Free software
It is amazing how many really
good FREE programs are available today! So why do we keep buying
software? Simple - because no body is there to tell us about the best
free applications. After all, these projects rarely have an advertising
budget, and not everyone is as successful as google. Therefore, I
started this list of my personal picks for windows (mostly). Most of
these are free to download; some are open source. For
simplicity I chose to list only one or two applications in each
category. Enjoy!
The basics - everyone should
have
Operating system for the home
PC:
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Ubuntu Linux - http://www.ubuntu.com/
apt-get makes it truly a breeze to use. If you've never tried Linux
before, this is a great place to start. The documentation problems are
also pretty good. All the software is free and easy to install with a
single apt-get command. Worth a try.
-
AVG Anti Virus - http://free.grisoft.com/doc/2/lng/us/tpl/v5
Also grab a copy of the spyware and rootkit scanners, while you're at
it: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5#avg-anti-rootkit-free
Firewall: COMODO - http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
Email: gmail - http://www.gmail.com/
Backup software: Cobian backup
to FTP http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm
ZIP Archive manager: 7Zip http://www.7-zip.org/.
I'm now trying out IZArch
which also supports .iso files.
Web browser: Firefox 2.0 http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/
Image manipulation: GIMP
(like Photoshop, but free) http://www.gimp.org/
Remote assistance: LogMeIn http://www.logmein.com
Monitoring: SpeedFan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
System cleanup (tmp files,
registry): CCleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/
Just for fun
Instant messaging and VoIP: MSN Messenger
Live, Skype,
Google
Talk
Google earth: http://earth.google.com/
Advanced (for the curious)
Network sniffer: Wireshark
(previously Ethereal) - http://www.wireshark.org/
X Window Server (without
Cygwin) - http://freedesktop.org/wiki/Xming
FTP/SFTP Clinet: FileZilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Task manager: Process Explorer
- http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysinternals/utilities/ProcessExplorer.mspx
Virtualization - http://www.vmware.com
or Microsoft
Virtual Machine 2007
For Developers
CVS Client: TortoiseCVS - http://www.tortoisecvs.org/
SVN Client: TortoiseSVN - http://tortoisesvn.net/
Merging software: WinMerge - http://winmerge.org/
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