Snarkpit Forum Index » General Banter » Big list of free useful desktop apps
Big list of free useful desktop apps
1
23 next page »
Post Reply
Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by SaintGreg on Fri Mar 4th at 7:31pm 2005

I think it would be healthy if everyone shared some of the applications they use alot on their computers. I know office programs have been discussed before, so that i wont repost it all. To post it it has to be 100 % free, and generally cross platform but if you have a really useful one then go ahead. Also try to give a few things you like / dislike about it.

I'll start off with a couple.

Web browser: FireFox - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Pretty much everyone either knows about it or uses it so no description is necessary


Image Manipulation: GIMP - http://www.gimp.org/
Basically all the functionality as photoshop. But its free! Plus its made by the GNU people so you can have conifidence that its pretty decent. No reason to buy photoshop when you can get GIMP, and no reason to *ahem* download *ahem* photoshop either.


IRC client: xchat - http://www.xchat.org/
reasons why i like it better than mirc:
1) cross platform, since ill be buying a unix box soon I need all the good cross platform stuff I can find
2) Easier to customize how everything shows up, you can cutomize the color and form of every type of channel, dcc, etc command. This would take a while to get them all, but in 5 minutes you can setup the common ones you like. Plus there is defaulted so that when you get messages, the user name shows on the left, and the beginning of all the messages aligns to one bar. You can remove this if you want though (i like it)
3) good multiple server support. With each different server you can specify which channels you want to autojoin, and different commands to execute on connect for each server (which is useful for authing). The tab bar organizes all the different servers into groups seperated by a small | thing. Thats good, now I can get onto #snarkpit on quakenet, and stay on all my gamesurge channels.
4) 100 % free, with no annoying message telling you to give in to shareware.

The one thing I dont like about it is that you can only have one channel window open at once. If you click another channel tab it brings that up into the main window. In mirc i usually either have 1 or 2 windows open within the main window, or else all of them are minimized. If there is a plugin or script for xchat that could do that...


[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by satchmo on Fri Mar 4th at 7:39pm 2005

Cool Screensavers: Helios, et al - http://www.reallyslick.com/
One of the best screensavers I've seen. It was the first program that I transferred to my new computer once the OS was installed. I just can't live without it.

Small Desktop Calendar: Free-Cal - http://blueonion.home.comcast.net/free-cal.html
I have been looking for something small and nice-looking like this for a long time, and I think I've found the perfect desktop calendar. The best thing about it is its small size and lack of bloated features.
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by SpiKeRs on Fri Mar 4th at 7:47pm 2005

smartftp - http://smartftp.com/





Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by Crono on Fri Mar 4th at 8:24pm 2005

Putty
It's a shell for connecting to servers. I couldn't live without it (although I normally use ssh in linux or ssh through windows, putty is good too)

Winamp
Don't know why no one has mentioned winamp yet.

AIM/Pexit
IM tools.

I use Thunderbird as well with MrPostman
This allows you to check webmail in mozilla mail clients. It's still a little buggy, but it checks hotmail just fine.

Open Office
Great alternative to MS-Office (with more functionality and compatability too)

G3 Torrent
Probably the best torrent GUI I've seen. However, it apparently has issues when running it and IE ... no sweat off my sack though.

Ace Media Codec
Basically, video/audio support for every format that is commonly used. If you get "Media Player Classic" as well, you'd have a fast video player with almost complete wide support.

I think the only other thing I use that is free (for a small while) is winrar. [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by French Toast on Fri Mar 4th at 8:28pm 2005

Opera web browser is what I like. I think www.opera.com [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by willow on Fri Mar 4th at 8:49pm 2005

Screw Winamp.

Foobar - Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats. Audio formats supported "out-of-the-box": WAV, AIFF, VOC, AU, SND, Ogg Vorbis, MPC, MP2, MP3, MPEG-4 AAC.

It's not as pretty as winamp, but it sounds a hell of alot better. Not to mention it's ability to handle playlists better, and all around kicks the snot out of winamp. It doesn't need to be pretty, it's a Audio player, not something you stare at.

Ifranview - Is an image viewer, but it's real beauty lays in it's ability to batch process large amounts of images. So if ya need to resize 100 screenshots, use this.

More as I think of em!
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by LAzerMANiac on Fri Mar 4th at 10:21pm 2005

eMule The best filesharing client I can think of. Beats K@Zaa by a HUGE margin.

Logon Studio Very nice way to pimpify your Windows logon. I have mine set to this

And please, let us not start flamewars about media player affiliation or filesharing/torret preferences.

