There is nothing I love more than free software. Here is a list of my favourite free software:
Web Browser: Mozilla Firefox or
Opera. Both are excellent browsers and Opera just recently took away their adbar. Mozilla has more extensions and plug ins but Opera is a bit faster.
Desktop Enhancers: Yahoo widgets. I love widgets. I can't live without widgets. Sure they take up a lot of RAM, but they make me and my laptop feel special. I love my laptop so much I spoil it with widgets. I love my laptop so much that when I first got it, I declined offers to go out so I could share quality time(I closed my door of course and just gazed lovingly into its beautiful bright monitor -- like a (Microsoft) window into its soul.
My favourite widgets are WidescapeWeather (pick your country, customize your colours and maximize or minimize a 5 day forecast), What To Do (comes with the download), Mini_What_to_do (I use the first for my To Do list and the What To Do for my Scheduling), Widescp_Battery, Month Calender and LaunchIt. Download the Widget Engine
HERE and download widgets
HERE.
Photo Editing: A great, though complicated, alternative to Adobe Photoshop is
GIMP. If you want to use a simpler program, I recommend
FastStone Image Viewer. It lets you do batch (group) resizing, rotation and renaming in a clean, intuitive interface.
Compression/Decompression (zip): WinRar or
7-Zip. WinRar has a few features disabled but never fails unzipping for me. 7-Zip is completely free and has an option to compress to its special format with a stronger compression ratio (30 to 50 percent). This program also compresses the standard zip format 2 - 10 percent better. However I sometimes have problems unzipping some files and I couldn't find the option for keeping partially unzipped or corrupt files.
Adware/Spyware: Adaware,
Spybot,
Spyware blaster and
Bazooka Adware and Spyware Scanner. I use all four because I hate a messy computer. Adaware and Spybot are probably enough for most sane people. Both have clean, easy interface and one finds what the other doesn't. Spyware blaster is a one time tool that actively prevents spyware from initally installing. Just run it once and forget about it (won't use up system resources). Bazooka A&S Scanner only scans and tells you what nasties you have and tells you how to remove it on your own. This program finds things that Adaware and Spybot sometimes miss.
P2P (Peer to Peer Downloading): Azereus or
LimeWire. Azereus is a great BitTorrent program. Bit torrent lets you download non linearly, so instead of downloading from start to finish, you can download from different parts of the file simultaneously greatly accelerating your download speed. Also as you are downloading you are sharing what you have. Mininova.org is constantly updated with new torrents to download (Movies, TV shows, Books, Video Games). Limewire is a fast P2P filesharing program without any attached spy or adware attached to it.
Desktop Ultility: Pixie is a pixel grabbing utility. It lets you grab colors off your screen. Point to a color, and it will tell you the hex, RGB, HTML, CMYK, and HSV values of that color.
Messenger Enhancement: Messenger Plus or
Trillian. Tons of MSN messenger customizations. If you use several messenging programs, Trillian combines them all in one easy program.
Password Management: Roboform. This useful program will remember all your passwords under a master password. It also fills out forms instantly for you and other great features. You can save or print out your information too in case you change computers or need a backup. If you are using a different browser, Firefox or Opera, you'll have to download an extension.
CD/DVD Burner: DVD Shrink,
DVD Decrypter, and
Deep Burner. DVD shrink lets you shrink large DVDs to fit on your 4.7 gig sized ones. DVD Decypter is a good DVD copier that breaks protection/encryption measures on DVDs such as regions (and other things) then lets you rip and burn through 3 different options (includes ISO). For straight file burning off your harddrive I used Deep Burner.
Audio Jukebox: JetAudio Basic. It has ripping and format conversion options. It also looks nice and can be minimized to a thin sleek bar (many other skins available). The automatic fading between songs is nice and of course there are tons of equalizer options as well as lyric readers and so much more.
Windows Optimization: RegScrubXP,
CCleanerFreeRam XP Proand
TuneXP. RegScrubXP cleans out your registry. CCleaner does the registry and Temporary Internet Files. FreeRam XP Pro monitors and balances your RAM usage. TuneXP lets you tweak Windows XP.
Virus Protection: AVG or
Avast. Both are excellent free programs. I don't think you can go wrong with either, although Avast looks nicer, but requires you to register.
Firewall: ZoneAlarm. Protect yourself from hackers, worms and viruses. I don't use this actually because XP has a firewall program.
Downloading Managers: GetRight or
Download Accelerator. Both are able to integrate with your web browser and have several options, which includes segmented downloads, fetching mirror sites and the ever important resuming.
Complete Office Suite: OpenOffice. A great free replacement for Microsoft Office.
Offline Webpage Viewer: HTTrack Website Copier. View saved webpages offline, including the links within.
DVD/CD Emulation: Daemon Tools. Lets you create virtual drives so you can make copies of discs and then mount these copies on your Virtual Drive. You can create these copies with the program I wrote above called DVD Decrypter (ISO file).
Blogger Tool: W.Bloggar. I use this program to post to my blog site. It has several language options and the ability to post to many sites as well as simplifying HTML code.
So those are the programs I highly recommend. All are free and some have restrictions. I use most of them, but not all because for example I was able to get my hands on Microsoft Office.
