ccleaner.com/

Fast, easy and free

[yy4me]

13. Can a novice mess this up?

I know what it does but am afraid it will ask me to do things about which I know nothing. Do I dare?

[RoyGBiv]

14. Yes ...

Beware the "Issues" option. You can end up deleting registry keys you don't really want to delete. For cleaning up random crap taking up hard drive space, it's pretty safe, as long as you don't save important files in the /temp directory or are certain you don't need to keep files created by scandisk, etc.

That said, "messing up" is relative with something like this. Just avoid the "Issues" tab and don't do silly things like put io.sys in the recycle bin. The basic functions are pretty much just an extension of the Windoze function that cleans the hard disc. CC just does it better and more thoroughly.

[RoyGBiv]

4. Firefox/Thunderbird, etc ...

Those are the two I use most often.

Every app on my system is free, including the OS, 99% of them open source, so it's really hard to say what my favorite is. As noted, those are the ones I use most often.

A couple notables with Windoze versions:

Gaim is an instant messaging client supporting all the major networks, e.g. AIM/ICQ, Yahoo, MSN, without the hassle and most of the dangers of the proprietary clients. It also supports various plugins, one of which allows for encrypted, secure communication using GPG.

Speaking of, GPG is another excellent, free, open source application that can be used for encrypting files and communication. Thunderbird incorporates the OpenGPG extension to allow one to automatically encrypt, sign, and decrypt e-mails.

I've also started using Blender to try my hand at creating 3D art and animations. This is an extremely complex software package, but it is also extremely powerful, the equivalent of systems that can cost thousands of dollars. The system has been used by professional 3D animators for years, and its development has been influenced by their needs. Not for the timid, but if you're interested in creating 3D animations, it's definitely a solution.

For standard photo editing and graphic manipulation, I use The Gimp. People who are familiar with PhotoShop say it's too complicated, and admittedly, it's not the simplest thing in the world to learn to use in all its detail. It has some very powerful functions, most of which I have not even touched yet. Since I've only used PhotoShop once, and this after I had been using The Gimp, I personally find Gimp more comfortable. Whatever the case, if you don't have the funds to shell out on PhotoShop and want to support the FOSS community, The Gimp is definitely an alternative worth considering.

[mainegreen]

7. Arg, Blender requires a Phd in Blender Studies.

Never got skinning complex objects to work right. x(

[RoyGBiv]

10. True ...

I am admittedly a total newb with it. I've been able to follow a couple tutorials and repeat the results, and I've done a few creations on my own using those tutorials as a guide.

"Used and developed by" professional 3D artists is both a positive and negative thing. It's positive because it has an enormous amount of flexibility. It's negative because the interface is not built for even semi-pros.

It's still cheaper than most of the alternatives that can do the same things. :-)

[charlie]

5. Plenty of my favorite apps are free

My most oft-used app is Notetab Light (screenshot), my text editor of choice for over 7 years. Actually, I use Notetab Standard, the paid version, because I wanted to send the author a few appreciative bucks. The free version is still hugely feature-rich, only lacking primarily disk-wide search, outlining, and spell-checking.

For quick-and-dirty editing (and to replace the austere Notepad), I use Metapad.

To keep the noxious Acrobat Reader off my system, I use Foxit Reader.

To keep the invasive WMP/Real/Quicktime troika off my system, I use Media Player Classic, Real Alternative, and Quicktime Alternative. (Media Player Classic is included in the latter 2 packages)

Archiver - Iceows. FTP client - SmartFTP (commercial, free for personal use). Newsreader - SuperGravity. Queued downloader - WackGet. CD burner - Burnatonce.

Paint/Image manipulation - Artweaver, Photofiltre, Pictbear SE (nevermind the Japanese link, the installer gives the option to install an English version), GraphicsGale, Toolbar Paint (homepage is shuttered right now, download available here and here), and the above-mentioned Irfanview and GIMP.

[RoyGBiv]

6. Notetab is good ...

I use that exclusively for a lot of things when I run Windoze, and I paid for the standard version as well for the same reason. I even did some web page editing with it.

Also agreed on Media Player Classic. I should have mentioned that earlier but was thinking in terms of what I use now. I refuse to use Windows Media Player for any reason. MPC is an excellent alternative.

[Jazzgirl]

17. Ditto on Notetab.

I liked it so well I bought it.

JG

[WhollyHeretic]

9. That Notetab is a nice little program

Thanks

[mainegreen]

8. I love MediaMonkey.

Fantistically well though out program. It has the the cleanest interface of anything I've used. You have to replace the lame_enc.dll for mp3s after 30 days to rip to mp3, but thats no big deal. One feature I love is that the minimized task tray icon recognized gestures, allowing you to click on it and drag in a direction to raise/lower volume, pause and fast forward or reverse.

http://www.mediamonkey.com/

[Old and In the Way]

11. Just downloaded Google SketchUp

What a powerful 3D modeling tool. I'm thinking of putting up a solid wall around my wrap around deck and this software can let me build the house, then add the wall and look at it from all angles. Pretty cool stuff.

[RoyGBiv]

12. Here's a good site ...

http://www.opensourcewindows.org/

It's lists some exceptional open source apps for Windows.

OnEdit:

Went back and noticed the link to open source Mac apps.

http://www.opensourcemac.org/

[ChaoticSilly]

15. The ones I use the most

Firefox and Thunderbird, of course
The Gimp
an old proxy server called The Proxomitron - it's not under active development anymore, but I still haven't found anything better for filtering webpage annoyances (better than even Firefox & Adblock)
and finally my favorite, the app I used to make my sig & avatar... Povray

[lpbk2713]

16. Thanks all.

Several good ones I haven't tried before. I'll check em out.

[Omphaloskepsis]

18. paint.net

http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/ A cool Photoshop like tool

I like Filezilla for a FTP client.
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

[Ms. Toad]

19. artsy stuff

Picasa (image management) http://picasa.google.com/

Art Rage (realistic painting program) http://artrage.com/