Freeware

[d_kendal]

When I bought my computer about 5 months ago, I decided to put more money into the hardware instead of buying lots of expensive software, and waiting until I could afford all the programs I wanted. but actually I ended up only really spening money on the operating system (which was included in the computer price) and a few games. what I found was that I could find a freeware program that was almost as good or just as good as programs I would've bought. I found the programs mostly from searching on an excellent newsgroup(alt.comp.freeware) and links from posts there. here's a list of some of the best freeware and freeware sites I've found (I don't use shareware and adware, it's just annoying):

Freeware[list=1][*]GIMP (the Gnu Image Manipulation Program: A lot like PhotoShop, except for some things like different layout, no Dust and scratches filter etc etc. (for Windows and Linux)[*]Irfan View: Image/media viewer/editor/converter. view Jpg BMP Tif (and most other image formats) mp3 avi quicktime and others.[*]StarOffice 5.2 The best free office suite around. can even import files from all the MS office programs, edit them and export them again. (note: version 5.2 is free, but the new version 6.0 is $75 US)[*]Tiny Personal Firewall A great firewall, and its a really small download (about 700k)[/list=1]
Thats just a few of the programs I use almost every day. there's loads more that i use lots but I'm too lazy to type them out right now, and they can be found in most of the following links:

Freeware Websites[list=1][*]Son of Spy Freeware page [*]Pricelessware [*]alt.comp.freeware Newsgroup[*]Tucows note: this is not just a freeware site, there's lots of shareware and demos listed too.[*]Do a search on Google for freeware, and you'll come up with tons of other good freware sites. if you're looking for something specific, search for "image editing freeware" or whatever kind of software you're looking for.[/list=1]
the other way I've got some really nice software for almost free, is from magazine CD's (especially the british ones) often you can get full version programs a few versions back that are really expensive programs.
Anyway, thats how I get most of my software, and some of the great programs I've found. What's some of your favorite freeware that you've found?

- David

[Jakaleena]

Great idea, David. I'm a big fan of Freeware too (starving artist type you know...) Glad you mentioned Tucows - that's the first place I go looking when I need software.

Here's the freeware on my HD:

Sygate Personal Firewall - Really good firewall, easy to use and works great!

AVG Antivirus - Frequent updates, auto scan scheduling, check incoming/outgoing mail. I switched to it from Norton and love it.

Popup Killer - Closes all of those nasty little popup windows

X-news - Newsreader. I really like it much better than using OE, but it can be a bit confusing to configure.

Guidescope - Better cookie and privacy control than IE controls

Callwave - takes messages while I'm on the computer.

Mailwasher - Really cool Spam fighter that bounces back email to spammers and tells them "you've moved and left no forwarding address"

MWSnap - Screen capture program

Clean Center - Cleans up junk files on my HD

Irfan View - Neat little image viewer

Click FTP - FTP program

IMS Web Dwarf - WYSIWYG web page creation

And here is a shameless plug...

United Devices - This is the most important thing I do with my computer as far as I'm concerned. UD is a research project that uses my computer's free resources to do chemical/molecular computations. It is searching for information that will lead to a cure for cancer. The molecules are a scrensaver - I've gotten quite attached to my "pet molecules." This is completely unintrusive and runs in the background. It's a REALLY worthy cause for anyone like me who wants to do something charitable but can't afford to donate $$...

[d_kendal]

hi Jak,
thanks for mentioning the United Devices thing. I think thats really neat what they're doing. (i'm downloading it right now)
just remembered a bunch more good programs:

AntiVir Personal Edition - Anti virus program

Adaware - Program for finding and getting rid of spyware on your computer

Spyblocker - Program that blocks banner ads, spyware, cookies, bugs, scripts etc.

