Best Free Software for Windows(old version)

I do, and it's still very slow. I'm not saying itunes is a bad program but comparing it to many other audio players, itunes definitely is way slower.

 

^whatnever ^_^ how much slower are we talking? hahaha

 

i am just a big fan of Itunes, sorry, I like it and hate to see people trash talk it

is there a media player that has all of the features of Itunes and loads faster and is easier to use, allows you to stream music over a network, and has a better playlist system? i would love to know about it.

whenever something gets popular it always gets bashed huh? thats ok, and by all means don't use Itunes.

 

Rainlendar

The best desktop calendar program I've ever used...

 

I wouldnt entirely agree, i've viewed a number of websites in FireFox and IE, IE always looks really weird because of CSS, so to be IE has problems rendering website. Also, I dont know if this has been fixed yet but it has problems with see-through PNGS afaik.

My first recommendation is Cleanup, at a click of a button it cleans up a numerous amount of this, everything is customizable and selectable by you, including empty recycle bin, delete newsgroup cache, delete cookies, delete prefetch, scan pc for temp files, etc. You can also keep track of how much you cleaned up and how much you removed in the run, and overall how much you have removed in total runs

Secondly is CDex for all your cd ripping/bitrate changing etc, just drag the files in and select your options, easy as pie!

Thirdly Pixresizer, with this program you can easily convert or resize all your images in a specific folder

Thats it for now

 

Fair Use Wizard

That's my favorite DVD to DivX/XviD application. I've done countless encodings and all have turned out perfect. I've never had any audio/video sync issues, the quality is great, it's simple, and free. It's awesome because you get to pick a file size and it encodes the movies to achieve that size. It tries to get the best quality for that size. The free version does have a few restrictions. In the full version you can encode videos larger than 700 MB, select a frame range (so you can cut out the beginning and end to get just what you want), it has an iPod Video encoding option, and you can encode based on quality.

It's an awesome program. The free version is worth checking out. This is a must-have for any notebook user who wants to take some movies on the go without hauling DVDs around or putting an entire ISO onto the hard drive.

 

I'm going to give this a go

 

what's the difference between the free version and the paid version? there wasn't any comparison on the site...

 

They put some information about the paid version in the FAQs. That is somewhat of an odd place. You would think that they'd want to put it on the front page so that potential buyers know what advantages they are going to get. Oh well. I bought it and it's awesome. It was worth $20. I use it to encode TV shows from DVD onto my hard drive. It makes it simple to do.

http://fairusewizard.com/lang_en/fairuse_wizard_dvd_divx_xvid_backup_tool_faq.html

I'm Elias, by the way. For some reason, my password doesn't work for that account anymore. The same thing happened to this one. It would never send me the password. Oh well.

 

speaking of free softwares.. my subscription to norton is about to expire (it came with the laptop). should i shell out the money to renew my subscription or can the free antivirus softwares (i.e AVG, Avast, etc) do the same (or better) job for free?

also, i've heard that it's a pain to uninstall norton, is this true?

 

its not that painful to uninstall norton. its pretty simple. and avg i would use that but my school wont let me go online without a "famous" brand so that sucks for me. but i like avg.

 

we actually made the switch from norton to mcafee and couldn't be happier. it's a little less, how shall I say, intrusive than Norton.

Musicians Rejoice!
Audacity

http://audacity.sourceforge.net

 

if you want free software for Windows, go to http://www.limewire.com
and download the program. You get everything there from full software to mp3 s. Most of the files are illegal though...If that bothers anyone. It runs on a peer-2-peer network and so I would highly recommend you scan the downlaoded file with anti-virus software before opening it.

 

I can't erase certain files on my cdrw disc. I don't want to erase the whole disc though. My cdrw drive uses Record Now burner. XP can't do it too (says can't delete data on disc) Is there another free utility for this?

 

I didn't go through every page of this thread, but I like this neat little utility G-Spot:

www.headbands.com/gspot/

It will tell you which codec you need to play any media file. Great for those that watch DivX or ripped movies and spend all that time downloading only to find it doesn't play because the right codec isn't on you pc.

