Free for all

[VioletSkye]

I had a little free time and decided to put together a rudimentary list of various Freeware programs that may be helpful to people. The programs that I have personally installed and played around with are marked with an *. These are programs I feel absolutely comfortable recommending. The rest mostly come from trusted sites. I've tried to make sure that none of the programs I haven't used contain any spyware/adware, although there may be some banner ads within the program itself. As with any type of software, use these programs at your own risk.

If anyone has any suggestions about programs I should add to the list, please feel free to post them. Try to make sure that they are actual freeware versions and not simply evaluation versions that will expire. Also try to make sure that they are not loaded with spyware/adware/trojans/worms/virii etc.

As Ketchup suggested, I will list which programs are Open Source (OS) and also what operating systems the program will run on. Until I get time to overhaul the look and organization of the links I will use the following:
OS = Open Source
L = Linux, Mac = Macintosh, Win = Windows, FBSD = Free BSD, Sol = Solaris

Please let me know if I made any errors

<hr>Categories:
3D Modelling
Antivirus
Audio Editor
Benchmarking
Browsers
Browser Plugins
CD/DVD Burning
Codecs
Compression/Zip
Email
File Encryption
Firewall
Forum/Web Portal Software
Forum/Web Portal Hosting
Fractal Programs
Freeware/Shareware
FTP
Graphic Editing
Image Viewing
Instant Messaging
Media Players
Office
Operating Systems
Peer-to-Peer (P2P)
PC Info Utilities
PC Updates
PDF
PDF File Creation
Permanent File Deletion
Portable Apps
Programming/Coding
Screen Capture
Spyware
Text Editor
Video Capture
Video Drivers
Video Editing
Web Design
Misc.<hr>

<A NAME="3d"></A>3D Modelling:
Blender (Definitely check this one out.) * OS L Mac Win FBSD Sol
MilkShape 3D * ??
Art of Illusion * OS L Mac Win

<A NAME="an"></A>Antivirus:
AVG Free Edition * Win
AVG Free Edition for Linux L
Avast * Win
AntiVir L Win FBSD Sol

<A NAME="au"></A>Audio Editor:
Audacity * OS L Mac Win
MP3Trix Tweaker Win
Goldwave Win

<A NAME="be"></A>Benchmarking:
GL Excess Win
AquaMark3 * Win

<A NAME="br1"></A>Browsers:
Firefox * L Mac Win
Opera * L Mac Win FBSD Sol
Netscape 8 * Win

<A NAME="br2"></A>Browser Plugins:
Flash Player * L Mac Win Sol
Shockwave Player * L Mac Win Sol
Firefox Extensions *

<A NAME="cd"></A>CD/DVD Burning:
DeepBurner Free * Win
CDBurnerXP Pro Win
EAC-Exact Audio Copy Win

<A NAME="co1"></A>Codecs:
K Lite Mega Codec Pack (Looks like it has most any codec you would need.)
DivX * Mac Win
XviD * L Mac Win
Real Alternative (Plays RealMedia files with RealPlayer or RealPlayer One.) Win

<A NAME="co2"></A>Compression/Zip:
Winzip-Evaluation Version * Win
Winrar (not exactly free, but it won't stop working if you don't license it.) * L Mac Win FBSD Sol
7-Zip OS L Win
Freezip Win
IZarc Win

<A NAME="em"></A>Email:
Thunderbird * OS L Mac Win
Eudora * Mac Win
Pegasus Mail * OS Win
Zimbra OS Win

<A NAME="fi1"></A>File Encryption:
AxCrypt OS Win
Cryptainer LE Free Win

<A NAME="fi2"></A>Firewall:
ZoneAlarm * Win
Sygate Personal Firewall Win
Cookie Wall (a firewall for cookies) Win

<A NAME="fo1"></A>Forum/Web Portal Software:
PhpBB *
PhpNuke *
e107
Yabb
Mambo *

<A NAME="fo2"></A>Forum/Web Portal Hosting:
Invision Free *
PhpBB For Free
FreeBoards *
ActiveBoard

<A NAME="fr1"></A>Fractal Programs:
Chaoscope Win

<A NAME="fr2"></A>Freeware/Shareware Sites:
SourceForge *
Tucows *
Download.com *
ZDNet *