WS FTP LE - An FTP program I really like

Pegasus - great mail program

1st Page 2000 - my favorite HTML editor I've found (I've tried lots and I find i can be fastest and get the least errors with this one)

WinMX - file sharing program

PuTTY - Telnet program

ConTEXT - Programming and text editor with highlighting for many different programming languages (HTML too)

Startup Cop - controls which programs open at startup

DLExpert - a download manager

CD-DA Xtractor - the only CD ripper I found that actually works (and it works great), outputs to wav, ogg, or mp3

- David

[DJ Dubovsky]

Wow, you guys compiled quite a list of freebees. Great.
DJ

[d_kendal]

Originally posted by Jakaleena
RE:
United Devices:
I've gotten quite attached to my "pet molecules."

me too! I love that program, I just leave it running in the background all the time.

- David

[Blacknight]

Popup Killer - Closes all of those nasty little popup windows

I jumped on this one, only to find that it has been discontinued due to issues with new browsers (possibly like the ones that plague us Mac users using IE here at this site). How unfortunate.

[Doug Nelson]

I use Popup Killer even though its discontinued and it works great. The download is still available, just the web updates have been deactivated.

[Jakaleena]

Originally posted by Blacknight

I jumped on this one, only to find that it has been discontinued due to issues with new browsers (possibly like the ones that plague us Mac users using IE here at this site). How unfortunate.

I can probably send it to you if you PM me with your addy. I'd be happy to give it a try anyway

[chris h]

Here's another offering by a chap in Finland. 'Reg cleaner'


http://www.jv16.org/


its handy for getting rid of rubbish from the registry files. My friends have a habit of trying allsorts of rubbish programs from magazine discs and then ring me up complaining of the splashscreens that now appear. This is great for flushing them out and safer than bare arsed registry searches.

[Mike Needham]

Whilst this may be off at a slight tangent (apologies). Residents of the USA are eligable for a free game made for the US Army. It is a 1st person perspective shoot-em up I believe and have heard the game is up to Operation Flashpoint standard. The US Army website has more details I believe.

Sorry to bring non applications into the thread, but it is freeware!

[chris h]

Jakaleena,

I f you tire of X News give Agent a try, they do a lite version which has been going for years.


http://www.forteinc.com/agent/index.php

[Jakaleena]

Originally posted by chris h
Jakaleena,

I f you tire of X News give Agent a try, they do a lite version which has been going for years.

I actually have tried Free Agent, and I liked it as far as it went, but it doesn't allow killfiling

Since I don't intend to pay for a newsreader, I found that X-news does everything I need PLUS eliminates trolls nicely...

[d_kendal]

Originally posted by chris h
Here's another offering by a chap in Finland. 'Reg cleaner'
http://www.jv16.org/

thanks for the link Chris. the registry is always getting messed up, and the only way I knew of to solve that problem was to reload windows and everything every 6 months or so.

- David

[d_kendal]

Originally posted by Mike Needham
Whilst this may be off at a slight tangent (apologies). Residents of the USA are eligable for a free game made for the US Army. It is a 1st person perspective shoot-em up I believe and have heard the game is up to Operation Flashpoint standard. The US Army website has more details I believe.

for anybody who's interested, here's a link to the story about it: http://www.dtic.mil/armylink/news/Ma...3armygame.html
It's supposed to come out this summer.

- David

[chris h]

Dave,

The reg cleaner helps prolong the life of your OS but eventually enough is enough and its time for a clean sweep. I've just bid farewell to 98 and its now 2K/XP dual boot, its a pain doing all the re-install but for a few weeks at least you notice the difference. I found that Spyblocker isn't compatible with 2K, do you know of anything similar that is ?

Cheers........

[d_kendal]

hi Chris,

there's something called Ad Killer that I found, and it says in the read-me that it's compatible with Win2K, but I couldn't get it to work in XP so i dont know how well it works.
I just checked the Spyblocker website, and it says "SpyBlocker works with ALL versions of Windows" do you have the latest version? also I just found out that Spyblocker is no longer freeware, it's turned into $hareware

eventually enough is enough and its time for a clean sweep.

yeah, I guess that's true, it's not only the reg that gets messed up, there's a whole lot more junk that builds up that you can't really get rid of without reloading Windows.

