The Best Freeware Applications

Found this awesome guide to the best freeware programs on the web.







Well, I know how some people don’t/wont use wares or any other illegal programs, but they also don’t want to buy $20-$50-$500 programs, so here is a big list of Freeware programs (programs that are 100% LEGAL to download and use as long as you want) that are nearly, or just as good as the ones you would normally pay for.

I put together all of this information myself.



Computer Safety/Protection:



ZoneAlarm 6.5.722




This application has a very powerful Firewall, as well as some other features that most freeware programs do not include



ZoneAlarm is designed to protect your DSL- or cable-connected PC from hackers. This program includes four interlocking security services: a firewall, an application control, an Internet lock, and Zones. The firewall controls the door to your computer and allows only traffic you understand and initiate. The application control allows you to decide which applications can and cannot use the Internet. The Internet lock blocks Internet traffic while your computer is unattended or while you’re not using the Internet, and it can be activated automatically with your computer’s screen saver or after a set period of inactivity. Zones monitor all activity on your computer and alert you when a new application attempts to access the Internet. Version 6.5.722 removes McAfee installation gate and fixes an update problem with LastWriteTime.



File size 13.07MB

Requirements Windows 2000/XP, 450MHz CPU, 64MB RAM (128MB RAM for XP), 50MB disk space

Limitations No limitations



Download here






CCleaner 1.33.382



Is a very simple, useful cleaning program. i would recommend using this once or twice a month



CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a system-optimization tool. It removes unused and temporary files from your system, allowing it to run faster and more efficiently, and giving you more hard-disk space. The application cleans traces left by Windows, Internet Explorer, and third-party applications. Version 1.33.382 includes more cleaning supports for a variety of new third-party applications.



File size 1.42MB

Requirements Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

Limitations No limitations



Download Here






Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06



The most popular ad ware program on the freeware market today, i don’t see why you wouldn’t have this



With the ability to scan your RAM, Registry, hard drives, and external storage devices for known data-mining, advertising, and tracking components, Ad-Aware SE easily can clean your system, allowing you to maintain a higher degree of privacy while you surf the Web.



Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition boasts a number of improvements. Extended memory scanning now scans all modules loaded by a process. Scanning uses the all- new CSI (Code Sequence Identification) technology to identify new and unknown variants of known targets. Extended Registry scanning now scans Registry branches of multiple-user accounts and performs additional smart checks to detect dynamically created references. Scanning speed is noticeably faster, and this version offers an Extended Scanning mode for known and unknown/possible browser hijackers.




New in version 1.06: Disk-scan is approximately 30 percent faster. CSI scan is now more efficient. Added "Scan for low-risk threats" option, to scan for targets with low TAC index. Ad-Watch CSI engine performance highly improved; using less CPU and Memory as well as having a smaller footprint. GUI adapted to use the new TAC.



File size 2.72MB

Requirements Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Limitations Real time protection disabled



Download Here





Avast Home Edition 4.7.892



Avast! home edition is a great anti virus, the scans are a little slow, but it makes a great partner for AVG




Avast 4 Home Edition is a free, complete ICSA certified and Secure Computing Magazine awarded antivirus software for home noncommercial use. Avast includes the following components: On Demand Scanner--with skinnable simple interface--just select what do you want to scan in which way and press the Play button; On Access Scanner--special providers to protect the most of available e-mail clients; Instant Messaging--ICQ, Miranda; Network traffic--intrusion detection--lightweight firewall; P2P protection for Kazaa, BitTorrent; Web shield--monitors and filter all HTTP traffic; NNTP Scanner--scans all Usenet Newsgroup traffic and all operations with files on PC; Boot Time Scanner--scans disks in the same way and in the same time as Windows CHKDSK does. True automatic incremental updates are small and fast.



Version 4.7.892 is now finally compatible with Windows Vista RC1 and the "remediations" in Vista Security Center are now functional.



