Essential Programs

[Jordan]

Adware/Spyware Removers
Adaware SE Personal Free Edition - 2.27MB (http://www.download.com/Ad-Aware-SE-Personal-Edition/3000-8022_4-10045910.html?part=dl-ad-aware&subj=dl&tag=top5)

Spybot Search & Destory - 4.15MB (http://mirror3.internetsecurity.cc/)

Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta 2 - 6.23MB (http://download.microsoft.com/download/8/1/5/815d2d60-49b5-44dc-ae35-fca2f2c6f0cc/MicrosoftAntiSpywareInstall.exe)

Anti Virus
Avast! Home Free Edition -8.76MB (http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html)

AVG7 Free - 9.86MB (http://free.grisoft.com/softw/70free/setup/avg70free_289a392.exe)

Codec Packs
Kazaa Lite Codec Pack Standard - 4.46MB (http://dl.codecpack.nl/k/klcodec253s.exe)

Matroska Pack Lite - 1.42MB (http://packs.matroska.org/latest/Matroska_Pack_Lite.exe)

Firewall
Zonealarm Free Edition - 6.34MB (http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp)

Media Players
DivX Play Bundle - 7.73MB (http://www.divx.com/divx/play/download/)

Real Player Free - 9.99MB (http://forms.real.com/netzip/intl/intl_getrde601.html?lang=en&h=software-dl.real.com&f=windows/mrkt/R30UKD/RealPlayer10-5GOLD.exe&p=RealPlayer&oem=rp10_en_uk&src=ZG.uk.rp.rp_test.hd.def,ZG.uk.rp10_p_f.rp10_p_ f.760.rp10_plus_free-getrightdownload&tagtype=ie&type=rp10_en_uk)

Quicktime + iTunes - 33.6MB (http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/)

Winamp 5.1 - Varied Sizes (http://www.winamp.com/player/free.php)

Windows Media Player 10 - 11.64MB (http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/player/download/download.aspx)

VLC Player - Varied Sizes (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)

Internet Browsers
Firefox - 4.7MB (http://download.mozilla.org/?product=firefox-1.0.6&os=win&lang=en-GB)

Opera - 3.66MB (http://www.opera.com/download/get.pl?id=27273)

Slimbrowser - 1.5MB (http://www.slimb.com/sbrowser/download.php)

Internet Browser Utilities
Shockwave - Varied Sizes (http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash)

Utilities
Winrar - 0.9MB (http://www.download.com/3001-2250_4-10427683.html?idl=n)

Winzip - 3.88MB (ftp://ftp.download.com/pub/win95/utilities/filecomp/winzip90.exe)

[wing]

what about quicktime and real alternative.

[Infinete]

also i would like to add Flash Movie Player for those whom have XP and enjoy watching flash movies!!

[mike-zim]

thanx for the links i will install a few when i get home.

[Konfucius]

May I add two programs to this list?

Spyware Blaster (http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html)
blocks some cookies and such from entering your pc in the first place without performance loss

XP Antispy (http://xp-antispy.org/?lang=en&option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)
Dis/enable various settings.

[rob]

I think you should add an ip blocker category,
for you p2p people, ip blockers are VITAL.

personally i use Peerguardian 2 (http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/)

anyone more "technically minded" should go here for a blocklist manager and protowall combo ip blocker (http://www.bluetack.co.uk)

[Dieter]

mabye an IRC section?

Trillian, but you already have that I think.

mIRC: www.mirc.com
HydraIRC: www.hydrairc.com
Xchat: www.xchat.com

There's a bunch, but I think I got most of the excellent ones.

[Mr_Odwin]

Er ... that's not quite the right link for x-chat.
I like this version: http://www.silverex.info/news/

[Dieter]

Er ... that's not quite the right link for x-chat.
I like this version: http://www.silverex.info/news/

Woops :cry: :shakehead : peace: ::shrug:

Sorry I really needed to try those out. And I wasn't checking the URL's :) :yay:

[Stocka]

AVG link isn't working.

[Bogbas]

Here's the new link for AVG free (http://free.grisoft.com/doc/5390/lng/us/tpl/v5) if you need it. Some time ago I thought they stopped making the free version because I couldn't find it at their site. But it's apparently back up.

[Ashley]

Know any good programs that automatically search for artwork for id3 tags? Doing it manually is hella not fun. Im sure I've read of one for mac but im on windows.