- David

[chris h]

Thanks for the information re Spyblocker Dave I'll have another look. I think you reach the point with an 'aged' installation that using a reg cleaner your never quite sure if your chopping away at the foundations ! I'm quite happy with 2000 so far apart from a couple of problems with Nero however Clone Cd is a good substitute for general burning tasks.

[d_kendal]

I'm having problems with Nero too, so I was looking for a good freeware susbstitute and I hadn't found one yet, so thanks for the info! I'll definitly tryout CloneCD

- David

[d_kendal]

over in the One Bit Image thread, people were talking about vector programs, and I just found an interesting looking freeware Vector drawing program here: http://www.zoner.com/draw3/overview.asp

- David

[chris h]

Ok, Doug gave me some burning sites a few months ago and this is probably the best one in my opinion. Lots of blurb on Clone CD.


http://www.cdrinfo.com/

[d_kendal]

great link! CloneCD looks even more interesting then I thought at first, and there's a great tutorial there on using it.

-David

[chris h]

Dave,

I'm a great fan of Nero but Clone offers some interesting 'extras' !
Feurio is superb if your heavily into audio its obviously been a labour of love for its creator but it's so configerable at times it becomes baffling. Its strongest point is extracting data from damaged cd's.

http://www.feurio.com/English/index.shtml

[d_kendal]

Hi chris,

Feurio sounds good too.

it's so configerable at times it becomes baffling.

at least it IS configurable. I hate the built in software in XP for burning, you don't have any options at all.

- David

[chris h]

I've used the XP facility, its handy for tossing a few files onto a CD quickly. What puts me of it is that I understand its a Roxio production and I've never had any joy with their burning software.
As youve probably gathered theres a huge number of burning programs available I keep playing around with them out of interests sake.

[chris h]

More on the Nero saga......

I installed a version that came with my Plextor burner about 5.1 and it loaded once and then 2K gave me the 'generated errors' panel and shut it down. I then downloaded the latest version 5.5 and the same result. Finally I borrowed a friends version that came with a Mirai burner and about 4 months old and tried that, it works perfectly ! I'm tempted to load the latest download as an upgrade on the working version but I think I'll hang fire for the moment. Nero has grown in size enormously since I first used it and its now burdened with label makers and other junk and in turn its being shadowed by small efficient progs like Clone. Are your experiences with Nero similar to the above ? these are the first problems I've had with it.

[Mike Needham]

Confirmed Nero 5.5 user here. Never given me any trouble and as I have also used and still do sometimes (for its childish interface) Clone CD I can't think of an area where Nero doesn't beat Clone CD.

However I am always open to hearing new tips or functions that I have been oblivious of - so pleeeease expand on the features that I am missing out on

[chris h]

Essentially Clone is a copy utility and its easier to run and gets quicker results when burning than my present out of date version of Nero. I'm having problems with Nero on a new installation of W2K and am expecting a response from them to see if they can sort the problem. I understand 2K is very similar to NT and I can recall NT being very fussy as which programs it liked and those it just closed down as is my case with Nero. At the end of the day we're talking a couple of minutes in the burning process with a 24 speed Plextor a bit different from the days of my 4 speed HP ! I was surprised with the new front end of Clone its become a slave to animations which I hate in any type of utility, they're just a waste of time.

[Ed_L]

Originally posted by Blacknight

I jumped on this one, only to find that it has been discontinued due to issues with new browsers (possibly like the ones that plague us Mac users using IE here at this site). How unfortunate.

I just downloaded Popup killer. It is compatible with XP.

Here's the download site.

Ed

[BigAl]

Unfortunately, Popup Killer has just failed its first test on my machine. While browsing cdrinfo (see one of Chris H's mails above) I hit an about:blank and a doubleclick ad - both popups

[fugitive]

I have Popup Killer and don't like it or any of the 2 other ones I have. I havent found a good popup killer yet.
I did install Mail Washer and it's not to bad, only used it one day on OE.