File size 11.54MB

Requirements Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista

Limitations No limitations



Downlaod Here





Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.4




This is a wonderfully simple and powerful little program, that has regular updates, and a big list of spy ware that it checks for



Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove a multitude of adware files and modules from your computer. Spybot also can clean program and Web-usage tracks from your system, which is especially useful if you share your computer. Modules chosen for removal can be sent directly to the included file shredder, ensuring complete elimination from your system. For advanced users, it allows you to fix Registry inconsistencies related to adware and to malicious program installations. The handy online-update feature ensures that Spybot always has the most current and complete listings of adware, dialers, and other uninvited system residents.



Version 1.4 has the first native multi-installation scanner, noticeably faster than the previous version during scans, and has improved the tools and updated the interface.



File size 4.8MB

Requirements Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Limitations No limitations



Download Here






AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition 7.5.4



Though it may not be as good as it was when it first came out, it can still be a stand alone virus detector, but can be pared up with other anti viruses for extra protection



AVG Free Edition is the well-known antivirus protection tool. AVG Free is available free of charge to home users for the life of the product. Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy to use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements). Highlights include automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run, free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.



Version 7.5.4 includes improved virus detection based on better heuristics and NTFS data streams scanning; a smaller installation and update files; and an improved user interface. The newest version is also compatible with Windows Vista.



File size 16.41MB

Requirements Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Limitations No limitations



Download Here








Other Useful Computer/Maintenance Programs:





Easy Uninstaller 1.5 build 61



Screw the shitty add/remove programs, this does a way better job



This uninstaller is a fast, advanced, powerful, and easy-to-use replacement for Windows’ slow and user-unfriendly Add/Remove control panel applet. It comes with functions such as multiple uninstallations in one go, an uninstall list backup manager, and the option to delete an uninstaller key entry.




File size 681.91K

Requirements Windows Me/XP, Visual Basic Runtime Module 6.0

Limitations No limitations



Download Here





Auslogics Disk Defrag 1.1.0.188



Does a better and faster job then the M$ disc defragmenter on your computer



Disk fragmentation leads to system slowdowns, PC crashes, slow startup and shutdown and sometimes to system failures. Auslogics Disk Defrag is designed for fast optimization of today’s modern hard disks. Get the maximum performance out of your expensive hardware investments. Version 1.1.0.188 increased defragmentation speed by 30-80%, added Windows Vista RC2, RTM and Vista 64-bit support, improved disk defragmentation map, fixed a "Canvas does not allow drawing" bug.




File size 1.44MB

Requirements Windows 2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

Limitations No limitations



Download Here





Abexo Free Registry Cleaner 1



This helps get rid of errors and other crap that slows down your computer



By time Windows registry gathers a lot of invalid entries that cause system complications and slow down your computer significantly. Included in Complete Registry Cleaner is a registry defragmenter also called compressor, which removes the empty spaces after a cleanup and thereby reduces registry size. Registry defragmentation increases the performance of your computer dramatically. One-click registry back-up, clean-up and defrag.




File size 723.41K

Requirements Windows 98/Me/2000/XP

Limitations No limitations



Download Here







Codecs:



(note) these are not nearly all the codecs available, just 2 small packs that i found extremely useful, but if you install too many codecs, you may run into conflicts/errors, just a tip.






XviD Media Codec 1.1.1



Some great codecs that will help you view some of the more popular video formats



XviD Media Codec includes the open-source MPEG 4 codec, which comes from the same open-source project that was the basis for DivX 4.x/5.x. The XviD codec will enable you to watch XviD movies. There’s no XviD Player included, but with this codec installed on your machine, you will be able to view XviD movies with your favorite media player, such as WMP or WinAmp. Its source code is available online for everyone. XviD Media Codec comes complete with both install and uninstall wizards. Version 1.1.1 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.



File size 511.5K

Requirements Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server

Limitations No limitations



Download Here






DivX for Windows with DivX Player 6.2.2



Some great codecs that will help you view some of the more popular video formats, but its different then the XviD Media Codec 1.1.1 above



This bundle includes the DivX Player and DivX 6.2 codec and DivX Converter. The DivX Player plays all .avi and .divx files that contain DivX video and MP3 audio (including DivX 3, 4, 5 and 6 video formats), and enables access to rented and purchased DivX movies. The DivX codec extends DivX playback support to all popular media players. This package supports English, French, German and Japanese languages.



