# The Big Useful List Of Free Useful Programs To Use Usually For Free



## entropy13 (Apr 20, 2011)

So here's my attempt at such a list. 

I'm certain that there are others with several suggestions, which I would be waiting to get.

*Disk Defrag - Disk Cleanup - Disk/File Management/Recovery/Encryption/Backup - System Information*


Spoiler: Click this--->



*Disk Defrag*
*MyDefrag*
Defragmenting tool with numerous options, useful for different types of disks (in terms of use - "system disk" or "data disk" and physically - a USB thumb drive or a usual internal hard drive). Not exactly for the Average Joe however.

*Defraggler*
A simpler defragmenting tool that also allows defragmentation of individual files. Piriform has other useful programs besides this (which would be making an appearance later on).

*Auslogics Disk Defrag*
Another alternate choice for disk defragmenting needs.

*Disk Cleanup*
*CCleaner*
Another program from Piriform, arguably the primary disk cleanup program of many.

*Disk/File Management/Recovery/Encryption/Backup*
*Recuva*
A file recovery program from Piriform.

*Double Killer*
Is a "fast and easy to use application for finding and removing duplicate files."

*Advanced Renamer*
Rename multiple files quickly with this program.

*True Crypt*
A free open-source disk encryption software.

*Teracopy*
Copying files made faster and easier through this application.

*Space Sniffer*
Know which file occupies how much space where with this program.

*TreeSize Free*
Scan directory sizes and spot space hogs quickly with this application.

*Cobian Backup*
Free software for your "backupping" needs.

*Bacula*
And here's another.

*System Information*
*CPU-Z*
Usually comes first to mind when thinking about such programs.

*HWMonitor*
From the creators of CPU-Z, focusing more on temperatures, voltages and fan speeds.

*GPU-Z*
Foremost choice for information on your GPU(s). 

*Real Temp*
A "temperature monitoring program designed for all Intel single Core, Dual Core, Quad Core and Core i7 processors."

*Core Temp*
A CPU temperature monitoring program alternative.

*Speccy*
A system information program from Piriform.

*Blue Screen View*
View BSOD information in your system's dump files.

*SpeedFan*
Versatile program which also allows fan control.

*HWINFO32*
"It is a professional hardware information and diagnostic tool supporting latest components, industry technologies and standards. Designed to collect and present the maximum amount of information possible about computer's hardware which makes it suitable for users searching for driver updates, computer manufacturers, system integrators and technical experts as well. Retrieved information is presented in a logical and easily understandable form and can be exported into various types of reports."

*System Explorer*
A free program for exploration and management of System Internals.

*CrystalDiskInfo*
A HDD/SSD utility software which supports S.M.A.R.T. and a part of USB-HDD.



*File Compression/Decompression - Media Players, Codecs and Media Servers- Media Files Conversion, Creation and Editing - Video Card Utilities*


Spoiler: Go click go!



*File Compression/Decompression*
*7-Zip*
My first choice for file compression/decompression.

*WinRAR*
Congraturation, you are WinRAR.

*WinZIP*
And here's another one.

*Media Players, Codecs and Media Servers*
*Winamp*
Audio and video player. I usually restrict its use to audio files however.

*CCCP*
The codecs pack that will choose you. In Soviet Russia, it is not you who choose the codecs, for the codecs choose you!

Media Player Classic - Home Cinema is included, the best media player out there today.

*VLC media player*
An alternative...alternative media player.

*Foobar2000*
Another one, also a popular choice.

*Media Jukebox*
A totally free media center.

*PS3 Media Server* 
A transcoding media server that works with more than just the PS3. it is also cross platform, working on Windows, Linux or Mac.

*Tversity* 
Another option for a media server. Works better with other devices if you don't need advanced subtitle support.

*Media Files Conversion, Creation and Editing*
*SUPER*
A program with a comprehensive list of files to convert to and from.

*HandBrake*
Included here to add variety. 

*MediaCoder*
Another choice for the alternatives.

*Virtual DJ*
It's free. That doesn't mean it's easy to use and quick to get the hang of it though.


*Video Card Utilities*
*Afterburner*
Now the primary option for video card tweaking. And yes, it works even with non-MSI cards.

*Rivatuner*
The program which forms the basis for Afterburner.



*Internet Browsers - Desktop Customization - Productivity Suites - Image Editors*


Spoiler: Nothing else to do but click 'Show'... 



*Internet Browsers*
*Firefox*

*Chrome*

*Opera*

*Safari*

*Lunascape*

*Internet Explorer 9*
IE9 is included as I'm under the assumption that you haven't updated IE yet and you have either Vista or 7.

*Desktop Customization*
*Rainmeter*
Can be either easy to set-up or a nightmare to use, depending on the amount of time you have free. Does not measure the amount of rainfall in your area.

*Rocket Dock*
A dock for your shortcuts in your desktop.

*RK Launcher*
Another useful dock program.

*Productivity Suites*
*OpenOffice*

*LibreOffice*

*CutePDF Writer*
Create PDF files and make them cute.

*PDF Creator*
Alternative PDF creation here.

*Foxit Reader*
An alternative PDF reader.

*Sumatra PDF*
Free PDF reader.

*Image Editors*
*GIMP*
A free alternative to Adobe's Photoshop.

*Paint.NET*
Another free image editor.

*Inkscape*
Alternative vector graphics editor.

*Image Resizer for Windows*
Exactly what it says in the title.

*Greenfish Icon Editor Pro*
It's free, very capable (like GIMP) and can handle more than just icons; has full support of the ICO format.

*POV-Ray*
"The Persistence of Vision Raytracer is a high-quality, totally free tool for creating stunning three-dimensional graphics."



*Security - Emulation/Burning Software - Networking - Instant Messaging/Voice Chat*


Spoiler: You should know by now what to do.



*Security*
*Microsoft Security Essentials*

*AVG Free Anti-Virus*

*Avast! Free Antivirus*

*Avira Antivir Personal*

*Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware*

*Spybot Search & Destroy*

*Emulation/Burning Software*
*DAEMON Tools Lite*
Disc emulation and burning tool.

*Virtual CloneDrive*
A free virtual drive software.

*ImgBurn*
A lightweight burning application.

*CDBurnerXP*
Another program for your burning desires.

*Networking*
*Wireshark*
A network protocol analyzer.

*Spiceworks*
Networking management and monitoring software.

*Instant Messaging/Voice Chat*
*Skype*

*Pidgin*

*Digsby*



*E-Mail Clients - Benchmarks - Miscellaneous*


Spoiler: Click me, bro.



*E-Mail Clients*
*Thunderbird*
A free, open source, cross-platform e-mail and news client.

*Benchmarks*
*wPrime*

*Prime95*

*IntelBurnTest*

*Super PI*

*MemTest*

*Unigine Benchmarks*

*3DMark 11*

*3DMark Vantage*

*3DMark 06*

*Final Fantasy XIV benchmark*

*Lost Planet 2 benchmark*

*AVP - Aliens vs. Predator benchmark*

*PCMark Vantage*

*PCMark 7*

*CrystalDiskMark*

*HDTune*

*Flash Memory Toolkit*

*ATTO Disk Benchmark*

*x264 HD Benchmark*

*CASE Lab Euler3d CFD benchmark*

*Miscellaneous*
*Soluto*
"Soluto Beta allows you to understand your boot, discover which applications are slowing it down (and keep running later in the background, affecting your ongoing experience), and allows you to significantly improve it. While Soluto Beta focuses on the boot, it already researches for frustrations and helps map the PC Genome, allowing you to share your wisdom with others." Yes, it's still in Beta.

*Notepad++*
Tired with using Notepad? Use Notepad++ then.

*Joomla*
A free content management system for publishing content on the World Wide Web and intranets.

*SeaMonkey*
An all-in-one internet application suite.

*4GB Patch*
Patches x86 executables in order to let them have 4GB (instead of only 2) of virtual memory on x64 platforms.


----------



## cheesy999 (Apr 20, 2011)

can we add http://raptr.com/

it kind of brings together the multiplayer of all of the games across consoles and pc's alike - very usefull


----------



## Frick (Apr 20, 2011)

Good idea! A program I'm using frequently due to it's simplicity is Bluescreenview which simply shows data about BSOD's. You can see this without the program, but it's so easy to use I've fallen in love with it.


----------



## Wrigleyvillain (Apr 20, 2011)

Props for hilariously awesome thread title.


----------



## Mr McC (Apr 20, 2011)

KMP and VLC should be included in media players.


----------



## slyfox2151 (Apr 20, 2011)

perhaps add NINITE?


its not really a program by itself, but its extremely  useful and related.
http://ninite.com/



Definitely add VLC, best media player ever created ever, and thats a *fact 



Virtual CloneDrive - alternative to daemon tools.
http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html

Ultimate Defrag
http://www.disktrix.com/




TotalMedia Theater - Blu Ray playback. not free... but the best program i have found yet.
http://www.arcsoft.com/estore/software_title.asp?ProductCode=TMT5P


Micro Torrent AKA - U Torrent  -  Best torrent software known to Slyfox.
http://www.utorrent.com/


Steam - For all your gaming needs
http://store.steampowered.com/

Winamp - could be the next best thing since sliced bread?
http://www.winamp.com/

Teracopy - Stolen from digibucc  i +1 this program
http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php

Futuremark -  For all your benching E-PEEN needs
http://www.futuremark.com/download/

Skype - ..... apparently people like to call other people to talk to them?
http://www.skype.com/intl/en/home


*you may not agree with the facts. if this is the case, then you are wrong.


----------



## digibucc (Apr 20, 2011)

*teracopy* 
http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php
replaces/co-exists with windows file copy dialog.  more accurate, more stable, faster.  get it.

*image resizer for windows*
http://imageresizer.codeplex.com/
adds right-click context menu file resizing, simple and fast.

*mozilla sunbird*
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird//
great calendar app.  add provider for google calendar to sync it to your gmail calendar.  will not sync tasks with gmail.

*cutepdf writer (printer)*
http://www.cutepdf.com/products/cutepdf/writer.asp
prints from any program to a pdf file you save.  great to save docs without a printer

*bacula*
http://www.bacula.org/en/
open source, pc/network automated file backup

*foldersize*
http://foldersize.sourceforge.net/
open source, allows a folder size column

*quicktime alternative*
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/quicktime_alternative.htm
allows playing of quicktime files without... quicktime

*autoit*
http://www.autoitscript.com/site/autoit/
windows batch scripting, much more robust and capable than bat cmd scripting

*sharpkeys*
http://www.randyrants.com/2008/12/sharpkeys_30.html
remap any key on your keyboard with another, or a combo

*fast duplicate file finder*
http://www.mindgems.com/products/Fast-Duplicate-File-Finder/Fast-Duplicate-File-Finder-About.htm
what it says

*fast file renamer*
http://www.fastfilerenamer.com/
what it says

*filemenu tools*
http://www.lopesoft.com/en/fmtools/info.html
customizeable context(right-click) menu .. menu.  tons of options

*filezilla*
http://filezilla-project.org/
ftp client

*folder menu*
http://foldermenu.sourceforge.net/
adds a folder menu into your taskbar(by clock),  recent places, registry, etc.  quicker.

*picasa*
http://picasa.google.com/
photo gallery/editor

*pidgin*
http://www.pidgin.im/
multi-network im app.  i use it for sms2pc, to do texting with a keyboard and not my phone 

*tightvnc*
http://www.tightvnc.com/
best, fast, simple vnc client/server

*spiceworks*
http://www.spiceworks.com/
network monitoring tool

*z-screen*
http://code.google.com/p/zscreen/
screen/text capture software, advanced clipboard replacement

*hedgewars*
http://hedgewars.org/
worms-like game, 2d, highly customizeable.


----------



## Kreij (Apr 20, 2011)

Title words capitalized and thread stickied.
Very useful list, Entropy, thanks.


