Best Freeware?

Alright Ive seen a few Best of the Best Freeware/Program threads around, but all of them are for security based or process based programs.

This thread was made to collect the other freeware programs that you may use. Such as video converters, vector imaging software, CAD type software, music players, Docks, RSS readers, or anything else.

Please post your ideas in a specific fashion as to not get this all cluttered up.

Example:

 

OK, I will get things started

FreeCommander
http://www.freecommander.com/

FreeCommander is an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager. The program helps you with daily work in Windows. Here you can find all the necessary functions to manage your data stock. You can take FreeCommander anywhere - just copy the installation directory on a CD or USB-Stick - and you can even work with this program on a foreign computer.

PS: excellent sync capability

 

VLC media player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

The cross-platform open-source multimedia framework, player and server

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac ...) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols. See the full features list.
It can also be used as a media converter or a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on networks.

 

MP3 Gain
http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

Tired of reaching for your volume knob every time your mp3 player changes to a new song?
MP3Gain analyzes and adjusts mp3 files so that they have the same volume.

MP3Gain does not just do peak normalization, as many normalizers do. Instead, it does some statistical analysis to determine how loud the file actually sounds to the human ear.
Also, the changes MP3Gain makes are completely lossless. There is no quality lost in the change because the program adjusts the mp3 file directly, without decoding and re-encoding.

 

PC WIZARD
http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php


Since 1996 PC WIZARD is among the most advanced system information programs on the market. PC WIZARD is a powerful utility designed especially for detection of hardware, but also some more analysis. It's able to identify a large scale of system components and supports the latest technologies and standards. This tool is periodically updated (usually once per month) in order to provide most accurate results.

PC WIZARD is also an utility designed to analyze and benchmark your computer system. It can analyze and benchmark many kinds of hardware, such as CPU performance, Cache performance, RAM performance, Hard Disk performance, CD/DVD-ROM performance, Removable/FLASH Media performance, Video performance, MP3 compression performance.

 

KMPlayer
http://kmplayer.en.softonic.com/
Another open source media player that has a wide range of video and audio codecs that it can play.

Kantaris
http://www.kantaris.org/
Another open source media player that was built off of VLCs code.

Audio Identifier
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Audio_Identifier.htm
Audio Identifier is a FREE audio inspector. You can browse through your audio collection with it and it will show you useful information, like average bitrate, used encoder and settings, guessed quality etc.

Basically it analyzes your music and tells you the format and the bitrate. Great for burning high quality CDs.

CD BurnerXP
http://cdburnerxp.se/
Free CD/DVD Burner that can also burn blu-ray discs and HD DVD as well as ISO files.

 

iWisoft Free Video Converter
http://www.easy-video-converter.com/index.html
iWisoft Free Video Converter can fast convert videos between all popular formats like AVI, MPEG, WMV, DivX, XviD, MP4, H.264/AVC, AVCHD, FLV, MKV, RM, MOV, 3GP, and audio MP3, WMA, WAV, RA, M4A, AAC, AC3, OGG. Directly convert video for playback on your PSP, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PS3, Xbox, Zune, Creative Zen, Archos and other digital multimedia devices.

Its a free version of Xilisofts Video Converter. It has the same user interface.

SpeedyFox
http://www.crystalidea.com/speedyfox
Firefox is a fast browser, but with the lapse of time it starts working much slowly. The reason is fragmentation of profile databases. A free tool SpeedyFox is designed specially to resolve that problem. The method used in SpeedyFox is 100% safe for your profile (e.g. bookmars, passwords, etc), it's well documented and tested on many computers.

This really works. I use it.

 

This I consider a keeper

Partition Wizard

From the website:

 

I wonder if we can get a sticky on this.

 

ImgBurn
ImgBurn is a lightweight CD/DVD/HD DVD/ Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit!

http://www.imgburn.com/


Audacity
Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/



FastStone Image Viewer
FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments.

http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm



PDF-XChange Viewer
PDF-XChange Viewer is smaller, faster and more feature rich than the Adobe Reader which has until now been the Reader of choice for PDF files...

http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer


Bullzip PDF Printer
The Bullzip PDF Printer works as a Microsoft Windows printer and allows you to write PDF documents from virtually any Microsoft Windows application.

http://www.bullzip.com/products/pdf/info.php


AbiWord
AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.

http://www.abisource.com/


OpenOffice.org 3
OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more.

http://why.openoffice.org/

 

Image editing
Paint.net
http://www.getpaint.net/

Image Viewer
IrfanView
http://www.irfanview.com/

Compression
http://www.7-zip.org/

Encryption
http://www.truecrypt.org/

Diff/Merge
WinMerge
http://winmerge.org/

ASCII Editor
Notepad++
http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus/

Windows Explorer Extension
http://qttabbar.wikidot.com/

 

I didnt think I would get this big of a response.

 

I hope you dont mind one more whitedragon551:

someone at Wilders advised me to use Format Factory, which I find great for reliability and speed.

http://www.formatoz.com/

 

PolyEdit Light,free light and a very good word processor.Although I have Microsoft Office 2007 on my system I use this program most of the time because it is fast and the interface looks like office 2003.