/me takes out a fire extinguisher. [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by parakeet on Sat Mar 5th at 12:22am 2005

http://www.stardock.com/products/windowblinds/ Windowblinds is a great way to change the way your desktop themes , i also reccomend for more Insane desktop transformations to use DesktopX http://www.stardock.com/products/desktopx/

and last but not least SphereXP for making 3 dimensional spherical desktops http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/ [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by rs6 on Sat Mar 5th at 1:50am 2005

you can get linux and get almost everything for free... [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by ReNo on Sat Mar 5th at 2:20am 2005

Half-Life server watch http://www.hlsw.net/index.php?url=news
Essentially this is just a bit of a more fully featured server browser than the default steam one, but if (like with me) connecting to source based games via steam's browser f**ks over your network, then this is a decent enough way to work around the problem.

Powerstrip http://entechtaiwan.net/util/ps.shtm
Useful if you overclock your graphics card. This little program lets you save video card profiles in a handy little system tray app and switch between them quickly and easily. For example, I have a "standard" profile that I use when on my desktop, and a "gaming" profile that overclocks the card a bit which can be switched to easily while waiting for a game to launch. You can even associate profiles with exe's, so you automatically change modes when you launch. Other options like AA/AF/VS can also be set into profiles.

Motherboard Monitor 5 http://mbm.livewiredev.com/
Another good tool for any overclockers out there. MBM5 is a neat little program that, for me at least, serves only the purpose of showing case/CPU temps in the system tray. It also has the ability to monitor fan speeds, set alarms for fan speeds / temps, and so on. Hugely tweakable to sit there doing nothing, or fill your interface with countless dials, numbers and tooltips giving you the most pointless of info
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by satchmo on Sat Mar 5th at 2:26am 2005

? quote:
MBM5

It's just the utility I'm looking for, so I don't have to reboot and check the BIOS for temperatures. Thanks ReNo.

[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by fraggard on Sat Mar 5th at 2:37am 2005

Context - http://www.context.cx/
Really useful text editor.

MinGW - http://www.mingw.org/
Minimal Set of GNU utilities for windows. I use it a lot.

FTP - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Best FTP client EVAR.

GAIM - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Multi protocol IM client for windows/linux






Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by French Toast on Sat Mar 5th at 2:57am 2005

Anyone know of a good FREE music download program? I got BearShare but it loaded my computer with so much adware/spyware that I needed to reformat to get rid of it.

I looked at eMule but you need to pay

EDIT: I also need a good pop-up blocking program. I get a lot and it interrupts my games frequently. [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by Bobv on Sat Mar 5th at 3:31am 2005

I use trillian (hybrid IM client, compatible with AIM, MSN, yahoo, IRC, ICQ) no ads or any BS like the clients made by their respective companies.




Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by French Toast on Sat Mar 5th at 3:33am 2005

What does it do? I need an all around general block everyhting that pops up program.


Message submitted 55 minutes after original post:
I need a pop up blocker and a free music software sharing program thingamabobber. [addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by parakeet on Sat Mar 5th at 3:38am 2005

? quote:
you can get linux and get almost everything for free...

but the installation... *debian tried to beat me into submission with torture tactics* i never got it to work = / but i really wanted linux

Get trillian at www.ceruleanstudios.com
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by SaintGreg on Sat Mar 5th at 5:11am 2005

Text editor: VIM http://www.vim.org/

Its just an extension of everyone's favorite text editor vi with alot of cool things added. Syntax highlighting, diff built into the editor, if you are using x-windows you can use the mouse to good benefit, if you are using a shell it doesnt require mouse support.

Pretty much if you just browse the free software library over at http://directory.fsf.org/ which you can link to from the main GNU site, you can find almost anything you are looking for, and be able to try out like 10 - 15 alternatives. The GNU packages alone could keep you busy for years...

Parakeet - that reminds me of this funny joke on bash.org:

<@insomnia> it only takes three commands to install Gentoo
<@insomnia> cfdisk /dev/hda && mkfs.xfs /dev/hda1 && mount /dev/hda1 /mnt/gentoo/ && chroot /mnt/gentoo/ && env-update && . /etc/profile && emerge sync && cd /usr/portage && scripts/bootsrap.sh && emerge system && emerge vim && vi /etc/fstab && emerge gentoo-dev-sources && cd /usr/src/linux && make menuconfig && make install modules_install && emerge gnome mozilla-firefox openoffice && emerge grub && cp /boot/grub/grub.conf.sample /boot/grub/grub.conf && vi /boot/grub/grub.conf && grub && init 6
<@insomnia> that's the first one

[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by Quaver on Sat Mar 5th at 8:01am 2005

VLC Media Player : http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

A great media player thats managed to open every file type ive thrown at it. It also has versions for 5 OS's. This is the full feature list
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by Pegs on Sat Mar 5th at 9:09am 2005

? quote:
Anyone know of a good FREE music download program? I got BearShare but it loaded my computer with so much adware/spyware that I needed to reformat to get rid of it.