----------



## AsRock (Apr 20, 2011)

Seamonkey is another great browser in fact like it over Firefox.  Other apps that are good free ones Treesize, Cerbeus and Open Hardware Monitor.


----------



## Bow (Apr 20, 2011)

nice list, I picked up a 3 allready


----------



## Kreij (Apr 20, 2011)

@Entropy : If you remove the CR/NLs after the links and uses something like " - ", you can tighten up the original post so it's not so long.

for instance
*Great Web Sites*
TPU - TechPowerUp! Website.

Unparsed it looks like ...
[url="http://www.techpowerup.com"]TPU[/url] - TechPowerUp! Website.


You don't have to do that, it's just a suggestion.


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Apr 20, 2011)

someone sticky this....like NOW

----


Oh shit -- someone beat me to it


----------



## bbmarley (Apr 20, 2011)

*hamster* 
http://www.hamstersoft.com/

video convertor 
burning studio software
zip archiver



*cdburnerxp*
http://cdburnerxp.se/en/home

for burning cds/dvds etc


----------



## Kreij (Apr 20, 2011)

@Entropy ... are you aware you can change the text of a spoiler tag?


Spoiler: Internet Browsers



Stuff



[spoiler="Text before button"]
Stuff
[/spoiler]


----------



## FreedomEclipse (Apr 20, 2011)

TriXX for GPU utilities?


(well....ATi/AMD only GPUs)


----------



## entropy13 (Apr 20, 2011)

Kreij said:


> @Entropy ... are you aware you can change the text of a spoiler tag?
> 
> 
> Spoiler: Internet Browsers
> ...



Yes, the text are slightly smaller and cannot be underlined however.


----------



## Kreij (Apr 20, 2011)

[size="+2"]



Spoiler: Something



Stuff


[/size]

Hmm ... you can underline it, but font resizing doesn't work. Oh well. Carry on.


----------



## mtosev (Apr 20, 2011)

Speedfan http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
FoxIt http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/
Dropbox http://www.dropbox.com/


----------



## Drone (Apr 21, 2011)

*System Information Viewer* *SIV*

http://rh-software.com/



> Windows utility for displaying lots of useful Windows, Network and hardware info - CPU info, PCI info, PCMCIA info, USB info SMBus info, SPD info, ACPI methods, Machine info, Hardware Sensors, Networked computers, Operating System Information and more.



http://mirror.szepe.net/siv/siv.zip


-------------------------------------

*System Explorer*

http://systemexplorer.net/



> System Explorer is free, awards winning software for exploration and management of System Internals. This small software includes many useful tools which help you Keep Your System Under Control.



http://systemexplorer.net/download.php


----------



## MT Alex (Apr 21, 2011)

I have been using this for years.  Very handy.

*Emulation/Burning Software*

DVD Shrink 3.2


----------



## Rock N Roll Rebel (Apr 21, 2011)

you should put comodo internet security
http://www.comodo.com/home/download/download.php?prod=cis


----------



## hellrazor (Apr 22, 2011)

This little baby patches 32-bit .exes so they can use up to 4GB of memory. The possibilities are now slightly less limited.


----------



## Drone (Apr 25, 2011)

*Sumatra PDF*



> is a slim, free, open-source PDF viewer for Windows. Sumatra has a minimalistic design. Simplicity has a higher priority than a lot of features. It's small and starts up very fast. Options are a little thin on the ground but SumatraPDF provides a very comfortable environment for reading PDFs and you can print documents without much hassle.



http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/prerelease.html


----------



## STCNE (Apr 25, 2011)

Great List, but its missing two little things

Media Centers:
http://mediajukebox.com/

CD Ripping:
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/


----------



## entropy13 (Apr 25, 2011)

Added "Benchmarks", and I'll check out your suggestions and add them later.


----------



## hellrazor (Apr 25, 2011)

Drone said:


> *Sumatra PDF*
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Thanks for that, I've been trying to replace Foxit for a while now (ever since they stopped you from getting rid of the ad bar).


----------



## mastrdrver (Apr 28, 2011)

One note before all the free stuff, I learned something a few years ago. When it comes to antivirus and firewalls, the pay stuff will do what the free stuff comes short on, always.
Also antivirus =! firewall. Do yourself a favor and get some internet security suite. Yes the MS thing is good, but the pay stuff is still better. I'll take a couple seconds longer boot up for the sake of security any day of the week. Also eBay is your friend when trying to find the pay stuff for cheap (talking new here).

Now.......where do I start?

There are certain programs I don't like (Real Player, Acrobat, etc) but I don't like using a bunch of "alternatives" if I can do it with one program that just needs extensions or what have you.

K-Lite Mega and x64 (assign QT, Real, and Divx to WMP)

Foxit Reader (PDF)

DVD Videosoft does a lot but in a simple GUI. About to go pay though. (cd/dvd/media burner/ripper)

DVDFab Decryption/DVDFab so I can play and/or backup DVDs and Blu-rays on my system.

RipBot264 for converting formats. It is a x64 program and (according to the .ini) is 10% then the x86 version. Again a simple GUI. Only converts to .MP4, .MKV, AVCHD, and DivxPlus. Keeps things simple by default but also can be more in depth for those who like to tweak. I love this program and it works very, very well. Only caveat (for those who care) is you need AVisynth, ffdshow (x86 and x64) haali, and java. Fwiw ffdshow and haali are used by K-Lite so with that you have two of the four already.

Zeuapp some might find helpful.

Hiren's BoodCD the save my.....well you know... CD. Name it, it has it plus a boot from cd mini XP and Linx. Life saver a few times already for myself and other people I know.

WD Acronis edition for nice backup, recover, OS img creation, etc for those with WD drives.

7-zip

For benching and monitoring, I'm just going to list. Copy, Google it and shouldn't be too hard to find them.

ATI CF Xtensions, Blue Screenview, Core Temp or Real Temp, CPU Tweaker (for cpus with on chip memory controllers), CPUz, CrystalDisk, GPUz (of course ), Hardware Info, HyperPI 0.99 (multi threaded SuperPI), MaxxPI, MemTest (in Windows), Open Hardware Monitor, wPrime, x264 Benchmark HD (v4.0 currently), and y-cruncher.

Sysinternals Suite (the only useful thing MS has made in a while)

edit: Oops almost forgot Google Sketchup. Yea it's Google and I don't like how they install their browser (installs like a virus) but its a free CAD like program that is fun to mess with without being overly complicated.


----------



## cheesy999 (Apr 28, 2011)

OCCT http://www.ocbase.com/perestroika_en/ - best stress testing program there is

and why isn't

si software sandra on there, benchmarks every part of your pc  - http://www.sisoftware.net//?d=dload&f=sware_dl_3264&l=en&a=


----------



## douglatins (Apr 28, 2011)

Ninite forall


----------



## TheMailMan78 (Apr 28, 2011)

iTunes


----------



## Widjaja (Apr 28, 2011)

You may want to add testdisk by CGSecuirty to the recovery list.
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk
The free app has actually made me money when people have blown their bootsector on their USB flash drive and all it says is the drive is unformatted do you want to format it now?
As it scans for partitions which may not be visible due to bad boot sector and writes a new boot sector which has the original partitions in it.

It has been successful in recovering Vista OSes which could not be repaired by WRE.
Does some other interesting stuff too.


----------



## Black Panther (May 4, 2011)

HWINFO32

I like this free program: It is a professional hardware information and diagnostic tool supporting latest components, industry technologies and standards. Designed to collect and present the maximum amount of information possible about computer's hardware which makes it suitable for users searching for driver updates, computer manufacturers, system integrators and technical experts as well. Retrieved information is presented in a logical and easily understandable form and can be exported into various types of reports. 

Screenshots

Download


----------



## robn (May 4, 2011)

inSSIDer from metageek

Very nice Wi-Fi signal strength graphs; spot networks available and channel overlap. Open source.


----------



## Drone (May 5, 2011)

@ hellrazor no problem I love Sumatra too. Gonna add new freeware soon.


----------



## copenhagen69 (May 5, 2011)

nice stuff and Drone ... all your pics are dead


----------



## entropy13 (May 26, 2011)

A lot of programs have been added since the latest post.


----------



## Peter1986C (May 27, 2011)

File (de)compression: Izarc http://izarc.org/ 
Once you have used this you don't want anything else. The amount of archive types being supported is massive! And I like the integration of some of the major features of the program into the right click menu of Explorer (so you can right click your .zip file/tarball and extract right away).

Audio editing: Audacity http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/

Bootable USB sticks: Unetbootin http://sourceforge.net/projects/unetbootin/
Use .iso files from bootable CDs/DVDs to create a bootable USB stick. 

Disk Cloning: Clonezilla Live http://clonezilla.org/downloads.php
Linux based bootable cd used for making disk images, compatible with FAT, NTFS, EXT2, EXT3, EXT4, ReiserFS and if I am right also HFS+ and such. However the disks are being refered to in the Unix way, so no drive names like C:\. Available in the flavours regular and Alternative (the Alternative version uses Ubuntu as underlying OS instead of Debian, and comes with a later version of the Linux kernel), and for the artchitectures i486, i686 and AMD64 (which is of course X86_64, so it also works on all Intel CPUs from after Netburst). A comparison between the the different CPU architecture versions can be found here: http://drbl.org/faq/fine-print.php?...ive.faq#97_different_arch_clonezilla_live.faq.

Virtualisation: 
Oracle VM Virtualbox http://www.virtualbox.org/


----------



## Drone (May 28, 2011)

entropy13 said:


> A lot of programs have been added since the latest post.



here I got some more (all total freeware)

*Disk Cleanup*
Easy Cleaner
Program which searches the Windows registry for entries that are pointing nowhere and lets you delete all kinds of unnecessary files such as temps and backups.

*System Information*
SIV
General Windows utility for displaying lots of useful info

*Media Players and Codecs*
KMP
Excellent free multi-format media player

*Security*
Norman Malware Cleaner
Dr.Web CureIt


*Miscellaneous* -> *File Managers*
FAR Manager
Program for managing files and archives in Windows.

Q-Dir
Makes your files and folders easy to manage.



and just a remark: winamp, winzip and winrar ain't no freeware software.


----------



## Mr McC (Jun 10, 2011)

Sumatra as another alternative PDF reader:

http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html


----------



## Drone (Jun 25, 2011)

*Disk Cleanup*

AppCleaner

Very nice tiny program. It erases all the unwanted crap. I like it more than ccleaner.


Hard Disk Scrubber



> Free secure delete program designed to help you permanently destroy sensitive data from your PC. Use Hard Disk Scrubber to overwrite free space on your Windows drives, or to permanently delete files so that they can no longer be recovered.



I've tried both methods (nuke and simple wipe). Both went really fast. This program is really good because it lets you choose its process priority.


----------



## Drone (Jul 6, 2011)

*System Stability Tester*



> Calculate up to 128 million digits of Pi.
> Create up to 32 threads.
> Recognize the CPU model, manufacturer and operational frequency.
> Compare the calculation results of all the threads after each step and issue a warning if something went wrong.
> ...



http://systester.sourceforge.net/

Very awesome and concrete program.


----------



## FordGT90Concept (Jul 6, 2011)

Image Editor:  Greenfish Icon Editor Pro

It's free, very capable (like GIMP) and can handle more than just icons.  What's best is that it has full support of the ICO format so you can integrate many resolutions/quality into a single ICO file (Games Explorer, for example, requires this).


----------



## RejZoR (Jul 6, 2011)

Whenever i need any kind of program i first check this page:
http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/freeware.html

So far i have got pretty much everything i've ever needed. All free and some tools are even slightly crippled versions of very expensive commercial products which still offer loads of functionality.
I'm using this page for years (even back when it was called WebAttack). It's nicely organized as well so you can really find stuff quickly. Only downside is that they sometimes need a bit of a time to update the programs and screenshots are sometimes a bit outdated. But other than that it's great.


