This is a compilation my favorite and most useful free software I have found and used over the years.
General Applications:
- Open Office Open-source Microsoft Office clone
- Windows Media Player 10
- Adobe Acrobat Make sure to check/uncheck the “Also Download” option checkboxes for Yahoo! Toolbar and Photoshop Album Starter Edition.
- Spybot Search & Destroy One of the best spyware removers
- Mozilla Firefox Worry-free, secure web browsing – and tabbed browsing – instead of opneing new windows, open a new tab – very good for “organized web surfing”.
- Picasa Organize your pictures and video
- Google Pack Google has bundled Picasa, Mozilla, Norton Antivirus, Adobe Reader, Ad-aware SE personal and 4 of their own applications into a ‘pack’
Utilities
- AVG Anti-virus: Free Home edition Solid Anti-virus program
- Windows XP & 2000 Networking Fix If all is normal, but you suddenly can’t get to the internet one day, you might need WinsockXPfix. This little jewel repairs the networking components of windows that can get corrupted by spyware, virus’, time, and a myriad of other reasons. Run, click the Back-up Reg button, then Fix, reboot and you should be set.
- Zip Genius – Zip and Compress Adds extensions that allows right-click to unzip/decompress. Also handles .gz and .tar files, amongst a couple dozen other file types.
- ISORecorder Forget all the other software that costs up to $60 for recording ISO’s to CD, or duplicating CD’s – this one works every time. You won’t see a new program installed – its adds some options to the right click option menu.
Graphics/Media/Audio
- GNU Image Manipulation Program An open-source program for image touch-ups, graphics creatation and authoring. Many features compare to Photoshop.
- MWSnap A small, single executable (just run it – install is optional) for capturing (snapping) sections of the screen, a color picker, and quick image conversion. I have looked years for something this simple and quick (instead of using print screen button, then cropping with Microsoft Paint to get what I need).
- Audacity The only audio mixer/converter/editor I have ever needed – clean up audio tape hiss from a recording, convert WAV to MP3, cut and re-mix mp3 audio – it does everything.
- Synctoy Sync your files between two computers, portable drives, etc. A simple, maual way to back up data also.