[broadwayrock]

Tag&Rename does + it saves it to the album folder if you search by Amazon rather than FreeDB.

But alas it is not free unless you aquire it from *cough cough* dubious sources.

[CompSci]

Yo Jordon add AutoPatcher Xp to the List

http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showforum=89

[Sanchez]

Add a torrent client section and put utorrent on it. And azureus i guess.

[JonSt]

Bitcomet also

[Sanchez]

No... BitComet is a bad, abusive client.

[Jordan]

Pfft, i aren't a mod here. I could update this... but why bother? :)

[JonSt]

No... BitComet is a bad, abusive client.

No its not

[Angel]

Add ZipGenius :love:

(webb page)
http://www.zipgenius.it/eng/

(info)
http://www.zipgenius.it/eng/?page_id=3
(handels 50+ formats including RAR, zip, tar etc etc) :yay:

(download)
who cares, you'll find it if u want to

[Konfucius]

Another nice program (that recently found a Trojan on my HD) is a²

It's also free, however, you have to create an account in order to be able to update it but I never got any e-mails from them apart from the password mail.

Download (http://www.emsisoft.com/en/software/download/)

[Nintendork]

I think Konfabulator should be added, now it's free.

[arab_freak]

www.xfire.com

=\

[Twozzok]

No its not

It might not be, but uTorrent (www.utorrent.com) is better :heart:

[pedrocasilva]

for video I use Media Player Classic for all kinds of videos, great customization features and light for the PC (not as light as VLC, but it uses external plugins):

can be downloaded here:
-> http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli

It's really good... can read realmedia and quicktime too :) for those with good graphics cards with shaders, this one can apply settings like "sharpen" or "blend" in the image. (even both of them at the same time)

For Bittorrent... bittornado is the best, but Azureus works very good too.

and at least bitcomet is banned from alot trackers, so it must do something... (like, in... abuse)

[Bogbas]

As this is an essential software thread, I made a little wish list for programs that I would like.
1. E-mail, I have 3 different e-mail adresses and don't want to log in to the web- based inbox constantly.
2. Free video editing software, which has more features than windows movie maker. And has a built in encoder to xvid or similar.
3. A free external encoder program

Can't think of anything else I need at the moment, would like to hear about how the programs have worked for you. As I find feedback from actual users more helpful than just recommendations off somewhere.

[arab_freak]

Want your computer cleansed? Then download CrapCleaner:
http://www.filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/

This AMAZING :D piece of software just made my computer lose half a gig of shit (I'm running low on space on my 40 GB HD). Others who have used it lost between 200 MB to 3 GB of useless crap used by unused/uninstalled applications, browser cache, and unused registry keys. It even lets you control all startup programs without having to go through regedit!

It's fast, small, and most importantly: cheap!

http://www.filehippo.com/img/ex/469__ccleaner1.png

[Bogbas]

It even lets you control all startup programs without having to go through regedit!


There's actually a better tool for that. Go to start-->run...-->type "msconfig" and hit enter. On the services and startup tabs it lists all the stuff that's loaded during startup. You can also enable/disable them. So you don't have to make backups of your registry if you decide to disable some service. But don't touch anything there that you don't know about. There's a possibility that you break your current setup if you fool around with it too much.

But anyone know any free video editing software?

[Mr_Odwin]

What sort of editing?

[Shorty]

For chopping up videos, changing sound, encoding, resizing etc. etc. I'd say VirtualDub (http://www.virtualdub.org/) (or VirtualDubmod (http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net/)) but for actually working with a video (moving scenes about, adding titles, special effects) I really don't know anything about that side of things =)

[Bogbas]

Thank you, virtualdub seems to be exactly what I was looking for :)

[Mr_Odwin]

I was gonna say Virtualdub Shorty! You blatantly stole my thunder!
Anyway, Virtualdub is for weaklings ... Avisynth is where it's at.

[gaggle64]

This essential if you like upgrading your PC regulary - Belarc System Advisor. Simply scans your system and tells you exactly what's on it and in detail. Processor, motherboard, graphix card, RAM, whats on your hard-drive, system protection, everything. Great for making sure you buy compatible RAM.

http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

http://img151.imageshack.us/img151/638/belarc7ad.th.jpg (http://img151.imageshack.us/my.php?image=belarc7ad.jpg)

Totally free of course.