----------



## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (Jul 9, 2011)

*Check out this page!*

https://sites.google.com/site/biglistoffreesoftware/home


----------



## twilyth (Jul 10, 2011)

Nice, but not as well balanced as our list.  For example, he's got one backup utility (Bacula) but a dozen encryption utilities.  Does that sound like someone who would rather see their data destroyed than be discovered?


----------



## Wile E (Jul 10, 2011)

I have a contribution for a/v conversion: MediaCoder


And how about a Media server section? 

PS3 Media Server is a transcoding media server that works with more than just the PS3. it is also cross platform, working on Windows, Linux or Mac.

Tversity is another one. It works better with other devices if you don't need advanced subtitle support.


----------



## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (Jul 10, 2011)

twilyth said:


> Nice, but not as well balanced as our list.  For example, he's got one backup utility (Bacula) but a dozen encryption utilities.  Does that sound like someone who would rather see their data destroyed than be discovered?



I am the one running the site. I update it while at work. I'm still trying to find a good theme for it. I thought about a theme that had Sauce on it Like a big splotch of sauce or something but I dont know anything about designing themes. I wanted something goofy that went with the name Awesome-Sauce. If anyone has something I can use for Google Sites Please post a link.


----------



## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (Jul 11, 2011)

Check out the site. It has been updated and continues to be updated. Feel free to leave a comment on the home page. Suggest an application.


----------



## twilyth (Jul 12, 2011)

Killer_Rubber_Ducky said:


> Check out the site. It has been updated and continues to be updated. Feel free to leave a comment on the home page. Suggest an application.



Tried to add Cobian backup but couldn't figure out how.

Cobian backup - http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm


----------



## Drone (Jul 12, 2011)

*wPrime*
_Multithreaded Benchmark_

http://www.wprime.net/

Enough said.


----------



## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (Jul 12, 2011)

twilyth said:


> Tried to add Cobian backup but couldn't figure out how.
> 
> Cobian backup - http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm



um you leave a note in the guestbook.


----------



## bpgt64 (Jul 13, 2011)

slyfox2151 said:


> perhaps add NINITE?
> 
> 
> its not really a program by itself, but its extremely  useful and related.
> ...



I was just going to say this...ninite.com makes it easy to reinstall all the tools I use at work and at home.  All the essential freebes on the net are there..for the most part.


----------



## twilyth (Jul 14, 2011)

Killer_Rubber_Ducky said:


> um you leave a note in the guestbook.



I couldn't enter text into anything that appeared to be a text box.


----------



## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (Jul 14, 2011)

twilyth said:


> I couldn't enter text into anything that appeared to be a text box.



sorry about that. Fixed it by changing hosts. New web address is: www.awesomesaucesoftware.webs.com.


----------



## Drone (Jul 26, 2011)

http://www.benchtown.com/

Auslogics' free Benchmark software


----------



## Wile E (Jul 26, 2011)

Wile E said:


> I have a contribution for a/v conversion: MediaCoder
> 
> 
> And how about a Media server section?
> ...



No love for my suggestions?


----------



## Drone (Jul 26, 2011)

_Networkdls'_ *DiskMark* is a small utility that allows you to benchmark your disks and hard drives performance.

http://www.networkdls.com/Software.Asp?Review=59

Plus a lot of free stuff

http://www.networkdls.com/Software.Asp?Category=0


----------



## MRCL (Jul 27, 2011)

Stardock Fences, desktop organizing program. Basically lots of desktops on your desktop

Magic Disc In my opinion one of the best disc emulators out there.


----------



## douglatins (Jul 27, 2011)

*Autohotkey *is awesome, i have my numpad configured as an app launcher. It totally awes people to press buttons and launch programs. I have FF, chrome, steam, notepa++, trilliam, RDC, picasa, ccleaner on /auto, only on numpads.

I reccomend also *hamachi *for remote control. So easy to use. Is like being at home network. I usually organize my files from work. Mostly porn video names and tags lmao

And i only use *gizmo drive* for creating and mounting isos

*Lightscreen *is a lightweight screenshot capture tool i love.


----------



## Killer_Rubber_Ducky (Jul 29, 2011)

Killer_Rubber_Ducky said:


> sorry about that. Fixed it by changing hosts. New web address is: www.awesomesaucesoftware.webs.com.



Took it down and remade it. The site is now known as http://epictech.freeforums.org


----------



## Cybrnook (Jul 29, 2011)

For media codecs and players, you should add K-Lite. It comes in a X64 version and 32bit. For 64 bit systems, you install the 64 client, then the 32 bit version you choose. Also includes latest Media player calssic.

(Updated much more frequently than cccp)


----------



## Wile E (Jul 29, 2011)

It also has more filter conflicts than the CCCP. K-Lite is crap. If you want to use something other than CCCP, use Shark's Codec Packs. http://shark007.net/

And for codec packs, unless it adds a new feature, or fixes a bug, updates are unnecessary. Frequent updates are not a pro or a con.


----------



## Widjaja (Jul 29, 2011)

Wile E said:


> It also has more filter conflicts than the CCCP. K-Lite is crap. If you want to use something other than CCCP, use Shark's Codec Packs. http://shark007.net/
> 
> And for codec packs, unless it adds a new feature, or fixes a bug, updates are unnecessary. Frequent updates are not a pro or a con.



I did have an issue with K Lite codec pack causing mp4s to not run in WMP.
I uninstalled K Lite and reinstalled it.

Fiexed the issue.

I have not had issues with this codec pack since.


----------



## Wile E (Jul 29, 2011)

Try using a lot of avisynth scripts with it.


----------



## 1Kurgan1 (Jul 29, 2011)

I've run klite for years, and never had an issue. I just watch movies and whatever with it.


----------



## Wile E (Jul 30, 2011)

1Kurgan1 said:


> I've run klite for years, and never had an issue, *yet.* I just watch movies and whatever with it.



Fixed. Seriously, Shark's is a hell of a lot better.


----------



## Drone (Jul 30, 2011)

http://www.windows7codecs.com/

A very good codec pack for windows vista/2008/7 20 megs in size


----------



## Drone (Aug 2, 2011)

*Novabench*

Free, AIO benchmark (cpu (integer and float), drives, ram, internet, gpu)

http://novabench.com/


----------



## Mussels (Aug 2, 2011)

K lite is horrible.


Sharks pack works better, but i've still had issues - you often have to do manual tweaking to get things working right.


CCCP is the easier codec pack, and i never have issues with it - shit, its installer is what i use to FIX codec problems on machines.


----------



## entropy13 (Aug 5, 2011)

First page has been updated.


----------



## Hybrid_theory (Aug 14, 2011)

Cant say i read the whole thread, sorry if these have been suggested.

Mediaplayer - Songbird. http://getsongbird.com/
Songbird can play a large variety of formats. Ithas all kinds of plugins. One for example looks at your artists and will tell you if concerts are in the area. If you do want to try this program, install the *EQ presets* plugin after. My music was flat sounding untill i installed that. It was my replacement for iTunes once I started getting flac music.

Converter: Mediacoder http://www.mediacoderhq.com/
I do find this hard to use if I dont use a wizard or one of the UI apps for converting stuff. But its support for formats is wide and far.


----------



## Drone (Aug 15, 2011)

Open source editor for plain text

Akelpad


----------



## Drone (Aug 19, 2011)

All the programs and methods to make a bootable thumb drive

http://www.bootdisk.com/pendrive.htm


----------



## Drone (Aug 23, 2011)

*DriverMax*

A tool that allows you to download the latest driver updates for your computer. You can also back up your drivers with this program.

It's freeware, you just need to create your account.

http://www.innovative-sol.com/drivermax/


----------



## Drone (Aug 25, 2011)

A bunch of freeware portable and very useful programs by *MiTec*

*Exe Explorer* (shows everything you need to know about any desired exe file)
http://www.mitec.cz/exe.html 

*System Information X*
http://www.mitec.cz/msi.html

*InfoDesk*
http://www.mitec.cz/infodesk.html

*Windows File Analyzer*
http://www.mitec.cz/wfa.html

and more ...

http://www.mitec.cz/index.html


----------



## twilyth (Sep 13, 2011)

Backup your drivers - 3 free programs

Semper Driver Backup

Double driver

Driver Max


----------



## Drone (Sep 13, 2011)

Thanks. Just tried double driver, it's really nice and portable. And it works flawlessly. Just what I need. You can place a link to author's site. http://www.boozet.org/dd.htm


----------



## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (Sep 21, 2011)

You should add this thread to your sig Entrop. Good thing I came across this.. was looking for that bluescreen reader thingy


----------



## Ginnoskie (Sep 29, 2011)

also try black box here is the link: http://hwmblackbox.com/en/download


----------



## Frick (Sep 29, 2011)

Windows 7 USB Tool - Very handy to make bootable USB sticks with Windows 7. Don't know if it works with other versions of Windows, although it did work with Windows 8 32 bit.


----------



## Mussels (Sep 29, 2011)

Frick said:


> Windows 7 USB Tool - Very handy to make bootable USB sticks with Windows 7. Don't know if it works with other versions of Windows, although it did work with Windows 8 32 bit.



^ i use this, and once its done if you delete "ei.cfg" off the flash drive it becomes an 'all in one' disk (well, AIO 32 bit, if it was a 32 bit disk/ISO, and so on)


----------



## Frick (Oct 8, 2011)

Fog Server. Not sure if it fits here though.



> FOG is a Linux-based, free and open source computer imaging solution for Windows XP, Vista and 7 that ties together a few open-source tools with a php-based web interface. FOG doesn't use any boot disks, or CDs; everything is done via TFTP and PXE. Also with fog many drivers are built into the kernel, so you don't really need to worry about drivers (unless there isn't a linux kernel driver for it). FOG also supports putting an image that came from a computer with a 80GB partition onto a machine with a 40GB hard drive as long as the data is less than 40GB.
> 
> Fog also includes a graphical Windows service that is used to change the hostname of the PC, restart the computer if a task is created for it, and auto import hosts into the FOG database. The service also installs printers, and does simple snap-ins.FOG is a Linux-based, free and open source computer imaging solution for Windows XP, Vista and 7 that ties together a few open-source tools with a php-based web interface. FOG doesn't use any boot disks, or CDs; everything is done via TFTP and PXE. Also with fog many drivers are built into the kernel, so you don't really need to worry about drivers (unless there isn't a linux kernel driver for it). FOG also supports putting an image that came from a computer with a 80GB partition onto a machine with a 40GB hard drive as long as the data is less than 40GB.
> 
> Fog also includes a graphical Windows service that is used to change the hostname of the PC, restart the computer if a task is created for it, and auto import hosts into the FOG database. The service also installs printers, and does simple snap-ins.


----------



## twilyth (Nov 19, 2011)

Here's a free one that varies the changes monitor colors and intensity depending on the time of day.  It's supposed to reduce eye strain and PC World seemed to like it (Dec. 2011, p109)

It's called F.lux.  Apparently you have to give it a few days until you get used to it.


----------



## Frick (Dec 6, 2011)

A nice program called Synctoy, from Microsoft. You sync files between folders/computers. Works very well and is easy to use. You can only sync files in two locations at the same time though.


----------



## Frick (Dec 6, 2011)

Another Microsoft program (or something like that, from the Garage): Mouse without Borders. It lets you use one keyboard and mouse with up to four computers, using the network. It works just like with two monitors, except the mouse moves over to a whole other system. Use Ctrl+Alt+F1 to F4 to select which system to use and if you can control all systems at the same time.

And it works like a charm, and the installation is a breeze. And it's a 1.1 MB download.

It is seriously awesome when you have say a desktop and a laptop running side by side.