 

Media Jukebox-
MediaMonkey
http://www.mediamonkey.com/

J.River Media Jukebox
http://www.mediajukebox.com/

Intercept the Vista Convenience Tool (UAC)-
Norton UAC Tool
http://www.symantec.com/norton/theme.jsp?themeid=labs_uac&header=0&depthpath=0

Spam Filter-
Mailwasher Free-
http://www.mailwasher.net/

Video Search/Download
Ashampoo ClipFinder HD
http://www2.ashampoo.com/webcache/html/1/product_2_0155___USD.htm

TubeMaster++
http://www.tubemaster.net/

 

User-friendly remote access:
http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx

(free for personal use)

 

Disc Cleaner
http://www.diskcleaner.nl/index.php
Disk Cleaner is a free open source (GPL v2) tool to quickly and easily clean your hard disk from temporary files like those in the system temporary folder, the Internet Explorer Cache and Cookies folder, and the Recycle Bin. Disk Cleaner is absolutely free from adware and spyware.

nCleaner
http://www.nkprods.com/ncleaner/
nCleaner contains an advanced system and application cleaner with over 90 cleaning items available, a Registry Cleaner, a Tweak Manager, an advanced Startup Manager, a Junk Finder, a Free Space Shredder, a System Resource Monitor, a System Adviser, supports logging and statistics as well as advanced Scheduling.

Better than CCleaner I think.

CCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space.

Restoration
http://www.aumha.org/freeware/freeware.php#restore
One of the best file recovery softwares available and its open source and free. Much better than Recuva from Piriform programmers.

Recuva
http://www.piriform.com/recuva
Another free tool to recover lost or deleted files.

Speccy
http://www.piriform.com/speccy
Speccy is an advanced System Information tool for your PC. We're still bug fixing, but have just released a Public BETA version for you to download! It monitors temps, processes, services, etc. Much like Everest, but FREE!

 

Along the same lines is a nifty utility,free and portable.

http://www.gtopala.com/

 

The best "freeware?" That's easy:

Operating Systems:

Linux:

Ubuntu
Fedora
Arch
Mandriva
Gentoo
Backtrack This is a must have OS for security pen testing. It is a Linux liveCD/liveUSB distro that packs a ton of hacking tools (some of which only run on Linux). Any network can be "tested" no matter what OS is running, as Backtrack will have tools for any OS.

And, of course, there are dozens of other Linux distros.

Other Unix derived OS's:

FreeBSD (there are several other BSD's as well that I didn't list)
OpenSolaris (Sun open-sourced Solaris and hence OpenSolaris. It is quite nifty).

M$ Windows clone:
ReactOS (Why anyone wants a Windoze copy is beyond me, but there it is for any interested party).

Other General Purpose OS:
Haiku (A BeOS clone)

There are many other free OS's but most of them are only for tinkering or research.


As for applications -- here is a list of some that run on most major OS's:

Office:
OpenOffice (Full office suite that will do 98% of what M$ Office will do).
AbiWord (word processor only)

Sound Editor:
Audacity

Browser:
Firefox

Image Editing:
GIMP (Originally developed for Unix derived systems, it now runs on most OS's and will do 95% of what Photoshop will do)
Inkscape

Bit Torrent:
Transmission Not the flashiest client in the world, but it is simple, light, and its feature set is perfect.

Video Editing:
Kdenlive (Unix/Linux only) It is about equivalent to Sony Vegas and quickly catching up with iMovie. Very powerful editor that is under rapid development.

Image Viewer:
Gwenview (Unix/Linux only)

Music Player:
Foobar2000 (Windows only)
Amarok (Unix/Linux only). In my opinion, Amarok is the best music player on any OS ever.

Encryption:
Truecrypt (Win, Unix/Linux, OSX)
dm-crypt/LUKS (whole disk encryption for Linux)
OTR (Unix/Linux, but now has ports to Windows via Trillian) An instant messaging encryption client that provides plausible deniability. A must have tool.
GnuPG (Developed for Unix/Linux but also runs on Windows) This is the free alternative to PGP and is just as functional and secure. A must have tool for e-mail encryption/signing.

Disk Burning:
K3B (Unix/Linux only) The best burning software, ever.

DVD Ripping:
K9Copy (Unix/Linux only) This was an attempt to bring a DVDShrink-like app to Linux. It worked and has surpassed DVDShrink in every way. Probably the best ripper I have used on any OS.

Development/IDE's:
Eclipse It can do it all in several languages.

Video Players:
VLC (Unix/Linux, Windows, BeOS, Mac OSX, and others)
Kaffeine (Unix/Linux KDE only) I love Kaffeine for KDE (Linux). Easy to use, feature rich and works.
SMplayer (Unix/Linux Gnome only) A front-end for the popular Mplayer Gnome video player.

 

MyDefrag:
http://www.mydefrag.com/
A simple and powerful disk defragmenter and optimizer.

Google Chrome:
http://www.google.com/chrome
Fast, secure and easy to use and look web browser from Google.

 

These are my first few apps to be downloaded whenever I've reformatted.

ERUNT - I use as an alternative to System Restore.

EASEUS Partition Master home edition - Easy to use partition tool.

Rivatuner - Great tool for overclocking your graphics card. Has some useful tools to set up better cooling settings as well. Not for newbies to jump right into, though. Overclocking does need a lot of researching your hardware limits.

AxCrypt - File locker/encryption tool. Simple and reliable. 32 bit and 64 bit.

ATF Cleaner - I like CCleaner, but find myself using ATF cleaner much more. Both are great for keeping a junk-free PC.

HW Monitor - Nice tool to keep an eye on hardware temps + voltages. Monitors the CPU/GPU/Hardrive temps, and displays Ram, CPU, Motherboard voltages. You can also use it to check various fan speeds - fans connected to the motherboard.

 

PowerPro - best utility ever made. (site is old but the last version is from November)

 

Format Factory
Foxit Reader- Great, Fast Light PDF
SRWare Iron
Revo Uninstaller
Mozilla Thunderbird
Glary's Utilities
SIW- Best app ever for complete system info
Update Notifier
My Defrag
7-Zip
Screenshot Captor
PopFile- Great anti-spam filter
WinPatrol

 

Dcrowe please go reread the first post and follow the guideline so this topic doesnt get derailed and locked.

 

Would be a plus if future suggestions could be kept outside those made on Gizmo's - most already listed.