Big list of free useful desktop apps

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...

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.

smartftp - http://smartftp.com/

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. :razz:

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. :smile:

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

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

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!

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.

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/

you can get linux and get almost everything for free...

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 :biggrin:

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.

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

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 :sad:

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 :sad:

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

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

(quoted from my website, forceflow.undreamedstudios.be)

? 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

I'd suggest trying something package based.
You might want to try Fedora or Mandrake. They're pretty user friendly. (SuSE is expansive and friendly too, but getting certain things working is very hard sometimes)

And there's also things like Free-BSD, which is fairly easy to use.

(In particular, Fedora is pretty intuitive. Not to mention there's an insane amount of documentation AND user support through IRC and Forums)

Oh and: I <3 Vi

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.

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

Looks like you still have all that spyware on your box. Might want to try cleaning it up with

-Spybot Search And Destroy ( http://security.kolla.de/ )

-Adaware SE ( http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ )

-MS AntiSpyware ( http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx )

If you're still having trouble, get "Hijack This!" (
http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html ) and contact one of
the various help groups on the web.

WIN MX :: http://www.winmx.com

MP3/Video/Image searcher. Main usage, MP3's of course.

SKYPE :: http://www.skype.com

Internet telephony, like Ventrilo programs and such I suppose.

Hmm i guess i check out mandrake. im kinda scared of killing my old files, is there any boot from cd' mandrake?

/me checks to see if Firefox is having a problem posting in this thread for some reason, ignore this post :smile:

IRC client: xchat - http://www.xchat.org/
...

4) 100 % free, with no annoying message telling you to give in to shareware.

http://xchat.org/windows/#register :/

TuneUp Utilities: Tool to optimize
your Windows, like defragmenting the file registry, changing your
Windows style, memory management and more.

Hey, ive fully installed fedora linux and its nice . I do perfer it
over windows , and i dont particullarly mind having to switch to
windows for all my games = ) .

Wow, I didn't realize that someone would publicly rape the GPL and everything it stands for... I guess I didn't realize that the windows version of xchat was shareware. You could still compile from source and have that nastyness go away, but thanks to windows thats much more trouble than its worth. Guess I'll have to go find another, not gay, irc client.

Eh? Windows is a different OS. Of course it's difficult.

AVG (anti virus) - http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

There original site is under construction for some reason or another.

use cygwin and use irssi :razz:

AVG (anti virus) - http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php

There original site is under construction for some reason or another.

I've found, personally, AVG (free versions) isn't that good. It let in half the virus' that are on my school's network.

Bit Tornado the best GUI i have used thus far. it allows you to assign bandwidth (everyone knows bit torrent steals all it can) .

Xats JPG optimizer the best program of its type.. PERIOD!

ViPlay my all time favorite avi viewer.

ATI Tool find the maximum setting your card can deliver.

Nero burning software 'nuff said

Quite possibly the best DVD burning software known to man. It's reliable, it's user friendly, oh and did I mention that it's FREE? Not to mention that it's a very small file size. Perfect DVD copies every time. And now that blank DVD media is only about 50 cents a disk, how can you go wrong? Not that I copy movies or anything. :razz: Enjoy.

http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html

Azureus - http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

http://azureus.sourceforge.net/ said:
Azureus offers multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority
systems (on torrents and files), start/stop seeding options and instant
access to numerous pieces of information about your torrents.

SpeedFan - http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Shows temperatures, controls fans ect.

Anyone know of any good app for taking screenshots, with functions such
as the ability to take more than one screenshot and choosing the file
size/quality?

Fraps maybe? It's not free but it can take decent enough screenies...

I can't set picture quality with fraps :sad: . Or is there a way?

Vlc was quite exelent and i am currently using fedora. do you guys know of any (wmv to avi) file converters that are free?

Vlc was quite exelent and i am currently using fedora. do you
guys know of any (wmv to avi) file converters that are free?

There's a tool called StoikConvert. It's free.

Dunno exactly how this fits into this thread, but its as good a place as any to post it.

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