EDIT: Good god I'm in heaven.


----------



## Drone (Dec 13, 2011)

*Windows Defender Offline*



> Windows Defender Offline is designed to be used when you can't boot an infected PC. You create a Windows Defender Offline USB drive, CD or DVD, or ISO file, then boot from the Windows Defender Offline device.



Compatible with: XP SP3, Vista SP2, 7 SP1 and 8. (32 and 64x)

Download Windows Defender Offline and create a CD, DVD, or USB flash drive.
Restart your PC using the Windows Defender Offline
Scan your PC for malicious and other potentially unwanted software.
Remove any malware that is found from your PC.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows/what-is-windows-defender-offline


Nice suite, plus you can always update it online before using it on offline machine.




> *mp3DirectCut* is a fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files for audio editing. *This saves encoding time and preserves the original quality, because nothing will be re-encoded.* The built in recorder creates mp3 on the fly from your audio input. Using Cue sheets, pause detection or Auto cue you can easily divide long files.



Very good and really tiny and cool program.

http://mpesch3.de1.cc/mp3dc.html#dwn

I've just checked it myself. No quality loss.
It kills rootkits pretty fast.


----------



## Drone (Dec 22, 2011)

delete pls


----------



## mjkmike (Dec 29, 2011)

I just found this one for blue ray. PotPlayer1.5.38085

It's free and worked on all my rips.


----------



## Drone (Jan 4, 2012)

http://tzworks.net/download_links.php

Nice place to get portable free windows utilities 32 and 64 bit. Especially *yaru*  - Yet Another Registry Utility


----------



## _ALB_R3D X (Jan 8, 2012)

can anyone suggest a low-level format utility?(sorry if it's been already mentioned)
Basically I want something to format only a partition of the HDD,only the one with the OS on!
Thx


----------



## Drone (Jan 24, 2012)

http://www.nodesoft.com/diskbench

portable, 150 kb in size or something

Very nice disk bench. Creates files, copies, deletes etc.

You will need to have .Net framework 4 installed



*************************************



> pngquant is a command-line utility for converting 24/32-bit PNG images to paletted (8-bit) PNGs. The conversion reduces file sizes significantly (often as much as 70%) and preserves full alpha transparency.



http://pngquant.org/


----------



## sixor (Feb 17, 2012)

domdomsoft manga downloader (a manga downloader XD), also they ave a manga reader

freemake video encoder, a great an easy free app, mediacoder and super are better in quaility, but this thing is very gast, uses cuda, and it is so easy , but so easy to use, wow

faststone image 
just a image viewer and simple editor to rename, convert, etc, just like acdsee pro but more simple and free

media player classic home cinema + madvr + lav filters (cuda) = best video player ever with amazing quaility

inksaver, (not free), for more ink

internet download manager (not free) great download manager

fastpictureviewer
cool app to view images using the gpu, so it is very fast with big pics of 12MP and stuff


----------



## Peter1986C (Feb 17, 2012)

sixor said:


> inksaver, (not free), for more ink



And how useful is that? Using the "fast" printing setting of your printer, in combination with good quality paper will save a lot of ink as well. More than a "magical" program can do.


----------



## sixor (Feb 18, 2012)

inksaver prints more light than the fast setting from hp, still you can read very well


----------



## qubit (Jul 8, 2012)

BootRacer

Handy freebie utility for measuring your boot time.


----------



## Drone (Jul 21, 2012)

nice lightweight freeware security tools I found @ *Techradar*

System Security Guard

Easy Clean

Stand-alone malware removal tools by ESET


edit:

Plus another good kit (this one is not lightweight)

Emsisoft Emergency Kit


----------



## theubersmurf (Jul 21, 2012)

EasyBCD free for non-commercial use. Download here.


----------



## AsRock (Jul 21, 2012)

qubit said:


> BootRacer
> 
> Handy freebie utility for measuring your boot time.



I actually like this one, much better than the other crap you see around and it is more true to it's name.


----------



## natr0n (Aug 16, 2012)

http://winapp2.com/Winapp2.ini

add this to ccleaner directory and win

cleans extra apps that ccleaner doesn't normally clean


----------



## bretts31344 (Aug 16, 2012)

Photorec just helped me save most of my friend's personal data from a failing hard drive. This worked even after the drives partitions were formatted.


----------



## natr0n (Aug 18, 2012)

http://www.palemoon.org/

firefox based and  tweaked


----------



## Drone (Aug 29, 2012)

Programmers might love it.

Free Pascal is a 32/64 bit professional Pascal compiler.

Free Basic is a free/open source, 32-bit BASIC compiler.


----------



## Hayder_Master (Aug 29, 2012)

awesome thread u got my special thanks


----------



## krammuel (Sep 22, 2012)

Good thread but none of the core temp programs will show my core temps.
It just shows 0c for all cores.

Thanks


----------



## krammuel (Sep 22, 2012)

twilyth said:


> Here's a free one that varies the changes monitor colors and intensity depending on the time of day.  It's supposed to reduce eye strain and PC World seemed to like it (Dec. 2011, p109)
> 
> It's called F.lux.  Apparently you have to give it a few days until you get used to it.



Now that is cool


----------



## mediasorcerer (Sep 24, 2012)

Dont know if  "tcp optimiser" is listed, but its for tuning your internet connection and is freeware.
its at speedguide.net

http://www.speedguide.net/downloads.php


----------



## Drone (Sep 30, 2012)

> Wise Memory Optimizer helps you free up and tune up the physical memory taken up by some useless applications to enhance PC performance.


At first, I thought it was bullshit but after trying that I see it works like a charm. Thumbs up! Great app.


----------



## punisher186 (Oct 14, 2012)

Has Gyazo been mentioned?

http://gyazo.com/


----------



## Drone (Nov 3, 2012)

> With *Macrium Reflect* you'll be able to easily make an accurate and reliable image of your HDD or individual partitions. Using this image you can restore the entire disk, partition or individual files and folders in the event of a partial or complete system loss.



It's the fastest thing I've ever seen. And it's free!

http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx


----------



## Mussels (Nov 3, 2012)

Drone said:


> It's the fastest thing I've ever seen. And it's free!
> 
> http://www.macrium.com/reflectfree.aspx



Hmmmmm. seems like the free edition is good for those once-off backups and restores.


----------



## natr0n (Dec 2, 2012)

Wise Game Booster

http://www.wisecleaner.com/wisegameboosterfree.html

It really works, no bullshit.


----------



## corehazard (Dec 4, 2012)

An awesome site full of all kinds of free utilities/apps. Great place to find lots of apps helpful in troubleshooting. A-few of the apps on the site aren't worth a darn notably some of the portable AV apps, though overall its an awesome site. 

http://www.pendriveapps.com/

Portable apps definitely deserves a mention as well:

http://portableapps.com/


----------



## Spaceman Spiff (Dec 4, 2012)

Wicked thread. Thank you all.


----------



## alan (Dec 5, 2012)

Very useful, thanks


----------



## Frick (Dec 5, 2012)

Bootable USB drive program with the silly name Rufus. Claims to be faster than other tools, but when I tried the tiny Slitaz iso it was way slower than the Universal USB Installer so I dunno. It worked though and it's very simple.


----------



## radusorin (Dec 5, 2012)

*Great ideea.*

Thanx, nice tread and useful.


----------



## Drone (Dec 6, 2012)

Advanced Renamer - Batch rename utility

Nice freeware program


----------



## Drone (Dec 14, 2012)

SuperOrca

Awesome freeware MSI editor - a direct replacement to the "Orca" MSI Editor from Microsoft Windows SDK. It's a database table editor for creating and editing Windows Installer packages and merge modules.


----------



## RejZoR (Dec 14, 2012)

*Roboscan Internet Security Free*
It's not a particularly known vendor but it is trustworthy. Roboscan IS Free has antivirus based on BitDefender which is very good, firewall is rather basic but it does the job. It has nice interface and it's quite light and quick. And for the free version, it doesn't really lack many features. Basically just some optimizers and cleaners for system. Which i don't want in security software anyway.

So, if you want a BitDefender based antivirus which is free, give this one a try.

http://www.roboscan.com


----------



## razaron (Dec 15, 2012)

Comic viewer.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/cdisplayex/


----------



## Mindweaver (Dec 20, 2012)

CD & DVD burning software.
CDBurnerXP


----------



## RejZoR (Dec 24, 2012)

*BitDefender Antivirus Free*
http://www.bitdefender.com/solutions/free.html

This is a brand new BitDefender Free that just got released yesterday. It's full featured on detection but very stripped down on the interface. So it's basically like MSE with very high detection. Since it's free you can't really go wrong with it


----------



## Frick (Dec 28, 2012)

Disk Imager for Windows

Writes images to stuff (usb sticks) and vice versa. Note it writes it properly, so if you have a 2GB stick and writes a 650MB image to it, even after you reformat the stick you still have 650MB. Go into the disk management and redo it there and it works again. 

So why the program? Sometimes copy/paste (mount the image in a daemon, ctrlcctrlv) doesn't work properly. Trying it out now on a noname 2GB stick with FreeBSD.


----------



## Mussels (Dec 29, 2012)

so it allows you to make bootable flash drives from any ISO?


----------



## Frick (Dec 29, 2012)

Mussels said:


> so it allows you to make bootable flash drives from any ISO?



Not sure actually, I think it's just a fancy copy/paste program. On the other hand we have this comment:



> This is a Windows program for saving and restoring images from removable drives (USB drives, SD Memory cards, etc). It can be used to write boot images (i.e. ubuntu-12.04-preinstalled-desktop-armhf+omap4.img) to a SD Flash device or USB flash device, making it bootable. It currently does not support writing an ISO image to usb.



By that comment it looks like you can.


----------



## Frick (Dec 30, 2012)

Batch image resizer on right click, called Image Resizer. A leftover from Windows XP's Powertoys, but now for 64-bit Vista/7.


----------



## Mindweaver (Jan 12, 2013)

Hey what do you think about adding my new Directory Size Utility? Do you think it's worthy? It's free..


----------



## AsRock (Aug 30, 2013)

SyncToy which is a backup utility made by Microsoft which has me puzzled why it don't come with windows as default.

Now there is an easier way. SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155




Mindweaver said:


> Hey what do you think about adding my new Directory Size Utility? Do you think it's worthy? It's free..



OOh forgot about this app ^^..  I would like to know why it trying to connect to Perfora.net and if blocked on the connection it just hangs .


----------



## Frick (Oct 21, 2013)

Frick said:


> Batch image resizer on right click, called Image Resizer. A leftover from Windows XP's Powertoys, but now for 64-bit Vista/7.



Was going to write about this, I beat me to the punch. 



AsRock said:


> SyncToy which is a backup utility made by Microsoft which has me puzzled why it don't come with windows as default.
> 
> Now there is an easier way. SyncToy, a free PowerToy for Microsoft Windows, is an easy to use, highly customizable program that helps users to do the heavy lifting involved with the copying, moving, and synchronization of different directories. Most common operations can be performed with just a few clicks of the mouse, and additional customization is available without additional complexity. SyncToy can manage multiple sets of folders at the same time; it can combine files from two folders in one case, and mimic renames and deletes in another case. Unlike other applications, SyncToy actually keeps track of renames to files and will make sure those changes get carried over to the synchronized folder.
> 
> http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=15155



Yes, synctoy is quite excellent. Works over the network as well! Another nifty program from the MS Garage, Mouse without borders. It's like a software KVM, up to four computers with the same keyboard/mouse. You can even setup the mouse so it moves between computers like it would between monitors. Only Windows though, would be super awesome if there was something similar with multi platform support..


----------



## Mussels (Oct 21, 2013)

mouse without borders is awesome, i used to use it a lot. had it setup with a key combo that was a macro bound to my mouse to swap between screens.

now i dont have two PC's in the same room, kinda stopped using it.