<A NAME="ft"></A>FTP:
Filezilla * OS Win
CoffeCup Free FTP Win
SmartFTP Win

<A NAME="gr"></A>Graphic Editting:
GIMP (Amazing free graphics editor.) * OS L Mac Win
Paint.net (Another outstanding graphic editting program.) Win
Pixia * Win
BIMP Win
ImageMagick OS OS Independent (Written in an interpreted language)
Easy Graphics Converter (Just as the name implies.) Win
Deep Paint Win

<A NAME="im"></A>Image Viewing:
IrfanView * Win
XnView L Mac Win FBSD Sol

<A NAME="in"></A>Instant Messaging:
MSN Messenger * Win
Yahoo Messenger * L Mac Win
AIM * L Mac Win
GAIM * OS L Mac Win FBSD Sol
Trillian * Win
ICQ * Mac Win
MIRC * Win
XChat * OS L Mac Win FBSD Sol
Jabber * OS L Mac Win
XFire * Win

<A NAME="me"></A>Media Players:
Windows Media Player * Mac Win
RealPlayer Free * Win
Quicktime 7 Free * Mac Win
ITunes * Mac Win
Winamp * Win
MusicMatch Jukebox Free * Win
Media Monkey (Also does media format conversions.) * Win
VLC OS L Mac Win FBSD Sol
Media Player Classic OS Win
BSPlayer Win

<A NAME="of"></A>Office:
OpenOffice (has the ability to create PDF files.) * OS L Mac Win FBSD Sol
Portable OpenOffice OS L Mac Win FBSD Sol

<A NAME="op"></A>Operating Systems:
FreeBSD *
Open BSD *
NetBSD
Ubuntu (Excellent beginner Linux OS.) *
Redhat Fedora *
Mandrake *
Suse Linux *
Various Linux Distros

<A NAME="p2"></A>P2P (Peer to Peer):
Limewire * OS Win
Shareaza * OS Win
uTorrent * Win
EDonkey * Win
iMesh Win
BitComet Win
Azureus * Win
DC++ * L Mac Win
SoulSeek (good for finding Indie music) Win

<A NAME="pc1"></A>PC Info Utilities:
CPU-Z * Win
Everest (no longer free from parent site, but can be obtained at Major Geeks.) * Win
SiS Sandra Win

<A NAME="pc2"></A>PC Updates:
DirectX *
.Net Framework *
Windows Updates *

<A NAME="pd1"></A>PDF:
Adobe Reader * L Mac Win Sol

<A NAME="pd2"></A>PDF File Creation:
PDFCreator * OS Win
CutePDF Win
PrimoPDF Win

<A NAME="pe"></A>Permanent File Deletion:
Eraser OS Win
Secure Delete OS Win

<A NAME="po"></A>Portable Apps:
Portable Apps
Portable Apps Suite Win

<A NAME="pr"></A>Programming/Coding:
Dev-C++ OS Win

<A NAME="sc"></A>Screen Capture:
ScreenHunter Win
FastStone Screen Capture Win

<A NAME="sp"></A>Spyware:
Ad-Aware Personal SE * Win
Spybot-Search & Destroy * Win
Hijack This * Win
Windows AntiSpyWare * Win
SpyBlaster
Rootkit Hunter L FBSD Sol
RKDetector (Rootkit Detector) Win
RootkitRevealer Win

<A NAME="te"></A>Text Editor:
Crimson Editor Win
Notepad++ (Notepad replacement.) OS Win

<A NAME="vi1"></A>Video Capture:
DScaler * OS Win
VirtualDub * OS Win

<A NAME="vi2"></A>Video Drivers:
Nvidia * L Win FBSD (depending on card.)
ATI * Win (think that's it, if not please let me know.)

<A NAME="vi3"></A>Video Editting:
VirtualDub * OS Win
Windows Movie Maker 2.1 (surprisingly good for simple tasks.) * Win
Gimp-Gap (Listed on that page as Gimp Animation Package.) OS L Win

<A NAME="we"></A>Web Design:
NVU (Based on the Mozilla platform and its Gecko layout engine.) * OS L Mac Win
Trellian Webpage * Win

<A NAME="mi"></A>MISC:
Fraps (Get real-time video of your PC games, as well as benchmarking stats.) * Win
DVD Shrink * Win
Mozilla Sunbird Calendar * OS L Mac Win
Yahoo Widgets

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: VioletSkye on 2006-02-07 17:45 ]</font>

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Getintothegame on 2006-02-07 17:59 ]</font>


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Getintothegame on 2006-03-08 19:44 ]</font>

[Ketchup345]

I would add or at least make a note of OO.o's ability to make .PDFs.