 

It's better to run a torrent client. With Limewire you may get lots of things you don't want to such as viruses, adwares and spywares if not careful. A similar program of this kind made my Toshiba Satelite die a most unfortunate death about 4 years ago.

 

And Earl would call that Karma. You run with dogs, expect to get fleas.

 

Which is exactly why I'm advising against it.

 

These are what I do first when I reformat or get a new computer.

I gotta say the moox builds of Firefox are awesome. It appears he's dropped off the face of the earth since 1.5 got released, though.
http://www.moox.ws

Miranda is a super configurable IM client. I'd say its better than Trillian if I was computer savvy enough to figure it out.
http://www.miranda-im.org/

An alternative that is very good is Gaim.
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

Media Player Classic is a great alternative to that bloated piece of crap known as Quicktime.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/

Speaking of bloated, if you're running windows, you should be using Foobar2k rather than itunes. More powerful, more customizable. There's enough pod-heads out there that it'll work with your ipod, too.
http://www.foobar2000.org/

 

Alright, most of this stuff is listed, but here's what I use (at least, when I'm on Windows)

PROGRAMS:
CCleaner - Registry cleaner, Uninstall utility, and system cleaner.

foobar2000 - Lightweight music player that can play any type of music you throw at it

MediaMonkey - Music organization and secondary music player

Media Player Classic - Lightweight, customizable video player.

Mozilla Firefox - Browser, I think this has been mentioned enough...

Opera - Another web browser, I switch between this and Firefox regularly.

ClipX - Small clipboard history manager - useful when you accidentally hit copy instead of paste.

TaskSwitchXP - Replacement for the Windows XP Alt-Tab PowerToy.

Ad-Aware SE Personal - A free anti-spyware program

Spybot - Search & Destroy - Another free anti-spyware program.

Microsoft Antispyware - Yet another free anti-spyware program

AntiVir - Free antivirus program

Kerio Personal Firewall - Free firewall

The GIMP - The 'Photoshop of free image editors

OpenOffice.org - Free office suite

IrFanView - Small, fast image viewer

SpywareBlaster - Stop spyware from being installed!

RSS Bandit - RSS agregator

Notepad++ - Great notepad replacement

Exact Audio Copy - CD Ripper

The Godfather - MP3 Tagger

CDBurnerProXP - Free CD Burner

LeechGet - Download Manager/Accelerator

LINKS:
FileHippo
Nonags
Download Squad
Sourceforge
Snapfiles
Tucows
Portable Freeware

And that's about all I can think of ATM, if I realize I forgot something, I'll update this post...

EDIT: Updated with several more programs. And again, sorry for all the posts.

EDIT 2: Added LeechGet and realized I can delete my extra posts DUH!

 

WinAmp >> iTunes, just be sure to uncheck some of the new bloat they have added in the installer. iTunes loads like two services, takes a ton of RAM and resources, and it's just...icky. There is an iPod plugin for Winamp so you can use it to put music on your iPod.

Media Player Classic is awesome as well. It will play any videos that Winamp has a problem with, and it's tiny, fast, and reliable. I keep it on my desktop and just drag things onto it to play them (probably the only program I actually use drag and drop to load stuff in).

MPC + Real Alternative + Quicktime Alternative = 1000% less junk on your PC.

 

And 1000% less junk on your PC means less for CCleaner to do...

 

OK, I just installed the AdBlock plugin for firefox, and it does not block ads. is there some configuration needed?

 

yes, you need to make filters.

Try installing the Filterset.G Updater - it's filters work for most ads.

 

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned Picasa from Google. I really like to use this software for organizing photos and creating slideshows. It's what iPhoto should be.
http://picasa.google.com/index.html

 

What a great list - I am trying out a few of these right now

 

this software is definitely excellent for laptop users running in win xp especially if you are having problem reading your screen fonts.

ClearTweak™ allows you to change the contrast setting of the ClearType® setting for Windows XP®.

