Best freeware utilities?

[beanzontoast]

Thought it might be good to exchange some info on personal favourites of progs we use for different tasks - keeping it to freeware so we're not spending money!

I'll start off with -

Best free antivirus: Avast.

 

[ACS]

cc cleaner :

CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning tool

 

[Gerry Attrick]

Open Office. Just as good as Microsoft Office, but totally free.
http://www.openoffice.org/

 

[Dan B]

Linux, obviously ;-)

Dunno so much about freeware for Windows, except for the big-ticket things like OO.org (what Gerry said) and of course Firefox. Adblock Plus heartily recommended if you use Firefox.

And has anyone else played with Cool Iris?

 

[SavageHoutkop]

+1 for Adblock Plus, especially combined with Flashblock.
For that matter +1 for Firefox!

Sunbird also good (calendar app) - especially when you use the PortableApps version (as is Portable Open Office, so you can open your OO files even if the PC you're using doesn't have it installed).

Also FSViewer for picture viewing.

 

[piedwagtail91]

i'm cheating a bit with this but as i use quite a few ooff the list it's easier to post a link. they may be mainly for netbooks/laptops.
http://www.sammynetbook.com/plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?18209

 

[Radius]

Treesize Free I found to be very useful at telling me exactly what was taking up ridiculous amounts of space on my comp (photoshop temp files). Freed 39gb of space (no, i'm not kidding!)

 

[accountantpete]

Piriform Defraggler - from the CCleaner stable lets you defragment files etc.

 

[jeltz]

Audacity - Audio Editor

VLC Media Player

And for the bike with my GPS enabled Windows Moblie PDA its Bike Dashboard Which tracks your route then you can upload them to the desktop, analyse them at whatever point on the journey and overlay them on google earth showing whether you were ascending or descending at the time. A geeks delight

 

[MickL]

Putty for all your shelling needs :-)

 

[theloafer]

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

 

[peanut]

virtualdub
http://virtualdub.sourceforge.net/

the best software for editing and reducing the size of video files especially for sticking on youtube.

 

[beanzontoast]

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

Great linky, Loafer - and must have a look around that site, being 50+ myself!

 

[derall]

Ooo, where to begin. CCleaner, OpenOffice, VLC and Audacity as above.
Also Foobar2000 for playing audio.
PDF-Xchange Viewer as an alternative to Acrobat / Foxit.
FastStone Capture for screengrabs (now shareware, but freeware versions still available)
LaTeX for writing papers, How-To and Manuals (although if you're on a windows systems you have to hunt around to find a suitable distro - I use Lyx over MikTex)
conTEXT text editor - better than Notepad++, IMHO (well it does R syntax highlighting which I use daily)
R-project for statistical analysis
SciLab as a free alternative to MatLab

 

[barq]

I second VLC.

GIMP - not as slick as Photoshop, but really pretty good.