----------



## Mindweaver (Oct 21, 2013)

AsRock said:


> OOh forgot about this app ^^..  I would like to know why it trying to connect to Perfora.net and if blocked on the connection it just hangs .



Sorry, I haven't seen this before now, but we talked about it in pm. But for anyone else wondering what that is.. It's just going out to get the current version number. Perfora.net is apart of 1and1.com which is where my version/file is hosted. I haven't updated this program in awhile, but I will soon and I'll update it so it doesn't default to check for updates. 

*EDIT: Also, if anyone has anymore questions about the Directory Size Utility please use that thread. *


----------



## Veeshush (Oct 24, 2013)

Here guys, I know a few that aren't that well known:

Sorry if any of these have been mentioned, I'm copy and pasting these from other sites I posted them on. I'll go back and look through the thread and try to remove the ones that are already known. 

AS SSD benchmark
This is a must have for SSDs. Why? It lets you know if your SSDs are properly aligned. If they're not aligned, you get crappy performance. (if your drive isn't aligned you'll get "Bad").

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition
Lots of good tools to play around with! It'll even re-align your hard drive like I mentioned above. Decent amount of format options, error scanning, general information.

HTTPS Everywhere
NSA scaremongering aside, this is a nice browser addon for both Chrome and Firefox. It's right up there with Adblock and Noscript.

"HTTPS Everywhere is produced as a collaboration between The Tor Project and the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Many sites on the web offer some limited support for encryption over HTTPS, but make it difficult to use. For instance, they may default to unencrypted HTTP, or fill encrypted pages with links that go back to the unencrypted site. The HTTPS Everywhere extension fixes these problems by using a clever technology to rewrite requests to these sites to HTTPS." 

Keepass
From their site: "KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way"

I use the Professional Edition. Lets you generate strong passwords and store your logons. This makes having strong passwords practical to use. No more using words with numbers or the same password for all your accounts just for the sake of being able to remember all of them, which puts you at risk for dictionary attacks. I prefer it over online password storing sites as one site such as LastPass was "hacked" recently. 

OCCT
From their site: "OCCT is a stability checking tool that was created back in 2003, and was regularly updated since. It enables you to fully test your computer's stability, using 4 different tests : CPU:OCCT and CPU:Linpack aimed at testing the CPU, GPU:3D for the GPU stability, and Power Supply, a combination of CPU:Linpack and GPU:3D to fully load your Power Supply."

I use this along with Prime95 for testing cpu overclocks and heat/voltage at full load. I find this is faster than Prime95 and even detected things Prime95 had missed.

qBittorrent
"qBittorrent is an attempt to provide a μTorrent equivalent that is open-source and multi-platform adding a streaming-like function to let users download-and-play video files. qBittorrent is currently offering functionality comparable to more popular BitTorrent clients such as Vuze but without requiring the Java Virtual Machine. qBittorrent requires Python only for the search engine while other clients such as Deluge and BitTornado require it for the BitTorrent protocol itself." ~ Wiki

I first started out with Azureus and dumped it after it changed to Vuze. Then I used μTorrent for years but started getting sick of it. So it's the fact that it seems to do everything that I liked about the first two without everything I hated. Plus Open Source so it'll never spew ads like they did.

HitmanPro

"First it detects viruses and other files that have a suspicious behaviour (behaviour analysis) and sends them then to the scan cloud via the Internet. The malicious files are detected in the scan cloud and are removed by HitmanPro. The newest version of HitmanPro, version 3, uses Dr Web, Emsisoft Anti-Malware, G Data AntiVirus, BitDefender and now IKARUS (replaced Prevx as the fifth engine) to detect malicious software. As the various virus scanners are not installed on the local computer, but in the scan cloud on Internet, there is a very low system load."

Qualys BrowserCheck
I love this thing. The only sane way to keep track of all the web browser plugins that are frequently exploited, such as Java and Adobe stuff. Now you can keep your plugins updated.


----------



## Drone (Nov 1, 2013)

Some nice *free* utilities by Moo0

Transparent context menu







System monitor






And many other tiny utilities (HDD cleaner, file shredder and so on)


----------



## alexstone (Nov 4, 2013)

Thanks entropy13 for such a nice and useful post!!!


----------



## Veeshush (Dec 8, 2013)

*"Probably the Best Free Security List in the World"*

http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/probably-best-free-security-list-world.htm

I just found this the other day and it's beautiful. Here's the longlist of stuff: http://www.techsupportalert.com/long-list.htm/Probably the Best Free Security List in the World


----------



## Frick (Jan 4, 2014)

Greenshot, for taking screenshots. You can customize pretty much everything. Licensed under GPL. I've never tried it, but it's supposed to work directly with imgur, dropbox, flickr, photobucket and picasa too.


----------



## remixedcat (Jan 4, 2014)

If InSSIDer is on the list PELASE REMOVE IT! they are now charging 20USD for the home version that used to be free. 

New Recommended wifi scanner: Netsurveyor: http://nutsaboutnets.com/netsurveyor-wifi-scanner/
Or if you still want to legitly and easily grab the old InSSIDer under the Amped Wireless version called Wifi Analytics: www.ampedwireless.com/wifianalytics


----------



## Veeshush (Jan 8, 2014)

herdProtect
http://www.herdprotect.com/downloads.aspx



> herdProtect Anti-Malware Scanner is a fast and free Windows desktop program which detects malicious threats, spyware and adware by *utilizing 68 industry anti-malware scanners.* It has no impact on your system resources and uses the herdProtect cloud-based scanning engine. Best of all, like all herdProtect products, the scanner is a second line of defense and is designed to work perfectly with your existing antivirus software.



I guess it's in beta or early stages. It's free for now.


----------



## Frick (Jan 26, 2014)

Evernote. Sync notes and stuff between devices! Works like a charm with Windows and Android. I have not tried to get on on Linux yet, but I will. There's no evernote program, but there are programs that synch with Evernote servers. There's always wine, and a web based system, if all else fails.


----------



## Jetster (Jan 26, 2014)

Did someone mention CC Cleaner yet?  http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner


----------



## Drone (Feb 10, 2014)

PCI-Z is a freeware lightweight system utility designed to provide information about (unknown) PCI (PCI-E, PCI-X...) devices and helps you find appropriate device drivers.


----------



## Veeshush (May 3, 2014)

*Privacy Badger*



> EFF is launching a new extension for Firefox and Chrome called Privacy Badger. Privacy Badger automatically detects and blocks spying ads around the Web, and the invisible trackers that feed information to them. You can try it out today.
> 
> Privacy Badger is EFF's answer to intrusive and objectionable practices in the online advertising industry, and many advertisers' outright refusal to meaningfully honor Do Not Track requests. This week, Mozilla published research showing that privacy is the single most important thing that users want from their web browsers. Privacy Badger is part of EFF’s growing campaign to deliver that privacy by giving you the technical means to disallow trackers within the pages you read on the Web.
> 
> ...




https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/privacy-badger

Download: https://www.eff.org/privacybadger


----------



## Arjai (May 8, 2014)

I generally use Glary and CCleaner to clean and defrag my Registry, and Glary does a security scan. Anyways, came across this link, don't remember now how... I think it was something to do with ExpressCache.exe. I was perusing my Task Manager and was wondering what this Diskeeper program was doing.

Anyways, anybody know this?  http://www.systweak.com/registrycleaner/2005/?x-at=file.net_EN-RegPro


----------



## lemonadesoda (May 9, 2014)

Jetster said:


> Did someone mention CC Cleaner yet?  http://www.piriform.com/ccleaner


Yes, about 7 years ago http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/ccleaner-2-0-released.39585/


----------



## natr0n (Jun 25, 2014)

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

*Paint.NET 4.0*

This release improves performance and memory usage with a new rendering engine optimized for multicore CPUs and hardware acceleration (GPU). Most tools now support "fine grained history" and live adjustment of their properties, including the Magic Wand and Paint Bucket. Selections are now antialiased, which greatly improves their quality.


----------



## HammerON (Jun 25, 2014)

I forgot all about this useful thread


----------



## Devon68 (Jun 25, 2014)

I don't know if anyone posted this already but here is a useful online photoshop editor (it's not like the real deal but similar):
https://pixlr.com/editor/


----------



## P4-630 (Jun 25, 2014)

Watch movies for free!!!
http://time4popcorn.eu/


----------



## P4-630 (Nov 7, 2014)

Popcorn Time latest version, download Beta 5.0 :  http://popcorn-time.se/


----------



## twilyth (Nov 7, 2014)

This fantastic thread needed a bump.  Thanks.


----------



## droopyRO (Nov 9, 2014)

Any one know of a free, spyware free program to cut portions of an .mp4 and export them as .mp3 ? Thank you.


----------



## twilyth (Nov 9, 2014)

droopyRO said:


> Any one know of a free, spyware free program to cut portions of an .mp4 and export them as .mp3 ? Thank you.


M00O software has an mp3 extractor program here - http://www.moo0.com/software/VideoToAudio/

It let's you extract mp3 audio from video files.  I haven't tried it myself but I've used some of their other software.

Once you've extracted the audio, you should be able to use a free audio editing program to break the stream down in the way you want.


----------



## natr0n (Dec 19, 2014)

*Wise Care 365 Pro - Free - no registering or bs*

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/wise_care_365_pro_giveaway.html


Been using this to keep systems clean for years. Grab it while you can.


----------



## Drone (Jan 1, 2015)

Open source file shredder bitkiller



> BitKiller securely shreds files and directories, removing them completely from your hard disk. It can quickly and efficiently overwrite files using anything from random data to the Gutmann method. It also changes filenames to make them harder to find. No setup or installation needed.


----------



## Blue-Knight (Jan 1, 2015)

twilyth said:


> M00O software has an mp3 extractor program here - http://www.moo0.com/software/VideoToAudio/
> 
> It let's you extract mp3 audio from video files.  I haven't tried it myself but I've used some of their other software.
> 
> Once you've extracted the audio, you should be able to use a free audio editing program to break the stream down in the way you want.


Did you ever heard of FFmpeg? It does ALL that and MUCH MORE!

More than you can even imagine, I suppose. And I'm not overestimating it.



> The Big Useful List Of Free Useful Programs To Use Usually For Free


For all your audio/video tasks: *FFmpeg*.
Nothing can beat it and you do not have to pay for it, but a donation is appreciated.

For all your movies and musics watching activities #1: *VLC Media Player*.
For average users, I have to agree it is definitely the best and most complete multimedia player. Free to use and play, it can still be the preferred choice for enthusiast people. It offers both GUI and Command line interface versions. It can do many things, from watching to streaming. It can record streams as well. Free to use and share, donations are appreciated.

For all your movies and musics watching activities #2: *MPlayer*.
Command line based multimedia player, it is very powerful and complete. It has great performance and many useful settings. It is current my favorite player. Multi platform support. There are also various GUI versions based on MPlayer if you prefer. Free to use and share, donation is appreciated.

For all your e-mail needs: *Mozilla Thunderbird*.
Mozilla Thunderbird is a mail client. One of the best alternative to Microsoft Outlook but with much more advantages.

For you music playback and organization: *DeadBeef* / *Audacious */ *Clementine*.
If you wanted something like Winamp, Windows Media Player of foobar then your hunt is over. Any of the 3 above you give you everything you want and you will be able to organize your music in a very organized way. Did you like them? Donate if you can to help them make it even better.

For all your audio editing needs: *Audacity*.
You can edit all your audio precisely with Audacity and it also has a wide range of features. It is very good and popular!

For all your CD Ripping tasks: *CD paranoia*.
Nothing can beat it, EAC is good but its biggest defect is that it is Windows ONLY. Free to use, but a donation is appreciated.

