[z71silverado98]

Heres a list of the programs I use at work and personally. the are all free and all great. If there's better ones post a link, if i recognize it ill post it, if not ill review it. these work fine for me and would certainly help someone out who doesnt have anything. Items w/ stars behind are recommended personally. Anything w/ 2 stars you need to get as i dont know how you can even function.

Anti-Virus and Firewall

*Comodo AV (this ones not a Fisher-Price AV you have full control):
http://antivirus.comodo.com/

*Comodo FW (again not Fisher-Price style):
http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/

AVG:
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/us/frt/0

Avast:
http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10747101.html?tag=pop.software

Anti-Spyware/Adware/Malware

*AdAware (use the personal verision as its free):
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/

*Spyware Blaster:
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

*SpyBot:
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/

Audio

*Winamp (player):
www.winamp.com

Audacity (music editor)
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

MP3Gain (volume leveler):
http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

MixMeister (Beat per minute analyzer):
http://www.mixmeister.com/download_freestuff.html

Video

*DVD Shrink (Fits a full DVD to 4.7GB burnable DVD)
www.dvdshrink.org/

*DVD decrypt (use for encrypted DVDs)
http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/

Movica (editor)
http://sourceforge.net/projects/movica/

PDF

**Foxit Viewer (loads in 2 seconds compared to 30sec w/ adobe:
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

PDF Creator (I use it to create PDFs of autocad drawings for clients. will print anything to a PDF i believe):
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Pictures

Gimp (similar to photoshop)
http://www.gimp.org/

*IrfanView (Fast viewer w/ editing options)
http://www.irfanview.com/

Misc
**Stickies (Digital Post-its, tons of features and can send sticky notes between networked computers)
http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/

Open Office (similar to Microsoft Office):
http://www.openoffice.org/

*Google Earth (Digital Globe)
http://earth.google.com/

Sketch Up (3D modeling)
http://sketchup.google.com/

**GetRight (faster downloads)
http://getright.com/

WinZip (compression)
http://www.winzip.com/index.htm

WinRar (compression)
http://www.rarlab.com/

::Construction Ahead::

mozilla

avast

 

[Guest]

please consider adding AVG to your antivirus list. I use it as it is free for personal use and includes free automatic updates.

http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/us/frt/0

 

[Guest]

deleted

 

[z71silverado98]

post links to the program page. ive got a big list of my stuff and i dont need to go searching for yours too.

 

[lbreevesii]

www.mozilla.com

Firefox web browser, Thunderbird E-mail client and more.

 

[neothespian]

www.openoffice.org

Open-source application suite that is FULLY Microsoft Office compatible. Contains:

-Word processor
-Database
-Spreadsheet
-Desktop Publishing application aides

I myself have been using Open office for nearly a year, and I find it BETTER than the Microsoft Works that was slapped into my laptop and equal with a few nice tweaks over Microsoft Office.

And yes...it's free.

 

[Adjuster]

Another one for Avast anti virus. I used to be an AVG dude but since trying Avast I have never considered anything else.

http://www.download.com/Avast-Home-Edition/3000-2239_4-10747101.html?tag=pop.software

 

[vallen]

or, get a mac

 

[benny429]

Thanks for posting.

 

[msgttbar]

I like ZONELABS Zonealarm firewall. Have had excellent results with it.

http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp

Go here for the free version.

 

[farmkid]

My experience may not be typical, but I found that on my Win 2000 machine, AVG would thrash and bring the system to its knees. I contacted the authors for advice, but they replied that they could only help me if I paid for a subscription. Paying for something that clearly didn't work didn't seem like a good option, so I switched to Avast, and everything worked properly.

 

[Dreamthief]

isn't there a really good registry cleaner out there? that would be a good one to post as well. I jsut can't remember what it's called.

 

[z71silverado98]

Thanks for posting.

well i was begnining to wonder if we'd helped anyone yet.

As far as AV & FW ive paid for norton for years, they were ok, switched to AVG and wasnt happy, tried the roadrunner free software and that was garbage, then i went to comodo and have been happy since.

 

[lbreevesii]

or, get a mac

or just be a defensive and smart computer user and it won't matter.

Macs have their place, but they're not for the majority imo. I work with them every day, I deal with their hardware with all its pros and cons. While they have their redeeming values hardware wise, they also have their severe shortcomings.

Just .02 cents from a computer professional.

don't mean to sound condescending to the mac crowd, just my perspective.

If you have problems bad enough to really warrant the need of a really good reg cleaner you might as well just format in my opinion. It just isn't worth the trouble when there are probably other things causing slowdowns that a simple format will take care of. CCleaner has an 'issues' cleaner that helps clean up some reg info. It can be pretty handy sometimes.

 

[neothespian]

or, get a mac

Macs are NOT immune to viruses. In fact, there have been quite a few that have been "Bricked" by a few viruses because users think they are above such things and never install an antivirus on their machines.

Besides, contrary to the belief that EVERYONE in the arts uses Mac, I find them pretty much useless with alot of the field recording equipment I use in my profession. Also, Colortran lightboards, the common standard for many theaters and "hard" studio locations, are Windows and DOS based.

So, while they're nice machines, they are hardly perfect.

 

[Taurus357]

YEa, let's not turn into a mac PC debate. No machine is 100% immune, no matter the OS(so long as it's mainstream). Macs can are not as likely to contract a virsus as not as they do not have as many users as PCs, but far from immune. Heck there's viruses for cell phones and pdas! This is to suggest software for folks to use, that all. Keep it on track and helpful.

 

[lbreevesii]

^ concur. Its a lot of personal prefrence and has a lot to do with technical and usage levels.

More free software:

Knoppix- Bootable linux CD. Extremely useful for testing if a problem is hardware or software based and for recovering files from a non-booting ntfs or fat32 partition.
www.knoppix.net

Hijackthis- very popular tool for finding spyware problems that are causing internet browsing issues. just search for it.

www.spywareinfo.com - free online activex applet based spyware scan

 

[waltham41]

isn't there a really good registry cleaner out there? that would be a good one to post as well. I jsut can't remember what it's called.

www.ccleaner.com would most likely fill your needs there. Free program.

 

[Taurus357]

Great fan speed control. use it on my dell to keep my lap nice and cool since this crappy cooling pad crapped out on me.

http://www.diefer.de/i8kfan/index.html

 

[Oldgeek]

Search for FileHippo to find most of this stuff to download in one place. It doesn't overwhelm you with too many choices either. Good post.