I would also like to join Arab_Freak up there in procaliming the wonder of Crap Cleaner. The best win-cleaner programme ever. AND FREE. (I lost over 800MB - my Pc is running so much smoother!)

[Ashley]

Pfft, i aren't a mod here. I could update this... but why bother? :)

Whats your excuse now?

[Konfucius]

I know it's not really an essential tool but is there a decent program to record streams (yeah I'm thinking about E³). I had one once but the spyware scanner recognized it as a trojan - it was a freeware tool, so could very well be.

[Hellfire]

What do you reccomend to make gifs out of videos? ktnkxby

[Ramar]

Anyone know any free ad-blocker?

Since getting rid of Norton I've welcomed the world of the internet advert. Even msn has adverts, its annoying.

[Konfucius]

Anyone know any free ad-blocker?

Since getting rid of Norton I've welcomed the world of the internet advert. Even msn has adverts, its annoying.

IE has a popup blocker and the Google Toolbar also comes with one. I use PopUpCop, very customizable to block all sorts of things but it's not free.

[Ramar]

Opera blocks popups for me. I need an ad-blocker. Thanks anyway. I never knew this site had some many adverts until now.

[Stocka]

Anyone got a link to the newest AVG please?

[Cube]

Anyone know any free ad-blocker?

Since getting rid of Norton I've welcomed the world of the internet advert. Even msn has adverts, its annoying.

Firfox has an extension called AdBlock.

Also, go to www.apatch.tk to get rid of msn ads.

One program i reccomend is Google Desktop
http://desktop.google.com
Great search speed, sidebar and widgets.

Edit: http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1 for AVG free

[Hellfire]

How can I use vdub with xvids?

[Mr_Odwin]

That requires a longer answer than I'm willing to type. Try this guide:
http://www.doom9.org/index.html?/xvid-vdub-final.htm
I skipped through it but the only difference would be that you'd probably load an avi rather than an avs and you may have to choose full processing mode rather than fast recompress.

[Zell]

Can anyone tell me about any free photo editing software (like photoshop) I can download? I'd like to create my own signature, but I don't have (or intend to buy) Photoshop.

[Konfucius]

As far as I know Gimp is a free photoeditor:

http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

[Fresh]

Can anyone tell me about any free photo editing software (like photoshop) I can download? I'd like to create my own signature, but I don't have (or intend to buy) Photoshop.


*cough* bittorrent, im sorry.

[Sanchez]

Can anyone tell me about any free photo editing software (like photoshop) I can download? I'd like to create my own signature, but I don't have (or intend to buy) Photoshop.

Paint.net is very good.
http://www.getpaint.net/

[Tom]

any good programs to chop up/edit mp3's at all? preferably freeware

[Bogbas]

any good programs to chop up/edit mp3's at all? preferably freeware

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

[The fish]

Add Prevex1.
www.prevex.com

It's a one month free trial, but after that it still finds stuff for you, so you just need to delete it manually.
It will seriously clean up your PC if there is shite on it.

(By the way, Firefox does not know the word shite...)

[Emasher]

for us mac users i recomend a program called quicksilver (like spotlight only better)

[Bogbas]

Opening pdf files usually take pretty long if you're using adobe's reader. Even with a reasonably powerful PC. I found this alternative: http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

It opens pdf's a lot faster than adobe reader. I recommend replacing it with this.

[urso]

if you want to overwrite rather than just delete data, get eraser:
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

or if you've deleted something by mistake and want to recover it:
http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,23108-order,1-page,1-c,alldownloads/description.html

[|Laguna|]

You should add this: http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/

It's a neat little program which checks if there are any updates for the programs you have currently installed, and then gives you a link to download them from.

[Mr_Odwin]

You should add this: http://www.filehippo.com/updatechecker/

It's a neat little program which checks if there are any updates for the programs you have currently installed, and then gives you a link to download them from.

That seems really cool. Cheers!

[McPhee]

Back to the sticky-ness it goes!

[CoolFunkMan]

I downloaded Auslogics Disk Defragger yesterday, and it's brilliant! It's speedy and does a fantastic job of sorting your hard drive. I definitely recommend this.

http://www.auslogics.com/disk-defrag/index.php

It took just under 1 hour to defrag my 120gb IDE hard drive, which only had 13gb free before defragging. After running the program I had 20gb free!

