Best freeware utilities?

[trustysteed]

It's not been updated for a couple of years but I would also highly recommend KMPlayer as an alternative to VLC.

 

[661-Pete]

Well, seeing as my other 'hat' is astronomy, I might as well put down some of the wealth of astronomy goodies available for free. Nearly every amateur astro in the business sings loud the praises of Stellarium, which gives you an excellent picture of the night sky which you can start to use in anger even if you've barely even glanced at the moon. I personally tend to pass over it in favour of Cartes du Ciel which is my favourite, albeit a bit more technically-oriented and not so pretty, but that's what suits me. I'd recommend starting with Stellarium.

Much of the other astro freeware is a bit too technical for those who're not deep into the hobby, but there is plenty around: astronomers are remarkably well provided!

I came across this a few weeks ago: Celestia. An amusing package which enables you to (virtually) take a space trip around the Solar system or even around the Galaxy, if you're so minded. Not quite as polished a piece of software though, can be a bit awkward to navigate.

 

[Billloudon]

I have used AVG anti virus free software for years now without difficulty. Computeractive magazine is a great source of downloads that are really useful.

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/vnunet/downloads/2129071/avg-antivirus-free-edition

 

[trustysteed]

uTorrent is excellent.

 

[fossyant]

uTorrent is excellent.

 

[Bigtwin]

"Freeware"?????

Oh yeah, that's stuff for people who use PCs right?

Macists should start some kind of "payware" I guess for those who like novelty?

 

[twowheelsgood]

mp3tag

Ensures your mp3s, aac, flac, ogg wotever are correctly and consistenly tagged and named. Also can go to the net and get track listings and art (which it can imbed in the file).

This is very useful before importing into the monumentally crap iTunes application is no matter how carefully you name and arrange your files in folders, it only cares about tags.

 

[HJ]

All the stuff which comes with Ubuntu, why pay for software...

 

[cheadle hulme]

http://www.idf50.co.uk/clubhouse/co...y-recommended-stuff-last-edit-01-13-09-a.html... one really good place i use

Pop over to their "Current affairs, religion and politics" board if you want to know what its like to spend Sunday afternoon in the pub with my dad.

Makes Richard Littlejohn sound like a measured and reasonable man.

 

[SoapyWeasel]

Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/ - for all your image manipulation needs

portable apps - http://portableapps.com/ - loads of useful utilities there

or just plain old http://www.snapfiles.com - and set the search filter to freeware only

 

[joolsybools]

AVG antivirus is ok too http://free.avg.com/download-avg-anti-virus-free-edition

 

[2Loose]

http://mumble.sourceforge.net/Mumble - for chatting while gaming http://mumble.sourceforge.net/

 

[Fnaar]

I have a daily rss feed from www.giveawayoftheday.com where they post a bit of freeware for 24hrs before the next one comes up. Most of it is a bit tedious (how many youtube downloaders does a chap need?) but there's the occasional useful thing on there.

 

[meenaghman]

imacros -- use for work and for pleasure.. the extension for IE explorer or Firefox.. If you've got a particularly painful session of clicks etc.. for form filling in can save hrs.