Everything here is FREE! No stupid limited trials or anything like that either.

Useful Apps


• Open Office - Free alternative to Microsoft Office. You can even save and open Microsoft Word (Excel, etc.) documents. If you don't want to spend big bucks on the MS Office suite, this is definitely for you.
  
• Firefox - A very good web browser. It's secure and has lots of add-ons that Internet Explorer lacks completely. Still using IE? Switch to Firefox!
  Some recommended add-ons:
  • AdBlock - Get rid of those annoying ads that flash in banners and such.
  • Speed Dial - If you've ever used the Opera browser, you know what this is already. Speed dial is a nifty little feature that you can set up as your start up page. It Displays images of 9 sites of your choosing that you can click and go to. Very good for fast browsing.
  • NoScript - Perhaps one of the greatest features you could add to FireFox. This app prevents scripts from running at all. So you won't have strange java or flash programs messing your computer up. Also if someone directs you to the "Rickroll" website, it won't work (huzzah)! You can set up trusted sites for faster browsing.
• Portable Apps - Got spare room on your USB drive? Now you can take your favorite applications with you! Some examples are GIMP, Portable Firefox, Portable Pidgin, and Portable Thunderbird(e-mail client). You can even install Portable Open Office! They offer a lot more than what is listed here. Go browse their collection to see what they offer!
  
• 7-Zip - Got a bunch of files you need to unzip? 7-Zip can do that for you. Supports .RAR, .ZIP, and various others. MUCH faster than Windows in extracting files.
  
• CamStudio - Records video and sound at the same time off your screen. You can capture the entire screen or just a certain rectangular area. You can also do video only capture.

Media Applications

• DVD Decrypter - This program will rip any DVD for you and save it out to a VOB file. Search for "Auto GK" to convert the VOB files into AVI's. Get this program now before it is outlawed!
  
• Twins Video to Ipod-Zune-PSP - Convert AVI, MPEG, MPG, DAT, WMV, ASF, MP4, M4V, 3GP, 3G2, H264, MPEG4, AVC, MOV, QT, DivX, XviD, and FLV. This handy app will make it so that you can watch the vid on your portable media player. Supports batch processing so you can do lots of videos at once.
  
• VLC Media Player - Play virtually any video file you could ever think of. If you have a file that you just can't seems to play, VLC is your best bet at making it work.
  
• GIMP - Also known as the GNU Image Manipulation Program, this is basically a free Adobe Photoshop. This takes some skill to learn, but then again, so does Photoshop. If you want to go beyond MS Paint, try this out.
  
• PAINT.net - Not quite a Photoshop alternative, but still good for quick photo edits.
  
• Audacity - This free program is pretty good at editing audio files for you. It also has recording features as well. Try it out if you need something to edit your sounds!

Virus/Spyware Protection Programs(Posted by Cleod 9 in old forums)

• FREE PROGRAMS:Everyone needs virus and spyware protection. So what programs out there are FREE, and most efficient? I'd say these are the best:
  
  
  • Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition 1.06 - Good old Ad-Aware detects a broad range of spyware, adware, etc.
  • Spybot - Search & Destroy 1.4 - This is a pretty old program but it's still great to use and has updates often! It's great since it scans relatively quickly, and when it finds tracking cookies you can get the URLs of all of them and block them in you Firefox browser using (which is what I do). I haven't gotten a single spyware cookie in months!
    
  • Microsoft Anti-spyware - You probably have this already. It's a great program for alerting you if something is being installed into your startup registry or if one of your settings is being changed. It also can detect spyware.
  • Zone Alarm - This is the free version of ZoneAlarm and is in my opinion the BEST firewall out there. There is an awesome setting where when you first install it, it won't let ANYTHING access the Internet, and once something tries to access then it will ask you if it should let it have access and if you want it to remember that. That way you can only have the programs YOU want accessing the internet on your computer. I have avoided a virus or two with this.
    
  • Aimfix - Chances are you use AIM as your instant messaging client. If you do you may want to run this program every so often, it checks for security threats and AIM viruses. (I personally don't like using AIM since it is usually associated with spyware and adware, so I use ad/spyware-free Pidgin)
    
  • AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition - Another decent free anti-virus program. You can schedule regular scans for your computer. It also comes with a plug-in for Internet Explorer and Firefox which checks website links. It will point out any malicious links to you in the browser.
• NOT FREE PROGRAMS
  • Norton Antivirus - Everyone has heard of this, it isn't too expensive and it detects a LARGE amount of viruses, spywares, trojans, adware, joke programs, etc. The auto-protect feature is amazing, it is definitely worth the money. The only downside is that it takes awhile to scan your entire computer.
  
  By the way, I use all of the programs and my computer has been doing great, especially since I bought Norton and told Firefox to block the cookies that Spybot found. I only find an occasional cookie maybe once a month
  If you can't find what you're looking for post a question or look on Download.com. Google also works but make sure the site is trustworthy. Also please be sure that any links to programs you give are free of viruses and spyware.

I love this topic.

This makes up for breaking my Civilization CD.

I'm with you on so many of these, especially the GIMP and VLC. The GIMP is my favorite piece of software. My second is Visual BASIC.NET Express 2008. Free! ^^ Third has to be Firefox.

Sorry for the bump and all but I found a very useful add-on for firefox
Description: WOT, Web of Trust, warns you about risky websites that try to scam visitors, deliver malware or send spam. Protect your computer against online threats by using WOT as your front-line layer of protection when browsing or searching in unfamiliar territory. WOT's color-coded icons show you ratings for 20 million websites - green to go, yellow for caution and red to stop – helping you avoid the dangerous sites.


Download Page

AVG does the same thing. Also, this topic is a sticky, so technically you can't bump it.

Personally, I prefer the CCCP with its free copy of Media Player Classic. I used VLC before but I didn't find it very intuitive.

AVG FTW!!!

i'd recommend FasterFox for a firefox add-on, but the guy still hasn't updated it since v2 came out, and i'm still waiting for an upgrade compatible with v3, but the maker probably forgot about it, since the last update was a year or two ago.

Put in Google Chrome, i heard its good

I'd rather not. Does it have AdBlocker? Can you code custom add-ons for it easily? No. So unless you have a good reason for it besides "I heard it was good" I'm not adding it.

Can it play .mkv video files? I mean for both players. I use Real Player now. It's worked on all video files I've tried except for .mkv

I know GOMPlayer can play mkv files. I do not know about the CCCP. You may want to visit their website.

Rocket dock; it is ALOT more organized then the normal desktop/start menu.

It doesn't freeze, unlike Internet Explorer. I know because I have it. Some of the websites I use on IE have pop-ups, but Google Chrome doesn't have pop-ups.

it also has incognito windows. It doesnt save history and cookies.
Downloads are more organized than in Firefox
Bookmarks are as easy to make as Firefox
Google Chrome is second fastest web browser to date
It's only on its first stage, add-ons could come soon