[McPhee]

gonna give it a go now, the disk defragger in vista is shite! how did they actually make it worse than the one in previous versions of windows?

[KKOB]

Wasn't sure where to put this but here goes.

Firefox 3 beta 4 is fucking awesome on the mac! <3

It's as fast as firefox used to be, has some really good features which are actually useful and looks like an OS X app rather than a lame windows app circa 1999.

The updated Safari 3 will have to come out soon else Firefox will replace it as my default browser.

[thirtynine.]

Foobar2000 owns all the media players up there for music btw.

for us mac users i recomend a program called quicksilver (like spotlight only better)
Pc users Launchy is the alternative for us, its not as feature filled as quicksilver but its getting there

[Jimmy3000]

great topic, cheers. My norton recently ran ut so using a zone alarm, AVG, Spybot, CCleaner combo now =)

[Konfucius]

I can also recommend TweakUI (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx)

It gives you a lot of options to costumize WindowsXP in terms of settings.

Edit: it seems thirtynine. beat me to Launchy four days ago.
Still here's my post.
And Launchy (http://www.launchy.net) is a little programm running in the background. It indexes all the Start Menu Shortcuts and other folders and filetypes you specify. With a press of Alt+Space it the Launchy Searchwindow comes up and lets you type in the program name. By pressing enter the program launches.

[Jinmu]

not a lot to say about this one. Stickies/Post Its (http://www.zhornsoftware.co.uk/stickies/index.html ) is something the macs had for years. Its free, indie and only 1mb.

[apostille]

essential programs
When I get a new computer, what programs I need to put on it:
Standard apps (browser, e-mail, office, etc.)
Firefox
Thunderbird
OpenOffice
Trillian
BlitzIn
Development tools (programming languages, text editors, version control)
Perl, Python, Ruby, PHP
EditPlus (Crimson Editor, ConTEXT, and PSPad are also good alternatives)
jEdit (and a bunch of its plugins)
metapad (and replaced notepad with it)
Subversion and TortoiseSVN
MySQL plus the administrator and query browser
KDiff3
Proggy Fonts (Proggy Tiny)
The Regex Coach
Cygwin
Improved Windows Console (still early in development, but promising)
WitchEd
Network tools (protocols)
Ethereal
Putty
FileZilla
WinSCP
VNC
Viewers
Irfanview and all plugins (XnView and The Gimp can also be handy)
7-Zip (I also have to try ICEOWS)
Acrobat Reader
µTorrent OpenOffice downloaded in < 3:45 (!) with it.
iTunes, then uninstall the associated QuickTime, and install the Mega Codec Pack to replace it.
The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack, which includes Real Alternative, QuickTime Alternative, and The Divx codec.
The Ghostscript tools for viewing PostScript on Windows, particularly Ghostscript and GSView. See Obtaining Ghostscript, click through and you'll be able to download both Ghostscript and GSView.
Operating system enhancements/utilities
CLCL
TaskSwitchXP
XP Powertoys, particularly "Open Command Window Here" and "Tweak UI".
Free Launch Bar.
Some of the Sysinternals tools when I have a need for them.
Spacemonger when I later need to figure out what's eating up my space
Spybot and AdAware, eventually.
SlickRun is an excellent command-line style program launcher
Here are some automation utilities that may come in handy.

[RoadKill]

The original post is old now, but to go over the points and clarify:

Adware/Spyware Removers
Spybot Search & Destroy - http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Anti-virus
Avast! Home Free Edition - http://www.avast.com
AVG Free - http://free.avg.com/

Media Players/Codecs
CCCP - http://www.cccp-project.net/
VLC - http://www.videolan.org
Real Alternative Lite - http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative_Lite.htm
Quicktime Alternative Lite - http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QT_Lite.htm

Internet Browsers
Firefox - http://www.mozilla.com/firefox
Opera - http://www.opera.com

Archive utility
Winrar - http://www.rarlabs.com
7-zip - http://www.7-zip.org

App launching:
Launchy (oh how I love you launchy) - http://www.launchy.net/

[gothic_hobbit]

I find that the ultimate anti spyware solution is :

http://www.malwarebytes.org

Try it and see for yourself. No malware / spyware is safe with this running :)