Computer Related > Best free software on the web Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Iffy Replies: 20
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 10:40 
 Best free software on the web - Iffy
I wonder what's the best free software for applications most of use at least some of the time.

A few obvious ones to start with:

Avast anti-virus has always served me well.

Open Office takes some beating, as does Foxit for pdf documents.

And not to forget the stuff that comes bundled with whichever Windows operating system you have.

Media Player is fine for the very limited amout of image work I do.

Any other nominations?

And let's have some for the engineering side of things, which I probably won't understand, but some on here will.

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New Fri 2 Jul 10 12:00 
 Best free software on the web - Victorbox
I think Microsoft's free Security Essentials has just about pipped Avast 5 Free which I've used for many years.

The fact you can try out Windows 7 (or Vista if you are a masochist) for four months free before reloading it again without inserting a product key makes it a pretty good bit of free software. tinyurl.com/63z7hx

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New Fri 2 Jul 10 12:23 
 Best free software on the web - RattleandSmoke
Avast isn't free as such as it is a commercial product there is just a free home version.

I think the free program I use most has to be Open Office and Ubuntu if you can count an OS as a free program.

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New Fri 2 Jul 10 12:26 
 Best free software on the web - Dog
I use email stripper fairly orften ~ www.papercut.com/emailStripper.htm
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 12:31 
 Best free software on the web - rtj70
>> And not to forget the stuff that comes bundled with whichever Windows operating system you have.


They're not really free then are they - they are bundled with the OS. If you do include bundled software in your list then I add:

- iPhoto
- iMovie

Both for the Apple Mac but nobody said the list was Windows only.
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 12:33 
 Best free software on the web - Bellboy
c net is good for free software
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 12:33 
 Best free software on the web - Bellboy
spotify gets 9/10 from me too
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 13:17 
 Best free software on the web - Roger.
µTorrent + a good torrent tracker, such as BTJunkie
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 16:18 
 Best free software on the web - The Nut
VLC media player plays pretty much any audio or video file and can do addition stuff like converting and streaming.

I prefer sumatra PDF over Foxit, but either is preferable to the adobe PDF reader, last I checked that was unbearably slow on single core machines.

Does anyone know of a good free alternative to Paint Shop Pro 9? I dislike the newer versions but v9 is getting on a bit and has to run in compatibility mode on windows 7. I tried GIMP but it's not for me.
Last edited by: The Nut on Fri 2 Jul 10 at 16:19
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 18:44 
 Best free software on the web - busbee
Here are nine of them:

Audacity for editing soundtracks
CCleaner for junk cleanout and reg-clean
DesktopOK for icon layout saves
GOM Player for playing many video formats
Icon Edit to make/edit your own icons
Picassa for your pics
Registry Detective -- what is in the registry
Shred for safe file delete
Startup.exe by Mike Lynne to control what startup programs
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New Fri 2 Jul 10 20:14 
 Best free software on the web - busbee
Having just tried VLC, I see it comes up as a full screen display as the default option. Whereas GOM Player, as installed, needs a full-screen click to get that. I think I also detect a slight improvement in picture quality with VLC. They both accept many video formats.
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New Sat 3 Jul 10 12:44 
 Best free software on the web - sherlock47
Irfan view - very lightweight, old style interface, but allows you to do things that are sometimes difficult to find.

Probably superseded by now!
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New Sat 3 Jul 10 16:13 
 Best free software on the web - devonite
I`ve heard alot about ccleaner on here over the last year or so, so I downloaded it and tried it last night, it found quite a bit of debris, however, the ooold version (3.6g) of System Mechanic when run immediately after ccleaner found almost 3x the stuff that ccleaner had missed! - so in my opinion, ccleaner not recommended by me as one of my favorites!
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New Wed 28 Jul 10 21:59 
 Best free software on the web - Soupytwist
Another vote for Irfanview - I needed to batch resize several hundred image files a few months ago and it was a godsend. Making images out of the first pages of .pdfs was really handy too.
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New Sat 3 Jul 10 19:54 
 Best free software on the web - Stuartli
>>Avast isn't free as such as it is a commercial product there is just a free home version.>>

But that applies to most of the freebies - the free version (normally more than adequate for the vast majority of people) is to attract users to the Professional version.

I've used the free version along with, for instance, SUPERAntispyware, S and D and SpywareBlaster, for many years and all have proved more than capable of meeting my requirements.

CCleaner is also excellent, despite the posting just above. Some Registry cleaners can be too aggressive and do more harm than good.
Last edited by: Stuartli on Sat 3 Jul 10 at 19:55
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New Sat 3 Jul 10 21:32 
 Best free software on the web - Number_Cruncher
>>And let's have some for the engineering side of things

I've been very impressed with Scilab - which when you consider the cost of a MATLAB licence - is amazing software for free

www.scilab.org/

I've been struggling a bit trying to get my Simulink models to run in Scicos - it seems very slow, but, that's probably just me.

I also intend to get beyond the tutorials and really get to grips with this;

www.caelinux.com/CMS/

which again, given the cost of commercial CAD and FE tools is quite amazing.

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New Sat 3 Jul 10 22:58 
 Best free software on the web - Stuartli
A basic roundup to the main freeware offerings can be found at:

majorgeeks.com/page.php?id=20
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New Fri 9 Jul 10 06:55 
 Best free software on the web - L'escargot
CCleaner gets rid of unwanted cookies and other rubbish.
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New Fri 9 Jul 10 10:36 
 Best free software on the web - Bellboy
>> CCleaner gets rid of unwanted cookies and other rubbish.
>>
>or you could get a sweet likkle puppy
....aahh
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New Fri 9 Jul 10 11:05 
 Best free software on the web - busbee
I have the latest version of System Mechanic (9.5) that is up-to-date and after running
its reg-cleaner, I ran CCleaner and that found 10 more duff registry entries.

When I run SM it asks to speed up my browser, that is working OK, but I am not letting it mess with that, just in case.
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New Fri 9 Jul 10 20:53 
 Best free software on the web - Roger.
Here too ---- bearware.info/

www.techsupportalert.com/#12
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