ClearType is designed to enhance LCD displays. It may appear slightly blurry on standard desktop monitors.

http://www.ioisland.com/cleartweak/


check out also xp powertoys! created by microsoft itself!

as microsoft said: "PowerToys add fun and functionality to the Windows experience."

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

 

Learn and eliminate startup you don't need.
I was amazed at how many crap that is started that you don't need;including the ones that Msconfig will not show.
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html

 

Any good free program for surfing annonymously, hiding the IP?

 

the banshee screamer alarm clock program is kinda cool, can set it to wake you up to just about anything.

the unregistered version of Wetsock monitors the weather for just about anywhere in the world...2 cities 2 weather updated per day.

Google Earth is cool too.

 

great list here. thanks guys!

 

Try Opera; under Tools>Quick Preferences- choose Block all pop-ups -or- block unwanted pop-ups. Both options work great.


-Also-

I don't know if it was mentioned before but there's a website called Portablefreeware that has small well written programs that have probably been mentioned in this thread. Like Firefox, Opera, μtorrent, OpenOffice.org, gaim, Silentnight,etc. Best of all none of these programs need to be installed and will run happily on a keydrive.

http://www.portablefreeware.com/all.php

 

Opera is good, but Adblock does WAAAAY more than just block popups...in fact you don't need Adblock if that's all you're looking for. Adblock blocks most advertisements right on a website. If you install filterset G it pretty much guarentees you'll NEVER see a banner ad. Now, if Opera can do that without any type of extension...then I'd be interested.

 

Just one more reason why sysinternals is awesome!! Check their site. Filemon and ProcessExplorer(both from sysinternals as well) are great tools as well. Alcohol120 is a great ISO mounting tool, the free trial lasts 30 days.

And the list gets longer by the day...

 

One of the best most comprehensive lists of usefull free software.

http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

 

Is there a grammer check plug in for openoffice? ;

 

You can use OO internal Wizard for installing new dictionaries (spell checking dictionaries, hyphenation dictionaries...)

Back to topic:

FastStone Image Viewer The best freeware image viewer (not so fast as Irfanview, but has more options)
http://www.faststone.org/

BartPE Bart's Preinstalled Environment bootable live windows CD/DVD
BartPE is Admin's best friend...
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

Autopatcher XP Update your Windows XP without internet connection
http://autopatcher.com/

 

guys try this flyakiteosX 3.5 make your windows xp look like apple OSX from start up to shutdown everything even the cool mouse busy thing and the bar below the screen, file size = 31mb!!!!! best freeware for me ever!

 

couldn't agree more. the setup looks beautiful but for some reaosn, I felt my computer slowed down a bit in terms of processing speeds.

 

Here is a site I stumbled upon www.driverguide.com. Register (but don't click on all that crap they want you to sign up for). After you are done it will ask you if you want to install the driverguide toolkit and click yes. It has no spyware. It checks your programs and checks to see if you need new drivers. Works pretty good. Easy to use as well.
Tim

 

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RE Flyakite:

I'm a big fan of it too, I can see why Apple are often snobby about pcs. I found that if I didn't install all the third party additions it ran faster, eg, objectdock. Use quick launch instead!!! One thing I found odd with flyakite was when I wanted to configure system startup and went into msconfig, there was hardly any entries at all... strange.

 

What is a good free picture editing software. I want to shrink pictures to make them avatars. Anyone know what I should use.
Thanks in advance,
Tim

 

http://picasa.google.com/

 

arevee i dont think it could slow down the computer coz its not built on top of windows xp like windows blinds or what, it temp. replaces all the files for the look of the OS, until you unistall it then everything goes back to normal.

 

Two unmissable favourites:

AutoGordianKnot @ www.autogk.me.uk - the best DVD to AVI software by far IMHO. Creates quality rips to any size or quality required.
And Audacity @ audacity.sourceforge.net - fantastic audio recording and editing facilities...for free!

 

Additional free tools that I use for encryption are AxCrypt and TrueCrypt

 

http://resizepic.com/

 

Cnet: www.download.com Tons of free downloads.
Tim