DivX Player is optimized to play every DivX file with full support for all the advanced features of DivX including scene selection menus, chapters, subtitles, video tags and alternate audio tracks. The latest version of the DivX Player adds a download manager that allows you to download multiple videos, pause and resume downloads, and progressively play back video, and a new burn-to-disc feature for creating DivX discs from within the player. Version 6.2.2 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.



File size 14.34MB

Requirements Windows 2000/XP

Limitations No limitations




Download Here







Audio Video:





VCD Gear



This is a very diverse tool, it can convert a wide variety of video formats, and i think most people should have this, casue when you need it, you need it



VCDGear is a tool written to effortlessly extract MPEG streams from CD images, convert VideoCD files to MPEG, correct MPEG errors, create (Super)VideoCDs and more!. The first public release was back in late 1997 and ever since then, VCDGear has continued to grow in complexity, offering a multitude of features to make this a very powerful tool for VideoCD enthusiasts. VCDGear is the result of over 6 years of work.


Some of the features you will find in VCDGear are:



* MPEG stream extractions from popular CD images

* On the fly MPEG correction to fix certain types of MPEG errors

* Super VideoCD and VideoCD image creation

* Sample generation

* Multilanguage support

* Graphical interface and command-line versions available

* Cross platform

* Free!




Anyone requiring the need to transport their video materials will find VCDGear as a useful tool to assist them in getting the video to play on their computer or VideoCD player.



Download Here





Animator-9 3.6[b]



Now this program could easily be compared to Ulead GIF Animator, only this program is freeware. it doesn’t have as many features, but it still gets the job done



Several digital cameras can take a multi picture, which shows a sequence of shots in one picture. Animator-9 can read this file and generate an animated GIF, split it into several small files, or animate it with a Java applet. Animator-9 can even generate the HTML code necessary to get the animations working on your Web page. This update introduces a new Stitch feature, which allows you to create any animation file (even if you don’t have a camera). Animator-9 can compose any BMP or JPG file sequence to an animation file.




File size 436.28K

Requirements Windows 95/NT

Limitations No limitations



Download Here





[b]MediaMonkey 2.5.4



Very useful for those who have a extensive music collection, plus it has many other features



MediaMonkey is a music manager and jukebox for serious music collectors and iPod users. It catalogs your CDs, OGG, WMA, MPC, FLAC, APE, WAV and MP3 audio files. It offers an intelligent tag editor which looks up missing Album Art and track information via Freedb and the web, and an automated file and directory renamer to organize your music library. It includes a CD ripper, CD/DVD Burner, and audio converter for saving music, and manual or automated playlist editors for creating music mixes. Its player automatically adjusts volume levels so that you don’t have continually fiddle with the volume control and supports hundreds of Winamp plug-ins and visualizations; or if you prefer, it can use Winamp as the default player. It also includes portable audio device synchronization that allows you to quickly synch tracks and playlists with iPods and other portable audio devices.




Version 2.5.4.978 adds improvements and fixes related to synchronization, support for wav tags, and CD/DVD Burning.



File size 4.82MB

Requirements Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Limitations Automation features disabled



Download Here





JetAudio Basic 6.2.6



This is another audio player, but it does some other interesting things, like allow you to broadcast your own music, convert audio files and more




etAudio is integrated multimedia software made up of a single compact rack. Not only does it play various music and video files, it also has features such as CD burning, recording, and conversion to other file formats. You can create your own Internet broadcast by using JetCast, provided with JetAudio, and you can play all major file formats, including WAV, MP3, MP3Pro, OGG, WMA, MPEG, AVI, WMV, MIDI, RM, and video and audio CD tracks. Convert among audio file formats, and record analog audio to various formats.tag editing for MP3, OGG, and WMA files; sound effects including wide, reverb, and x-bass; multichannel sound output; speed control of audio playback; cross-fading for a smooth transition between two songs; a skinnable user interface; and synchronized lyrics display (karaoke) for MIDI and MP3 files.supports for video conversion for iAUDIO U3, supports .ts, .tp file extension, and includes video format converter to AVI.