For all your office tasks: *Apache OpenOffice* or *LibreOffice*.
Nothing can beat them, MS Office is good but it will cost you a kidney or a liver and let's face it: It has childish interface while OpenOffice and LibreOffice can be used and shared for free and they're almost completely compatible with MS Office documents. While MS Office will limit you to Windows only, with OpenOffice.org or LibreOffice you can create and share your documents on other operating systems as well. Free to use, but a donation is appreciated.

For all your graphics work based on pixels: *GIMP*.
Let's face it, Adobe Photoshop is only well known and much used because of piracy, Adobe has to thank all the piracy it got till here.
And I doubt the average user will pay thousands of US dollars just to do basic or even more advanced work with it. Unless said user is rich or sold his body organs.
GIMP will do most things, if not all, Photoshop can do and with the big advantage it won't cost you a liver, a kidney or even worse your children to use it. Absolutely free to use, but if you can donate any amount to help the project, even a few cents is appreciated. Let's encourage those great developers!

For all your RAW photography needs: *RawTherapee*.
I have used already it is great. Support for newer cameras are added quite fast and many bugs are fixed every now and then.

For all your vector graphics work: *InkScape*.
Forget about Adobe Illustrator or CorelDraw. You can create absolutely everything you can imagine with InkScape. Still doubt!? See for yourself the amazing works PROFESSIONAL and AMATEUR people are creating with this free, open source and cross platform vector graphics program: https://inkscape.org/en/community/gallery/. Warning: You will be amazed!

For all your archiving/backup and file compression purposes: *GNU Tar */ *GNU Gzip* / *XZ Utils */ *Bzip2*.
You won't need anything more. Excellent compression ratio that is freely available in all platforms you can imagine. Obviously, you can decompress your files later with these same tools.

For all your Sega Genesis / MegaDrive / Master System emulation needs: *KegaFusion* / *Gens*.
You will be able to play all your Sega Genesis / MegaDrive / Master System console games with these excellent emulators. KegaFusion is not open source but it is freely available and has some cool features.

For all your video editing tasks: *Kdenlive*.
A great video editor for Linux/Unix systems.

For all your computing purposes: *GNU Linux based Operating System*.
Let's face it, average users don't need Windows to be happy or do their work. Are you sick of defragmenting your Windows disks or decreased system performance over time, bloating and viruses!? On Linux you don't have to worry about all of this and better yet: You don't have to pay hundreds of dollars for it, and basic support is freely available virtually anywhere. And forget about all other limitation and absurd rules Microsoft applies to you.

All the programs cited above are free to use, open source and cross platform unless otherwise stated. Why pay for software you are not sure will stay alive forever!? If open source development is stopped it can be resumed by ANYONE.

Did you know? About 100% of average users can be more than happy without Windows or proprietary software.

The main problem with proprietary / closed source softwares (e.g. Microsoft Windows, etc...) is that you don't know what's in there, it can have malicious code and back doors for spying you. That's another risk and problem. Open source software is more important than you imagine.

Then please, do not recommend your friends to download a pirated/cracked or any proprietary software (especially closed source) if he/she does not need it. Let's make the software world better!


----------



## droopyRO (Jan 12, 2015)

What about a screen capture utility that records video in user selected areas, just like Snipping Tool but with video and audio capture. Thanks.

EDIT:
Call me stupid, i see only Linux variants, and the Windows one has a .7zip archive with some folders and one .bat file and that's it


----------



## Blue-Knight (Jan 12, 2015)

droopyRO said:


> What about a screen capture utility that records video in user selected areas, just like Snipping Tool but with video and audio capture.


FFmpeg does that already.


----------



## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Jan 15, 2015)

GLARY UTILITIES

http://www.glarysoft.com/glary-utilities/download/

A brilliant free download I have used it for a couple of years.

*

Shows Windows boot time*.   e.g. mine is 25 seconds.



Loads of cleanup and other utilities.

I strongly recommend this software


----------



## Drone (Jan 16, 2015)

*Unofficial Windows 98 Second Edition Service Pack 3.37*

http://www.htasoft.com/u98sesp/

Who knows who might need this


----------



## Frick (Mar 30, 2015)

http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/irotate.shtm

It rotates your screen with ctrl-alt-arrow keys. Super useful if you have a fancy monitor arm and a monitor without sensors built in.


----------



## MrGenius (Mar 30, 2015)

The only unrar program I use is RarZilla Free Unrar.
http://www.philipp-winterberg.com/software/rarzilla_free_unrar.php

An excellent free joystick to keyboard mapper is J2K.
http://emulation-evolved.net/

I also use Ultimate Windows Tweaker v2.2, or v3.1.2.0 for Windows 8, for special customizations.
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-v2-a-tweak-ui-for-windows-7-vista
http://www.thewindowsclub.com/ultimate-windows-tweaker-3-windows-8


----------



## qubit (Mar 30, 2015)

Frick said:


> http://www.entechtaiwan.com/util/irotate.shtm
> 
> It rotates your screen with ctrl-alt-arrow keys. Super useful if you have a fancy monitor arm and a monitor without sensors built in.


Or you want to play a prank on the clueless user sitting at the desk next to you...


----------



## Heaven7 (Mar 30, 2015)

Great thread, I'd like to add some of my favorite useful programs to the list, which are not well known like FF or VLC are, but are very nifty. Here's my "top three" I couldn't live without anymore:
*#1:* *Always Mouse Wheel* - Captures the window you're hovering on with your mouse so you can use its wheel without having to click on that window first. Also prevents unwanted changes to windows you have left. For those of us using multiple screens, it is a very useful tool to have. No install - just adds some registry entries. This must be my favorite program!
*#2: Ave Folder BG* - If you're tired of those blazing white Windows folder backgrounds, this small utility will let you choose any picture you like (of solid color or perhaps a nice pattern?) to replace that eyesore. You can choose the text color as well and it can be applied to sub folders automatically. No install - just run it (adds some reg entries) and let it start with Windows.
*#3: Registrar Registry Manager* - Finally an easy way to search for and delete multiple registry entries, i.e. entries left behind by malicious/unwanted/accidentally installed software that can't be killed by simply uninstalling it. I found it to be very effective and safe to use. It seems to have little restriction on what can be deleted however, so use with caution and only search for exact software names. Advanced users only! Still, this program was the only one that was able to remove the 700+ entries of Kaspersky left over after using their "uninstaller" safely for me, after changing to another AV solution.
So, there's my favorites. There are more, but I'm most happy to have found those three.


----------



## Schmuckley (Mar 31, 2015)

I noticed a couple missing..
Disk cloning: 
Acronis WD edition (must have 1 WD drive plugged in) 
http://support.wdc.com/product/downloaddetail.asp?swid=119&type=download&lang=en

Hardware monitoring:
openhardwaremonitor
http://openhardwaremonitor.org/

Defragging:
Ultradefrag
http://ultradefrag.sourceforge.net/en/index.html?download#stable


----------



## Heaven7 (Mar 31, 2015)

Schmuckley said:


> I noticed a couple missing..


Like I said, there are a lot more. UltraDefrag is also a great program, which I use too. OpenHWMonitor works fine (no install!), thanks for the link.


----------



## Mussels (Apr 1, 2015)

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3353/amcap.exe

https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd373424(VS.85).aspx


microsofts free webcam software, seems super simple to use for taking pictures or recording offline video. lightweight, bloat free, works in various versions of windows.


----------



## AsRock (Apr 1, 2015)

Mussels said:


> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3353/amcap.exe
> 
> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd373424(VS.85).aspx
> 
> ...



Shame it don't have what Skype uses for the Logitech cams as this will not do 1080HD with the same quality.


----------



## Frick (Apr 2, 2015)

Mussels said:


> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3353/amcap.exe
> 
> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd373424(VS.85).aspx
> 
> ...



See they have so much good stuff but it's impossible to know of it. Like sysinternals and Mouse without borders. Someone there made an awesome program called Canned Response Manager (file name canman.exe) way back and I've yet to come across it (or anything as simple) except at Microsoft related workplaces (when I was there I didn't think of copying it either ). It rested in the systray and stored text. You clicked the icon and you got a list of the text snippets in question. I was seriously thinking about picking up programming just to make it, that was how useful it was.


----------



## Frick (Apr 17, 2015)

http://sourceforge.net/projects/dualmonitortb/

Dual monitor taskbar. It does what it sound like, and only that, and it works perfectly.

EDIT: Just noticed it does not work for some programs. CPU-Z and GPU-Z are two of them. DAAAAMNNN.

And this is old news, but still:

https://www.visualstudio.com/sv-se/products/visual-studio-community-vs

From what I understand it's essentially the full verision, but you can't use it in an enterprise setting or on teams with more than five people, but you can use it for commercial stuff.

Otherwise, Codeblocks is nice.


----------



## Frick (Jun 23, 2015)

http://www.advanced-ip-scanner.com/

It's a small basic IP scanner. Ran it on the office machine, discovered I had the entire area avaliable to me. Grabbed a router and plugged it into the local switch (the room is open). The net owners are a bunch of fools, I dislike them immensely.


----------



## remixedcat (Jun 25, 2015)

Acrylic Wifi: Free and has 802.11ac support!


----------



## Frick (Aug 24, 2015)

http://www.kwakkelflap.com/fping.html

There's fping.org too for the linuxy people. It's a seriously good tool for troubleshooting. Timestamps, datestamps, jitter, and print to txt file. Awesome! I've looped if for 24 hours now, the txt file is > 7MB.


----------



## yesyesloud (Aug 24, 2015)

WPS office


----------



## Blue-Knight (Aug 24, 2015)

yesyesloud said:


> WPS office


Not recommended.

P.S. Unless you want to support a time bomb, of course.


----------



## yesyesloud (Aug 24, 2015)

Blue-Knight said:


> Not recommended.
> 
> P.S. Unless you want to support a time bomb, of course.


Oh, really? Let me compile your conspiracy theory. Deliver it in tar.gz pls


----------



## Frick (Sep 7, 2015)

Windows Live Mail is old news, but since Outlook didn't play nice with Gmail I've started to use it, and with some light googling I came across how to minimize it to system tray. You simply run it in Vista compatibility mode. Eeeexcellent.


----------



## Drone (Sep 7, 2015)

Media Center (unofficial) for Windows 10:


Download and extract the file *WindowsMediaCenter_10.0.10134.0.zip*
"*Run as administrator*" the file "*_TestRights.cmd*"
A command prompt window will appear. Reboot your PC after.
"*Run as administrator*" the file "*Installer.cmd*"
Once the installer is done, a message will display saying "*Press any key to exit*."
Enjoy


----------



## Rockarola (Sep 7, 2015)

Blue-Knight said:


> Did you ever heard of FFmpeg? It does ALL that and MUCH MORE!
> 
> More than you can even imagine...snip...



A very comprehensive list, Blue-Knight...even I can't find anything to argue about there, well done!


----------



## Drone (Sep 12, 2015)

Found a nice tool on Microsoft site



> To temporarily prevent the driver or update from being reinstalled until a new driver or updated fix is available, a troubleshooter is available that provides a user interface for hiding and showing Windows Updates and drivers for Windows 10. You can obtain and run the "Show or hide updates" troubleshooter by downloading it from the Microsoft Download Center.


----------



## RejZoR (Sep 25, 2015)

It's not nice, it's retarded and clumsy. I've tried it and I hate it. It doesn't work even nearly as good as selection and deselection of updates in Windows 8.1. It's just a really badly designed repair/fix tool for overly broken Windows Update component in Windows 10.


----------



## natr0n (Oct 4, 2015)

I tried handbrake after a long time and wow is it faster than ever.

I had a 5 min video 1080 1gb reencoded to 454mb in around 4 mins on my old 6 core.


