Free software for your PC
There’s plenty of free and open-source software out there but much of it is not worth installing – and some can be difficult to uninstall. However there is a core of genuine open-source freeware that is as good and in some cases MUCH better than expensive proprietary software. Here is my shortlist of genuinely free software for various applications – all tested by me – and the best (IMHO) are starred. If there are any other freeware applications you find useful please let me know! (updated Jan 2012)
Free Operating System!
UBUNTU: * * Having tried this I will never be without it. Free, powerful, easy to use, it can run from a bootable cd, hard drive, a memory card or usb memory stick - so you can carry your computing environment around with you and use it on any PC! Its fast, compact (under 2G, including open office!) and a lot like windows to use; able to run most common applications, including those below and also many open-source (free) apps that WONT run on Windows. It NEEDS no anti-virus software or malware detectors. You get free updates and a new release every 6 months. And you can put it on as many PC's as you like - whereas you pay for every PC thats running Windows - and again when you need to update.
On-line security:
Anti-virus and firewall:
Effective but some versions slow
Not quite 100% but not too slow
A more flexible firewall and very effective
Anti-malware: (run one of these about every month)
very powerful but not easy to interpret results.
Full thorough scan takes time - run it when the PC is free
good scanner has loads of system analysis tools as well
From Microsoft a tool to help diagnose rootkits (really nasty viruses)
Internet and Email:
reliable and good add-ons
a useful calendar add-on for thunderbird
not just great email - it is a full Personal Information Manager like Outlook; not simple to use
Free online email & webmail: useful for registrations etc so you don’t get plagued by sellers
Easy as webmail or POP3 with the added benefit of a personal information manager
personal account with ads, basic without - both free.
Office applications - word processor, spreadsheet, calculator, drawing, presentation and PIM:
works on all common computers Microsoft Office compatible
word processing only - also works on all common computers
Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base; also works on all common computers
Apps for documents, spreadsheets and presentations
great page layout, desktop publishing, etc - but dont use the web designer.
online office application – documents spreadsheets and presentations and can create pdf files.
online office application – documents spreadsheets and presentations and can create pdf files.
Graphics: Painting and drawing
You will need to choose based on your own applications as they all have strengths and weaknesses.
good general drawing application
(cant save as .bmp etc just in own format)
scalable vector graphics format
Dia (flowcharts and other diagrams)
a bit like Visio, can save as png
powerful paint program for creating images and icons and editing photographs
powerful but needs .net 2 framework
good for flowcharts and similar diagrams
Graphics: Photographs and printing
great for image cataloguing and some simple manipulation
one of the most powerful image tools
fast compact and easy file viewer
Audio: ripping, formats, playing, sound recording editing and analysis
Possibly the best sound editing program
rip tracks even from damaged cd's
another ripping and tagging program
LAME stand-alone MP3 encoder
Needed by almost all software to produce mp3 files.
change and retag mp3 tracks
open source media player - good for playing back music mp3's
CD/DVD burning and file ripping to iso, mp3, etc
Maintenance and repair: Registry cleaners and other utilities
A good starting point for maintenance and repair
Much superior to windows disk defrag tool
Loads of great tools to maintain your PC
a lot of very sophisticated diagnostic utilities
check computer hardware for temperature and voltage problems
Unlike windows tools this can run while windows is open.
easy to use, best free partitioning tool. BE AWARE ANY partitioning can lose data; backup first
IF ALL ELSE FAILS:
Ultimate boot cd http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/download.html OR Windows ultimate boot cd http://www.ubcd4win.com/
UBUNTU a free and powerful operating system that can run from a bootable 2G USB flash drive to test your system or copy files when windows is dead!
Backups and recovery
Free Microsoft windows backup utility: can only restore, not recover individual files
Archives to 7zip format. Not as easy to use as NTBackup. Can open with 7zip.
Back up firefox bookmarks and thunderbird emails and profiles
Back up Outlook express the easy way!
hard drive imaging (like Norton Ghost)
clone disk, system backup etc - very easy to use. Excellent and powerful
General utilities
Zip tools (compressing and decompressing downloaded files – ESSENTIAL)
get 7-zip cos its open source, fast and handles most formats including msi (Microsoft installer) and iso (on cd’s) http://www.7-zip.org/
Windows xp powertoys
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx
includes a better calculator, image resizing, tweakUI, and others including synctoy.
PDF documents: reader and creator
Adobe Reader is free and the most compatible; however it’s big and slow.
Sumatra PDF Viewer * is extremely compact and very fast to load, but has few other features, while
Perfect PDF Reader * has loads of useful features - export pdf pages as images, extract text, save completed forms, but slower to load
PDF Creator (Sourceforge) installs as a virtual printer that outputs to a .pdf file
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/files/
Website editing: HTML code
Arachnophilia http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/index.html (a java application)
Networking
Microsoft xp network diagnostics tool http://support.microsoft.com/kb/914440 (WGA only)
NetTools http://www.axencesoftware.com/index.php?action=FreeNT