For video editing, anyone have any idea how well GAP is (free GIMP expansion/plugin allowing video editing).

Do those CD burning programs include .iso support? .iso will get more important in he future, especially since Linux is gaining popularity, and if I remember correctly Microsoft will be doing some thigns by .iso disks.

Also, is Redhat free? I thought Fedora Core was the free version of Redhat.

Chaoscope is a freeware fractal art program. I haven't noticed any virus or ad/spyware problems with it (AVG Free, Spybot and AdAware picked up nothing).


Any chance of noting which are Open Source and which are possible on Linux/other OSs?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ketchup345 on 2006-01-08 11:28 ]</font>

[Link00seven]

Nice list! I've used many of those programs myself.

I'd like to add a couple programs to the list.

Media Players
- iTunes

Compression Tools
- IZarc

[VioletSkye]

On 2006-01-08 11:18, Ketchup345 wrote:
I would add or at least make a note of OO.o's ability to make .PDFs.

For video editing, anyone have any idea how well GAP is (free GIMP expansion/plugin allowing video editing).

Do those CD burning programs include .iso support? .iso will get more important in he future, especially since Linux is gaining popularity, and if I remember correctly Microsoft will be doing some thigns by .iso disks.

Also, is Redhat free? I thought Fedora Core was the free version of Redhat.

Chaoscope is a freeware fractal art program. I haven't noticed any virus or ad/spyware problems with it (AVG Free, Spybot and AdAware picked up nothing).

Deepburner Free and CD Burner XP do indeed have the ability to build and burn ISO's.

I made the correction with Fedora.

The Chaoscope thing looks cool so I added that also

Haven't ever used GAP.

On 2006-01-08 11:20, Link00seven wrote:
Nice list! I've used many of those programs myself.

I'd like to add a couple programs to the list.

Media Players
- iTunes

Compression Tools
- IZarc

Itunes is a great one Not sure how I missed that the first time around lol.

Also added Izarc.

On 2006-01-08 11:18, Ketchup345 wrote:
Any chance of noting which are Open Source and which are possible on Linux/other OSs?

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Ketchup345 on 2006-01-08 11:28 ]</font>

Thats an excellent suggestion. I'll go through them and list the ones that will operate on alternate OSes. It may take awhile though, I'm heading out in a bit with some friends. If anyone else wants to help me look into it that would be greatly appreciated


** I will note that OpenOffice has the ability to create pdf files also. Downloading and installing it might not be the best solution however for someone who just wants to create a .pdf as the other programs are much smaller downloads. Still it is definitely worth noting. **

<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: VioletSkye on 2006-01-08 11:48 ]</font>

[Dhylec]

Heh, this looks like a useful thread. I'll have it stickied for future references.

[astuarlen]

Wow, this is a great list.

Don't know if you'd want to add these (there may be some redundancy of function, as I haven't used all the ones you've listed), but a couple things I find handy are...

JHymn - Converts .m4p, .m4b, and .m4a to mp3 [Note: JHymn currently doesn't work with music purchased through iTunes 6.0]

Real Alternative - As the name suggests, this codec lets you play Real Media without Real Player.

Media Player Classic - [Note: MPC is also included with the Real Alternative download above]

Last.fm - Not a program but a cool way to listen to free music and get music recommendations based on your listening habits

[Rainbowlemon]

Nice list! There's a load of useful stuff in there!!

Would Yahoo! Widget Engine be any good? I have it running all the time, because it makes me feel posh enough to own a mac. =_=

[VioletSkye]

Great suggestions astuarlen and Antimony I added Real Alternative and Media Player Classic as well as Yahoo widgets. I'll check out JHymn and Last.FM also.

[RicoRoyal]

Excellent list.

Media Player/Video Capture:
VLC media player (should work for all the operating systems you've mentioned)

[VioletSkye]

On 2006-01-08 14:56, RicoRoyal wrote:
Excellent list.

Media Player/Video Capture:
VLC media player (should work for all the operating systems you've mentioned)

nice!