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Windows freeware that doesn't suck!

Windows freeware that doesn't suck!

Please contact me for dead links or when you found some great freeware apps.
I'm still working on this list!

Last updated: 30 March, 2013

6 August, 2011

Graphics / Photo Editing

nanoCAD

With nanoCAD you can do everything you can do with other CAD systems. But faster. And for free.



http://nanocad.com/

DraftSight

A 2D CAD product that provides professional CAD users, students and educators a way to create, edit and view DWG files.



http://www.3ds.com/products/draftsight/free-cad-software/

FastStone Photo Resizer

FastStone Photo Resizer is an image converter / resizer intended to enable users to convert, rename, resize, crop, rotate, change color depth, add text and watermarks to images in a quick and easy batch mode.



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

FastStone Image Viewer

General program features include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping, batch processing, batch renaming, color adjustments, color space management, lossless JPEG rotations, a thumbnails database and a customizable magnifier zooming option. The program also sports a slideshow feature which includes a musical slideshow and over 150 transitional effects.



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

RIOT - Radical Image Optimization Tool

An image size reduction tool.



http://luci.criosweb.ro/riot/

Picasa 3

Picasa is a photo management program that helps you instantly find, edit and share all the photos on your PC.
Picasa 3 feature overview



http://picasa.google.com/thanks.html

Paint.net

Graphics editor with a very nice interface and support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.



http://www.getpaint.net/

GIMP

A photoshop alternative.



http://www.gimp.org/windows/

Foto-Mosaik

Create a picture out of other pictures.



http://www.snapfiles.com/get/fotomosaic.html

CD/DVD writing software

ImgBurn

ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application.



http://www.imgburn.com/

CDBurnerXP

This program is an application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs.



http://www.cdburnerxp.se/en/home

Infrarecorder

InfraRecorder offers features similar to most CD and DVD authoring software, including the creation and burning of data and audio disc images, the ability to work with rewritable and multisession discs, and the ability to extract WAV and ISO image files from discs. The program has a panel of tasks similar to Nero Express.



http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/

Convert

Freemake Video Converter

DVD Flick

Burn almost any video file to a playable DVD.

• Support for over 45 file formats
• Support for over 60 video codecs
• Support for over 40 audio codecs
• Add your own subtitles

fre:ac

fre:ac is a CD ripper, audio encoder and converter for various formats. It can produce MP3, MP4/M4A, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, Bonk and FLAC files.
The program supports the CDDB/freedb online CD database and CDText and automatically writes song information to ID3V2 or Vorbis comment tags.
fre:ac is currently available in 31 languages.



http://www.freac.org/

Exact Audio Copy

With other audio grabbers you usually need to listen to every grabbed wave because they only do jitter correction. Scratched CDs read on CD-ROM drives often produce distortions. But listening to every extracted audio track is a waste of time. Exact Audio Copy conquer these problems by making use of several technologies like multi-reading with verify and AccurateRip.



http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

MP4Cam2AVI

MP4Cam2AVI is an easy to use MPEG4 to AVI converter/joiner.
Program supports *.MP4, *.MOV, and *.AVI input.



http://mp4cam2avi.sourceforge.net/

Utilities

HashTab

HashTab is a windows shell extension which installs a new tab with file hash information.
It supports multiple hash algorithms such as CRC32, MD5, SHA1, SHA2, RipeMD, HAVAL and Whirlpool.



http://implbits.com/

VisiPics

A duplicate image finder



http://www.visipics.info/

Stickies

Stickies with allot of options!



http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/

WinCDEmu

Mount CD/DVD images by clicking at the image files in Windows Explorer.



http://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/

JPEGsnoop - JPEG File Decoding Utility

JPEGsnoop is a free application that examines and decodes the inner details of JPEG and MotionJPEG AVI files. It can also be used to analyze the source of an image to test its authenticity.



http://www.impulseadventure.com/photo/jpeg-snoop.html

Microsoft Virtual PC

Microsoft Virtual PC is a virtualization suite for Microsoft Windows operating systems, and an emulation suite for Mac OS X on PowerPC-based systems.



http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/

Speccy

An advanced system information tool.
I really like this one.



http://www.piriform.com/speccy

PC WIZARD

An advanced system information tool



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

CPU-Z

CPU-Z gathers information on some of the main devices of your system.



http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

AutoHotkey

Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.



http://www.autohotkey.com/

MagicISO Virtual CD/DVD-ROM

This utility is not as good as "DAEMON Tools". But I believe this tool doesn't have spyware.