Version 6.2.6 Fixed video conversion for iAUDIO 6/U3



File size 16.31MB

Requirements Windows 98/Me/2000/XP

Limitations No limitations



Download Here





VLC Media Player 0.8.5




This is a VERY versatile media player, highly recommended



VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats, including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, MP3, and OGG, as well as for DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It also can be used as a server for unicast or multicast streams in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.



Version 0.8.5 is a bugfix release.



File size 7.9MB

Requirements Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP

Limitations No limitations



Download Here






EXPStudio Audio Editor Free 4.0.1



A wonderful little audio editing tool, that allows you to do many things with your sounds, very feature rich



This powerful free tool allows you edit your audio files like editing text files, display a waveform window of an audio file and apply zooming, record new audio file from a microphone, VCR, cassette player or another input device, visually edit an audio file (cut, copy, delete silence, paste from file, mix, mix from file); apply different effects (Amplify, Delay, Equalizer, Fade, Flanger, Invert, Normalize, Noise, Breath reduce, Reverse, MultiTapDelay, Silence, FX effects (Convert voices: Female to male, male to female, Chipmunk and Zeus). The following audio formats are supported: WAV PCM, compressed WAV (ADPCM, GSM, DSP, A-LAW, U-LAW, ALF2 and others), MP2, MP3 (MPEG Layer-3), VOX (Dialogic ADPCM), WMA (Windows Media Audio), RAW(PCM, A-LAW, U-LAW), CDA (Audio CD Tracks), OGG (Ogg Vorbis), G.721, G.723, G.726.




Version 4.0.1 improved loading speed.



File size 5.97MB

Requirements Windows 98/Me/NT/2000/XP/2003 Server/Vista

Limitations No limitations



Download Here







Office and Other Tools:





The GIMP 2.2.11




This is the best thing for people that don’t like illegal software or don’t want to buy photo shop, it may be a tad bit watered down, but it’ll do for any beginner to intermediate



GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a freely distributed piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring. It is a powerful piece of software with capabilities not found in any other free software product. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo-retouching program, an online batch-processing system, a mass production image renderer, or an image-format converter. GIMP is modular, expandable, and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image-manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. Version 2.2.11 is a bug-fixing release.



Note: You will need to download both GTK+ Runtime Environment Get Them Here and The Gimp installers. Install GTK+ before installing The Gimp.




File size 7.7MB

Requirements Windows NT/2000/XP

Limitations No limitations



Download Here





OpenOffice.org 2.0.4



Fuck 200 dollars for Microsoft Office, this is like the free version of it, only just as good



OpenOffice.org is both an open-source product and a project. The product is a multiplatform office productivity suite. It includes desktop applications such as a word processor, a spreadsheet program, a presentation manager, and a drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to those of other office suites. OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office.



Localizations of OpenOffice.org are available in 27 languages, with more being constantly added by the community. OpenOffice.org runs on Solaris, Linux (including PPC Linux), and Windows. Written in C++ and with documented APIs licensed under the LGPL and SISSL open-source protocols, OpenOffice.org allows any knowledgeable developer to benefit from the source. Among other new features, bugfixes, and improvementsm, version 2.0.4 adds enhanced PDF management, direct export to LaTex, and new functionality in Calc and Impress. The most notable advancement is improved extensions management that allows developers to create their own extensions for the open-source suite.




File size 92.38MB

Requirements Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP, Java Runtime Environment 1.4

Limitations No limitations



Download Here





NVU 1



Somewhat like Dream weaver, only, you guessed it, free



Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a "new view") makes managing a web site a snap. Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML. Finally! A complete Web Authoring System for Linux Desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users.




File size 6.57MB

Requirements Windows(all)

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