I looked at eMule but you need to pay

EDIT: I also need a good pop-up blocking program. I get a lot and it interrupts my games frequently.


Try the google task bar. That blocks pop-ups
[addsig]



Quote
 Re: Big list of free useful desktop apps
Posted by Forceflow on Sat Mar 5th at 9:17am 2005

? quote:
Anyone know of a good FREE music download program? I got BearShare but it loaded my computer with so much adware/spyware that I needed to reformat to get rid of it.


www.shareaza.com -> Free, no spyware ...

Other programs:

  • Openoffice.org: A community-driven freeware alternative for Microsoft Office. Compatibility, Flexibility & Support.
  • AnalogX.com: Freeware Network/System monitoring/Audio tools.
  • Mozilla.org: Firefox & Thunderbird, fast and reliable browser/e-mail client.
  • Virtualdub.org: The best freeware video editor around. Works best with scripting, rips VCD too.
  • Audacity: Sound editor/sampler. Open-Source, and a lot of language packs available.
  • CubeEngine.com: An Open-Source FPS/Environmental engine.
  • LinuxFromScratch.org: Packages to build your own linux distribution.
  • DefinitiveSolutions: Home of BHOdemon, a nifty security tool.
  • Mandrake Linux: Free Linux Distribution.
  • ShareAza.com and WinMX.org: Open-source, spyware/ad-free P2P programs.
  • BT++: A BitTorrent GUI.
  • Context: A code tool, with custom configs for different languages.
  • Irfanview: The best image viewer around.
  • SmartFTP: Freeware FTP Client.
  • Dev-C++ : A C/C++ writer-compile program.
  • Mailwasher: An Anti-Spam tool.
  • Sysinternals: WinXP/NT/2K3 admin/security tools.
  • Agnitum: Outpost Firewall.
  • Trillian.cc: Cross-Network IM program.
  • Mp3splt: Command-line MP3 splitter
  • NoNameScript: A popular script for mIRC
  • EasyDivX: A great tool for ripping DVD's to Divx Quality CD's.
  • GordianKnot: DVD backup Frontend.
  • CdEx: CD program for high quality rips. Also see EAC and Lame
  • IrrLicht Engine: A high performance open-source game engine. Easy programming.
  • Fedora: Linux Distro, powered by Redhat. Community-driven.
  • CrapCleaner: The best system cleaner around. Good program support.
  • X-Setup: Black Belt tweaking program. Thousands of tweaks.
  • Omegadrivers: Alternative video drivers. (performance-oriented)
  • BersIrc: An Open-Source IRC client, nice design.
  • Nmap: The best Port Scanner. Linux & Win version.
  • TheGimp: A free program for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
  • Skype: Web telephony made loud & clear, and no spyware.
  • ToniArts: Home of Easycleaner, a good system utility.
  • Doug's Win 9x/NT/XP fixes/utils: A site loaded with nifty little programs and tweaks.
  • Clamwin: Freeware antivirus scanner. Lifetime of updates. Same goes for Avast.
  • DC++: A DirectConnect client. (The fastest one)
  • Fractavia: Home of the fractal math program.
  • Batch Info Page: Tons of useful batch scripts & admin tools.
  • AMXmod: The best admin tool for HL servers.
  • Sam Spade: A very powerful network tool. (ping/tracert/portscan/...)
  • RahManImager: A free image editor. (photoshop alike)
  • Tuareg: A freeware synth-creator / sound mixer.
  • Netlimiter: Caps your bandwidth. It's kind of sad, but you need it.
  • TuneXP: Powerful black-belt XP tweaking. (for advanced users/sysadmins only.)
  • GmailDrive: Use your account as a virtual HD. (1 Gb !)
  • Paint .net: It's MS Paint. And it's back. Still in b?ta.
  • TinyIRC: A very small IRC client, not bloated with features.
(quoted from my website, forceflow.undreamedstudios.be)


[addsig]




1
23 next page »
Post Reply