http://www.magiciso.com/tutorials/miso-magicdisc-overview.htm

Greenshot

Greenshot is a light-weight screenshot software tool for Windows.



http://getgreenshot.org/

PicPick

PicPick is a free screenshot utility.



http://www.picpick.org/

TeamViewer

You can remote control a partners desktop to give online assistance, or you can show your screen to a friend - all without worrying about firewalls, IP addresses and NAT.



http://www.teamviewer.com

Launchy

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager.
Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!


http://www.launchy.net/

ENSO Launcher

Enso Launcher is designed to give you instant access to your applications and windows. With a few easily remembered keystrokes, you can launch an application, switch to a window by name, and control the state of your windows. Check the demo video and the beta addons.


http://www.humanized.com/enso/

CamStudio

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and creates industry-standard AVI video files or bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)



http://camstudio.org/

Disk and File Management

Eraser

Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.



http://eraser.heidi.ie/

Darik's Boot And Nuke

DBAN is designed to securely erase a hard disk until data is permanently removed and no longer recoverable, which is achieved by overwriting the data with random numbers.



http://www.dban.org/

TeraCopy

TeraCopy is a compact program designed to copy and move files at the maximum possible speed.



http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

ReNamer

Renaming files and folders.



http://www.den4b.com/

Bulk Rename Utility

Renaming files and folders.
It's easier than it looks!



http://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/

CCleaner - Slim

CCleaner is a system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. I also like the Uninstall tool, much faster than waiting for Start - Settings - Control Panel - Add Remove Programs.



http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner/download/slim

Duplicate Cleaner

A clean up tool for duplicate files. It also checks audio tags!



http://www.digitalvolcano.co.uk/dupe.html

7-Zip

7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip.

• Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
• Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS

LockHunter

Delete files blocked by something you do not know.



http://lockhunter.com/

Recuva - File Recovery

Recuva (pronounced "recover") is an utility to restore files that have been accidentally deleted from your computer.



http://www.recuva.com/

Backup

SyncToy

SyncToy is a PowerToy designed by Microsoft that provides an easy to use graphical user interface that can automate synchronizing files and folders.



http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/

PureSync

File synchronizer with allot of options.



http://www.jumpingbytes.com/en/puresync.html

PING

Backup and restore whole partitions and the BIOS data as well.



http://ping.windowsdream.com/

DVDShrink

DVDShrink is software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc.



http://www.dvdshrink.org/

Dropbox

Dropbox is the easiest way to store, sync, and, share files online. There's no complicated interface to learn. Dropbox works seamlessly with your operating system and automatically makes sure your files are up-to-date. Available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.

Dropbox allows you to store up to 2 GB free of charge.


http://www.dropbox.com/

MailStore Home

MailStore Home enables you to backup all your email messages from multiple applications and accounts into one secure and persistent archive. Works with all popular email applications and webmail services such as Gmail and Yahoo.



http://www.mailstore.com/en/mailstore-home.aspx

Xmarks

Xmarks is a free add-on for your browser that synchronizes and backs up your bookmarks across multiple computers.



http://www.xmarks.com/

Document editing

LibreOffice

LibreOffice does everything that Microsoft Office does and it´s FREE!!!!



http://www.libreoffice.org/

Notepad++

Source code editor and Notepad replacement.



http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

BullZip PDF Printer

Convert to PDF from any application by simply 'printing' to the BullZip PDF Printer. It has allot of nice features.



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

Foxit Reader

Foxit Reader is a PDF document viewer and printer.



http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Music & Video

Daum PotPlayer

PotPlayer is a freeware Multimedia player. It feels like the KMPlayer, but is in active development.
Supports almost every available video formats out there.
PotPlayer contains internal codecs and there is no need to install codecs manually.
I think this is the best media player you can get.



http://codecpack.co/download/PotPlayer.html

TagScanner

Rename files based on the tag and file information.



http://www.xdlab.ru/en/

Foobar

Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player.



http://www.foobar2000.org/

VLC

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.



http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Audacity

Audacity is a digital audio editor application. Some of Audacity's features include:

• Recording and playing sounds
• Editing via Cut, Copy, Paste (with unlimited Undo)
• Multi-track mixing
• A large array of digital effects and plug-ins. Additional effects can be written with Nyquist
• Amplitude envelope editing

Winamp

A music player with allot of community skins and plug-ins.



http://www.winamp.com/

Internet

Wireshark

A packet sniffer.



http://www.wireshark.org/

qBittorrent

A great μTorrent alternative.



http://www.qbittorrent.org/

SABnzbd+

A web based usenet content downloader. Click here for a list of features.
I think this is the best free usenet content downloader you can get.