----------



## Drone (Oct 14, 2015)

Microsoft Hyperlapse is a new technology that creates smooth and stabilized time lapses from first-person videos.

not free but it's good to try


----------



## bigman4 (Jan 18, 2016)

Irfan view is free image editing program good alternative to photoshop


----------



## lindawill95 (Feb 10, 2016)

Windows Movie Maker is a great free toll for video editing.  It's not for professionals, as it lacks certain features, but it's great for amateur editing.


----------



## CAPSLOCKSTUCK (Feb 23, 2016)

Windows 7 start menu for 8 or 10......


from IOBIT, dont forget to unclick the guffy bits they add. (advanced systemcare etc)



http://www.iobit.com/en/iobitstartmenu8.php


----------



## Drone (Feb 26, 2016)

IObit Malware Fighter

I haven't tested it against Windows Defender but it has some really nice features.

Not sure if I posted it before:

Microsoft Mathematics provides a graphing calculator that plots in 2D and 3D, step-by-step equation solving, and useful tools to help students with math and science studies.


----------



## Frick (Mar 1, 2016)

Frick said:


> Greenshot, for taking screenshots. You can customize pretty much everything. Licensed under GPL. I've never tried it, but it's supposed to work directly with imgur, dropbox, flickr, photobucket and picasa too.



I've used this quite a bit now and it is ... so good. Seriously, I cannot live without it. The Upload to imgur thing doesn't work now for some reason (which is vastly annoying) but it still is great. If you _ever _take screenshots, use this.


----------



## natr0n (Mar 11, 2016)

Found this tool for those who use wireless 360 pads. It is great.









https://xbox360.larscom.nl/


----------



## flmatter (Mar 11, 2016)

a very useful thread   thanks guys!!!


----------



## Frick (Mar 18, 2016)

Mussels said:


> http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3353/amcap.exe
> 
> https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd373424(VS.85).aspx
> 
> ...



This doesn't seem to capture sound, at least not on the laptop. The mic works.


----------



## rtwjunkie (Mar 23, 2016)

Frick said:


> I've used this quite a bit now and it is ... so good. Seriously, I cannot live without it. The Upload to imgur thing doesn't work now for some reason (which is vastly annoying) but it still is great. If you _ever _take screenshots, use this.



I've used Greenshot as well, and it actually is quite good!


----------



## Drone (Apr 11, 2016)

*Paragon* is generous and decided to giveaway *Hard Disk Manager 15 - Backup & Recovery Compact*

1 lifetime license for home use (version 15, no updates)

Fill this registration form and get your license key (over email).

They have a really funny condition though: they give you the key but you have to get the program elsewhere (from their partners, for example here) 32/64 bit


----------



## natr0n (Apr 22, 2016)

http://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/driver_booster_3.html

I had some issues on my windows 10 drive not shutting down or rebooting.
This fixed my prob, my drive controllers were using generic windows drivers.
The official amd chipset driver pack didn't even have the drivers for my system.(amd's/asmedia)
I used to think these are gimmick programs, but this one really works.


----------



## Drone (Apr 25, 2016)

SoftEther VPN

_*An Open-Source Free Cross-platform Multi-protocol VPN Program*_

Now the blow's been soften


----------



## Drone (Jun 10, 2016)

Textify

Pretty interesting tool. It lets you copy text from dialog windows:

Just run the program (it's a single tiny file just 78 kb) hold shift and tap middle click


----------



## Caring1 (Jun 26, 2016)

What's the name of the program to remove Microsoft's spyware in Windows 10, and a link please.


----------



## natr0n (Jun 26, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> What's the name of the program to remove Microsoft's spyware in Windows 10, and a link please.


https://www.oo-software.com/en/shutup10
O&O ShutUp10


----------



## micropage7 (Jun 26, 2016)

natr0n said:


> I tried handbrake after a long time and wow is it faster than ever.
> 
> I had a 5 min video 1080 1gb reencoded to 454mb in around 4 mins on my old 6 core.


i may test it on my dual core


----------



## Mussels (Jun 26, 2016)

Caring1 said:


> What's the name of the program to remove Microsoft's spyware in Windows 10, and a link please.




link in my sig has a few helpful programs for 10.


----------



## natr0n (Aug 1, 2016)

I found a new gpu bench tool equal to 3dmark. It's really good.

https://gfxbench.com/benchmark.jsp


----------



## lorraine walsh (Aug 31, 2016)

Wrigleyvillain said:


> Props for hilariously awesome thread title.


Yes the thread title is hilarious in a weird way.


----------



## Frick (Nov 10, 2016)

AirDroid. Seriously, it is GLORIOUS!


----------



## natr0n (Dec 17, 2016)

https://www.maxon.net/en/products/cinebench/
New/updated version CINEBENCH R15.038_RC184115


----------



## Frick (Dec 23, 2016)

http://www.digicamsoft.com/softnamexif.html

Renames .jpg files. Works like a charm. I kinda wish it did NEF too, but alas.


----------



## Chubfish (Jan 19, 2017)

http://www.subnet-calculator.com/

I found this useful from time to time


----------



## Frick (Jan 21, 2017)

Drone said:


> Not sure if I posted it before:
> 
> Microsoft Mathematics provides a graphing calculator that plots in 2D and 3D, step-by-step equation solving, and useful tools to help students with math and science studies.



This is a _very _nice little program. Microsoft seriously should make a site dedicated to all these little tools they have (Synctoy, Mouse without borders, etc). I wonder how much excellence I've missed.


----------



## droopyRO (Jan 21, 2017)

Don`t know where to ask, is there a program like MSI Afterburner or FRAPS, that instead of showing framerate shows bit rate and sample rate of audio in games ? Thanks.


----------



## P4-630 (Jan 21, 2017)

droopyRO said:


> Don`t know where to ask, is there a program like MSI Afterburner or FRAPS, that instead of showing framerate shows bit rate and sample rate of audio in games ? Thanks.



Just curious but why would you want that?


----------



## droopyRO (Jan 22, 2017)

Well i`m curious what the quality of audio files are while gaming, i find audio very important in games. I`m replaying Dawn of War 2 and it has excellent sounds, 44.1Khz, i`m curious about the bitrate. Noticed that games based on Frostbyte have very good audio and games like Call of Duty have lower quality one. Also it would help setting up your audio device while gaming.


----------



## AsRock (Jan 22, 2017)

Frick said:


> This is a _very _nice little program. Microsoft seriously should make a site dedicated to all these little tools they have (Synctoy, Mouse without borders, etc). I wonder how much excellence I've missed.



I put up SyncToy up some time ago, buried by now and good to see it pop up again.  Works in Win10 too.


----------



## nomdeplume (Jan 22, 2017)

I know very little about gaming but suspect you are talking about streaming audio.  If that is not the case all you would have to do is navigate to where the audio files are stored within the game folder on your hard drive and look at them in something like Spek.  Here are four files to illustrate poor quality through excellent quality.

128kbps mp3

320kbps mp3

16-44 FLAC

24-192 FLAC


----------



## Chubfish (Feb 14, 2017)

Need some CMD tinkering and tips?  check out http://cmd.to   or straight to http://cmd.to/help


----------



## P4-630 (Mar 6, 2017)

*https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/

Today for FREE:*
*Black&White projects 4 elements*


----------



## Frick (Apr 4, 2017)

http://www.contexteditor.org/index.php

My txt editor of choice. Simpler than the common ones (Notepad++, Editpad Lite, Vim and so on), yet still slightly powerful. Perfect for me.

https://defaultprogramseditor.com

Default programs editor. Can change a bunch of settings for various things.


----------



## MrGenius (Aug 20, 2017)

I used to think Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4.3 was the "ultimate" tweak tool for customizing Windows 10. Then I found Winaero Tweaker yesterday, which I now think is better. It's easier to use and does cool stuff that UWT 4.3 doesn't. Honestly though...you kinda need to have both of them for maximum tweakage possibilities. They both do things the other doesn't. But if I could only have one it would have to be Winaero Tweaker. There's also a ton of other cool freeware and customization stuff for Windows Vista/7/8/10 on Winaero.com and The Windows Club.com.

EDIT: I went back through the thread and didn't see any mention of any/all the cool free tools and utilities from Windows Sysinternals. Maybe I missed it...but just in case...there it is.

I also used a really cool free bootable desktop utility the other day that I'd recommend. It's called Active@ Boot Disk. It lets you boot to a usable desktop(Windows PE GUI type environment) from removable media(USB drive, CD/DVD, etc.). I used it to replace some files in the System32 folder that you can't normally mess with while Windows 10 is running. Worked great and was really easy to use.


----------



## entropy13 (Feb 5, 2018)

I'm looking to *UPDATE* this soon, and I'm gonna need some help. Here's a bump to this post so that you can make suggestions.

And yes, this is my first post in TPU for _years_. LOL


----------



## ne6togadno (Feb 5, 2018)

entropy13 said:


> my first post in TPU for _years_


yap sooner you quite grinding in wot, more time you will have to enjoy other hobbies 

for your browsers list
vivaldi -> vivaldi.com


----------



## yesyesloud (Feb 5, 2018)

entropy13 said:


> I'm looking to *UPDATE* this soon, and I'm gonna need some help. Here's a bump to this post so that you can make suggestions.
> 
> And yes, this is my first post in TPU for _years_. LOL


I still think _Productivity Suites_ is missing WPS


----------



## RejZoR (Feb 5, 2018)

There is a lot more free security stuff available. Good stuff.
https://rejzor.wordpress.com/free-security-software/


----------



## entropy13 (Feb 5, 2018)

ne6togadno said:


> yap sooner you quite grinding in wot, more time you will have to enjoy other hobbies
> 
> for your browsers list
> vivaldi -> vivaldi.net



I lost my PC last 2016 (mobo actually, and not too fussed to get a new board for my Sandy lol) so I actually haven't played any PC game since then...LOL


----------



## ne6togadno (Feb 5, 2018)

entropy13 said:


> I lost my PC last 2016 (mobo actually, and not too fussed to get a new board for my Sandy lol) so I actually haven't played any PC game since then...LOL


you havent missed much at all.
wot didnt get any better. it even went to more obviouse "give us all your money" mode but till there are ppl that can double hit "2" faster then they can transport simple observations from 1 brain cell to another there will be "kind devs" to get those money so they can "imporve players experiance" even further


----------



## Vayra86 (Feb 5, 2018)

This is how I install for any new rig, custom tailored and all folded into this work of brilliance

https://ninite.com/

Make your own custom setup, save the Ninite file to a USB Windows bootable: plug and play. The website also offers an exhaustive list of free and almost free applications. Have a look... it covers almost everything.

This basically enables you to set up any rig by clicking one button after you install the OS.


----------



## Splinterdog (Feb 6, 2018)

MrGenius said:


> I used to think Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4.3 was the "ultimate" tweak tool for customizing Windows 10. Then I found Winaero Tweaker yesterday, which I now think is better. It's easier to use and does cool stuff that UWT 4.3 doesn't. Honestly though...you kinda need to have both of them for maximum tweakage possibilities. They both do things the other doesn't. But if I could only have one it would have to be Winaero Tweaker. There's also a ton of other cool freeware and customization stuff for Windows Vista/7/8/10 on Winaero.com and The Windows Club.com.
> 
> EDIT: I went back through the thread and didn't see any mention of any/all the cool free tools and utilities from Windows Sysinternals. Maybe I missed it...but just in case...there it is.
> 
> I also used a really cool free bootable desktop utility the other day that I'd recommend. It's called Active@ Boot Disk. It lets you boot to a usable desktop(Windows PE GUI type environment) from removable media(USB drive, CD/DVD, etc.). I used it to replace some files in the System32 folder that you can't normally mess with while Windows 10 is running. Worked great and was really easy to use.


All hail the bootable pendive! 
I've used WinPESE a few times now and it's most useful for getting around the permissions as you say.


