Useful free apps - post your picks

[Fire_on_High]

Mentioned this program to Raps and he suggested I start a thread we can all add to with our recommendations.

Everest has a trial version which can do hardware profiling, monitor temps, and otherwise is all around useful. It seems to be quite accurate on the machines I've used it on at identifying parts and specs, and the on the fly monitoring is top notch.

Have at it folks!

[lordlundar]

I have a couple ones I'd like to recommend:

For compression, IZArc works great. It accesses most formats and even some disk image files.

For burning, I like ImgBurn. Simple, yet can handle most burn operations and handles a wider variety of image formats than most commercial burner programs.

[Mara-chan]

I like WinDirStat. It's a disk usage statistic and cleanup program. It shows neat color-coded boxes sorted by type and filesize, so you can find out just how much space all those MP3's and movies take on your drive. I used it on my machine to find some movie files I 'misplaced' and on my sister's machine to find all of her photos.

[MrSmiley]

It's hard to write a "generic" post of tools because frankly I don't know what people are wanting to do (many techs will tell you figuring out what a client is thinking they need is the hardest step). But nonetheless I end up with a lot of fun things in my /toolbox/ directory. I'll probably edit this later for a more comprehensive listing but for now...

• Notepad++ - Notepad.exe is a simple text editor which is good, I like simple. But Notepad++ keeps things simple while adding all kinds of options, 90% of which are just there to make things easier to read; like error messages, program code or ascii art!
• WikidPad - When is a simple txt file not good enough? Well for me it's when you don't have ideas structured and want to link things together or quickly write up a quick document without much effort. Wikidpad is a personal wiki, you install it as an application. It's one downside is it doesn't use the same wiki codes as Wikipedia, but that doesn't mean it's not still easy to use.

[Naaman]

Just posted somewhere else, Foxit. A very good PDF reader with a small footprint and memory usage, it also allows editing (with a stamp) and some of the extras (available in the paid version) are useable as 30 days trial.

For graphics card drivers it's best to uninstall the old ones first before installing the new ones, Driver Sweeper does this quite handily. It'll also take a snapshot of your desktop settings and icons to remedy the "800x600 clump" that Nvidia favours

[prb]

PuTTY (SSH client)
FireFTP (FTP add-on for Firefox)

[Apallo]

Listed below are the free apps that I use and have found useful.

Firefox (Browser)
Thunderbird (Email)
AVG Free Edition (Antivirus)
ASquared Free Edition (Anti-Malware)
Spybot S&D (Anti-Malware)
Filezilla Client (FTP Client)
Filezilla Server (FTP Server)
uTorrent (Bittorrent Client)
NZB-O-Matic+ (Usenet nzb client)
KLite Codec Pack (A/V Codecs with a media player)
X-Chat 2 (IRC Client)
DVD Decrypter (DVD Ripping)
Auto-GK (Re-encoding ripped DVD's)
7-Zip (Archive Extraction/Creation)
Pidgin (Multi Network IM Client)

[Naaman]

Quoth Apallo

KLite Codec Pack (A/V Codecs with a media player)

Personally I'd go for VLC player rather than faffing with codecs. I've used it for a while and have yet to come across something that it won't play.

[MrSmiley]

Quoth Naaman

Personally I'd go for VLC player rather than faffing with codecs. I've used it for a while and have yet to come across something that it won't play.

I go for both actually. I can see how avoiding the codecs make things simplier, but so many 3rd party applications (including games) and plugins use them that I personally find it easier to have it all managed from one place (but I also have vlc installed...)

K-Lite also comes with Media Player Classic in it's bundle. Which is a comparably lightweight player to VLC, though it's built around the "old" 6.4 interface to Windows Media Player.

[Munkie]

SlowView from File Forum... look at all image files and media files as well.

Open Office useful for those of you who want Microsoft Office or Works but can't be faffed to pay the fees they command.