http://www.sabnzbd.org/

Firefox

Web browser



http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Google Chrome

Web browser



http://www.google.com/chrome/

Opera

Web browser



http://www.opera.com/

Thunderbird

E-mail client



http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

WinSCP

WinSCP (Windows Secure copy) is an open source SFTP and FTP client.
For secure transfers, it uses Secure Shell (SSH) and the SCP protocol.
An other good feature is the remote editor.
When a user clicks on a (text) file in the remote file manager, it transfers the file to the local machine
and opens it in the integrated editor.
Whenever the document is saved, the remote version is upgraded automatically.



http://winscp.net/

Pidgin

Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.



http://www.pidgin.im/

Digsby

Manage all your existing IM, email, and social network accounts from one easy to use application.



http://www.digsby.com/

Portable

LiberKey

This is the best portable application launcher you can get!
Some good features:

• Updates directly by Internet
• You can temporarily associate files extensions with LiberKey applications

PortableApps.com

Provides packaged software suitable for use on portable media.



http://portableapps.com/

PStart

PStart is a simple tray tool to start user defined applications. Besides opening programs, you can also use PStart to open important folders or specific frequently used documents. I love the autorun feature!



http://pegtop.de/start/

EjectUSB

Designed to be a simple utility to close all programs running from a specified drive or folder and then attempt ejection if a drive was specified.



http://download.cnet.com/

USB Disk Ejector

A program that allows you to quickly remove USB devices in Windows.

The command line options are very flexible, they can be used to:

• Eject the drive that the program is running from.
• Eject a drive by specifying a drive letter.
• Eject a drive by specifying a drive name.
• Eject a drive by specifying a partial drive name.

3D Modeling

Blender

It can be used for modeling, UV unwrapping, texturing, rigging, skinning, animating, rendering, particle and other simulations, non-linear editing, compositing, and creating interactive 3D applications.



http://www.blender.org/

Google SketchUp

Google SketchUp is an easy-to-learn 3D software tool.
If you use Google Earth, Google SketchUp allows you to place your models using real-world coordinates and share them with the world using the Google 3D Warehouse.



http://sketchup.google.com/

Security

Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Security Essentials is a virusscanner for average users. The detection rates are very good, in particular the detection of rootkits.



http://www.microsoft.com/Security_Essentials/

AVG Free

AVG Free offers protection against viruses, spyware and dangerous websites.



http://free.avg.com/

Avira AntiVir Personal

Avira AntiVir Personal is a lightweight and efficient virus scanner.



http://www.free-av.de/en/index.html

Avast

Also an excellent virus scanner.



http://www.avast.com/

Neo’s SafeKeys

Neo’s SafeKeys is an On-Screen Keyboard to help protect you against keyloggers.
Neo’s SafeKeys employs many anti-keylogging techniques in order to keep your information and passwords secure from identity theft, bank and credit card theft and more.



http://www.aplin.com.au/

LastPass

LastPass is an online password manager and form filler that makes web browsing easier and more secure.



https://lastpass.com/

KeePass Password Safe

KeePass is a password manager or safe which stores passwords, usernames, attachments and URLs in an encrypted database unlocked by a password, key file, or a combination of the two.



http://keepass.info/

Drag'n'Crypt ULTRA

Drag'n'Crypt ULTRA is a small file encryption tool with a very handy "drop box" interface.
DCU needs no installation.



http://www.bitcore.de/dcu/home.html

Steganos LockNote

LockNote is an ultra secure Notepad with 256-Bit AES encryption.
LockNote needs no installation.



http://locknote.steganos.com

Prey

Prey is a lightweight application that will help you track and find your laptop if it ever gets stolen.



http://preyproject.com/

TrueCrypt

A disk encryption program.



http://www.truecrypt.org/

Malwarebytes Anti-Malware

This is an easy-to-use, small, simple, and effective anti-malware application.
It detects and remove malware that even the most well-known Anti-Virus and Anti-Malware applications on the market today cannot.
Real-Time protection is a paying option. Only the on-demand scanner is freeware.
You really should try this one!



http://www.malwarebytes.org/mbam.php

Server

XAMPP

XAMPP is a free and easy to install Apache web server with MySQL, PHP and Perl.



http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html

HFS

HFS is a small HTTP file server, aimed at mostly sharing files for download. It's quick and easy,even for newbies!



http://www.rejetto.com/hfs/

FileZilla Server

This FTP server provides you with all the features you seek in a simple, yet easy to use FTP server.



http://filezilla-project.org/index.php

Free software