----------



## Voluman (Jul 20, 2018)

FastStone Image Viewer, you can sort, setting order, rename photos, pics
XnView, photo viewer, image resizer, batch image converter and more

VidCoder, DVD, Blu-ray and any video file to MP4/MKV video converter, based on HandBrake

Edit: gPodder, is a simple, open source podcast client written in Python using GTK+


----------



## Echmanoid (Sep 16, 2018)

There is a very good browser, a copy of Google Chrome But it is easier and has more functions
Cent Browser official site centbrowser.com


----------



## qubit (Sep 16, 2018)

Echmanoid said:


> There is a very good browser, a copy of Google Chrome But it is easier and has more functions


What's it called? No good without the name.


----------



## VulkanBros (Sep 27, 2018)

Agent Ransack - extremely powerful file finder: Agent Ransack


----------



## Frick (Sep 27, 2018)

VulkanBros said:


> Agent Ransack - extremely powerful file finder: Agent Ransack



Can it search explicity for duplicates?


----------



## VulkanBros (Sep 27, 2018)

Frick said:


> Can it search explicity for duplicates?



Not explicity - no


----------



## kapone32 (Sep 27, 2018)

Steam


----------



## erixx (Sep 28, 2018)

Didn't find this one here, so I 'll post it:
https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/


----------



## Frick (Nov 7, 2018)

I'll just mention this again: Alwaymousewheel is magical. Allows scrolling without having focus on the window being scrolled.


----------



## Vayra86 (Nov 7, 2018)

Frick said:


> I'll just mention this again: Alwaymousewheel is magical. Allows scrolling without having focus on the window being scrolled.



How does that work when you have multiple tabs or windows out of focus then? I'm intrigued, a little at least


----------



## Frick (Nov 7, 2018)

Vayra86 said:


> How does that work when you have multiple tabs or windows out of focus then? I'm intrigued, a little at least


you can scroll in any window. It's a few dozen KB's, try it.
Edit: It should be noted that some of this behavor already exists in Win10, but not with all applications.


----------



## John Naylor (May 1, 2019)

Great effort by OP and those that follwed but would be nice to get the OP edited so that one wouldn't have to scroll thru 10 pages on each visit; hopefully entropy will pop in after  a few more pages.   But I have a few additions that I  didn't see

FBackup ... out of this world, ... literally, .... used on International Space Station
http://www.fbackup.com/

Edit HWiNFO32 to maybe HWiNFO32/64

NVCleaninstall ..... TPUs own deserves to be here

BatteryCare ... very useful for lappie owners ... battery status, battery maintenance and other info
https://batterycare.net/en/index.html

Belarc Advisor ... if for nothing else, getting all your OS and software licenses in one place and safely stored
https://www.belarc.com/products_belarc_advisor

Pontifex - How many times have ya said ... stoopid engineers, I bet I could do better, try it.   I found it fun to play with back in last millenium.   Now there's a charge and a few more modern apps, they have a freedemo for each one ... but my copy precedes the shareware cost
http://www.chroniclogic.com/pontifex.htm

Random Burper - Can't really say this is a "recommended app" as it can be a nuisance with certain AVs.   I have had the same problem with a few vendors for some In Game Apps that I helped develop.   It's a just for gags thing that I grabbed back in the mid-late 90s.   Back then my kids got a kick out of this one when put it on wife's new box that we gave her one mother's day .... "Mom, that's gross"..... "it's not me, i swear, i don't know where it's coming from".    Was just looking thru the Download\utilities folder  and came across it, so I mention it more fpor nostalgia than anything else ... hasn't thought of it in maybe 20 years.   Your AV program may flag this as a "joke program" but is in no way dangerous.  As i recall, you just have to move mouse to corner of screen to disable it.
http://www.rjlsoftware.com/support/faq/sa.cfm?q=21&n=46

Here's an article from one of my fav developers Nirsoft, on the the false AV indications
http://www.nirsoft.net/blog/2009/05/antivirus-companies-cause-big-headache.html

And yes, Nirsoft tools are a great edition to your utility tool kit
http://nirsoft.net/


----------



## Space Lynx (Jun 3, 2019)

heya @W1zzard  just letting you know your all in one runtime is out of date

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/visual_c_redistributable_runtimes_aio_repack.html  updated april 24, 2019

and yours is october 2018









						Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes All-in-One (Nov 2022) Download
					

This archive contains the latest version (Nov 2022) of all VCRedist Visual Studio C++ runtimes, installable with a single click by running the includ




					www.techpowerup.com


----------



## biffzinker (Jun 3, 2019)

lynx29 said:


> heya @W1zzard  just letting you know your all in one runtime is out of date
> 
> https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/visual_c_redistributable_runtimes_aio_repack.html  updated april 24, 2019
> 
> ...


Just have to edit the bat file, easy to update plus the newer redistributable installers.


----------



## Space Lynx (Jun 3, 2019)

biffzinker said:


> Just have to edit the bat file, easy to update plus the newer redistributable installers.




yeah but @W1zzard posted somewhere about this before and that if we saw any updates to it, to let him know. but i forgot what thread that was in so I posted it here for him.

he just likes to keep some things up to date from time to time I think.


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 3, 2019)

I'll update it, still on holiday in China. Remind me late next week in case I forget


----------



## vectoravtech (Jun 7, 2019)

pagezipper, drag it into the toolbar. Click it the pages become 1/ how ever many pages there are, sort of like a pdf does.


----------



## MrGenius (Jun 7, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> I'll update it, still on holiday in China. Remind me late next week in case I forget


Please add the 2005 redists this time too. Thanks!


----------



## vectoravtech (Jun 7, 2019)

qubit said:


> What's it called? No good without the name.


I bet its vivaldi which is based on chrome, theres a tab sleep ap thats a must also


----------



## W1zzard (Jun 11, 2019)

lynx29 said:


> heya @W1zzard  just letting you know your all in one runtime is out of date
> 
> https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/details/visual_c_redistributable_runtimes_aio_repack.html  updated april 24, 2019
> 
> ...


Updated, and added 2005, too.


----------



## Splinterdog (Jul 31, 2019)

EaseUS is running a 15th-anniversary daily prize draw and I just won Partition Master Pro which is worth $60.
All you have to do is spin the wheel, come up with a slogan and supply your email address.
I'm not affiliated to EaseUS in any way...





						EaseUS 15th Anniversary
					

EaseUS 15th Anniversary. EaseUS provides professional data and backup solutions to you to keep your data safe.




					www.easeus.com


----------



## kapone32 (Jul 31, 2019)

Splinterdog said:


> EaseUS is running a 15th-anniversary daily prize draw and I just won Partition Master Pro which is worth $60.
> All you have to do is spin the wheel, come up with a slogan and supply your email address.
> I'm not affiliated to EaseUS in any way...
> 
> ...



That is nice I am going to try that when I get home


----------



## Mussels (Jul 31, 2019)

i won todo backup home


----------



## Gamepr190 (Aug 23, 2019)

Recommend:
Skype
Winamp
sharpkeys
Google Sky Map
Notepad++
Always On Top Maker


----------



## Gamepr190 (Aug 26, 2019)

Gamepr190 said:


> Recommend:
> Skype
> Winamp
> sharpkeys
> ...


Winamp has been uninstalled from computer by me,sometimes it doesn't work and I don't know why it does.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Aug 26, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> Updated, and added 2005, too.


Been coming to TPU more tha a decade and never saw this. Excellent!


----------



## biffzinker (Sep 8, 2019)

W1zzard said:


> Updated, and added 2005, too.


The 2005 x86/x64 version included in the all-in-one has a exploit that was patched in 2011. There's also a minor update to the 2015-2019 runtime.
Download Microsoft Visual C++ 2005 Service Pack 1 Redistributable Package MFC Security Update from Official Microsoft Download Center









						Download Visual Studio Tools - Install Free for Windows, Mac, Linux
					

Download Visual Studio IDE or VS Code for free. Try out Visual Studio Professional or Enterprise editions on Windows, Mac.




					www.visualstudio.com


----------



## potato580+ (Sep 8, 2019)

this might be usefull for potato system budget like me
https://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU by toastyX, this software pretty much change monitor, some called it as monitor overclock software, even have a free/gsync option (i managed to oc my LG tv from 60-70hz & 2k acer vgo from 75-83hz, beware to read the instructions, this might cause error or damage your monitor)


also this https://dxgl.org/ and nglide i forgot where to download, those stuff for interpolation scaler which have a magic to display in any non native resolution without blurry, but not all game work well after forced by those software, just test it enjoy

i forgot abt this fancy duck software, here its, aint free, but you can try a demo, so consider it as free software








						Lossless Scaling - Integer Scaling for Games on Steam
					

Play your favorite games without blur! No more quality loss when you run the game at a resolution less than the native display resolution.




					store.steampowered.com


----------



## Roddey (Sep 8, 2019)

MouseZoomer for Firefox




__





						MouseZoomer – Get this Extension for  Firefox (en-US)
					

Download MouseZoomer for Firefox. Zoom IN/OUT with the mouse clicking left or right button + wheel UP/DOWN  Two permissions required:  TABS: To do ZOOM in the tabs :-)  STORAGE: To store settings




					addons.mozilla.org
				



* Make the toolbar,address toolbar, bookmark toolbars text bigger in Firefox





						how can i make my toolbar,address toolbar, bookmark toolbars text bigger | Firefox Support Forum | Mozilla Support
					






					support.mozilla.org
				



*


----------



## W1zzard (Sep 9, 2019)

biffzinker said:


> The 2005 x86/x64 version included in the all-in-one has a exploit that was patched in 2011








already using that version

updated the download with the new 2015-2019 runtime


----------



## Space Lynx (Sep 9, 2019)

potato580+ said:


> this might be usefull for potato system budget like me
> https://www.monitortests.com/forum/Thread-Custom-Resolution-Utility-CRU by toastyX, this software pretty much change monitor, some called it as monitor overclock software, even have a free/gsync option (i managed to oc my LG tv from 60-70hz & 2k acer vgo from 75-83hz, beware to read the instructions, this might cause error or damage your monitor)
> 
> 
> ...



yep I have used toastyx for many years now. great program. most monitors need not apply though, its only for very niche.


----------



## Frick (Sep 9, 2019)

Gamepr190 said:


> Always On Top Maker



Very niche thing, but likely handy.


----------



## biffzinker (Sep 11, 2019)

Sandboxie v5.31.4 has switched to freeware, only requires email registration.





						Sandboxie - Download the latest version of Sandboxie
					

Sandboxie - Sandbox security software for Windows. Install and run programs in a virtual sandbox environment without writing to the hard drive.



					www.sandboxie.com


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 12, 2019)

biffzinker said:


> Sandboxie v5.31.4 has switched to freeware, only requires email registration.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Interesting. I wonder why they did that?


----------



## jaggerwild (Sep 12, 2019)

A good link to MANY FREE programs "majorgeeks.com"
https://www.majorgeeks.com/


----------



## biffzinker (Sep 12, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> Interesting. I wonder why they did that?


No idea, seen it posted under the software section at Neowin.


----------



## Splinterdog (Nov 15, 2019)

Voluman said:


> FastStone Image Viewer, you can sort, setting order, rename photos, pics
> XnView, photo viewer, image resizer, batch image converter and more
> 
> VidCoder, DVD, Blu-ray and any video file to MP4/MKV video converter, based on HandBrake
> ...


FastStone Image Viewer is brilliant for batch conversions like image resizing when you have muliple images for example and the limit on a website might be 100KB per image. I usually default to this program rather than use TinyJPG/PNG.
It also features a handy (amongst many other cool features) rotate feature, allowing you full control over the rotation. All completely free, too!


----------



## oobymach (Nov 15, 2019)

*Audacity* - free audio editing software with conversion




__





						Home
					

Welcome to Audacity   Audacity® is free, open source, cross-platform audio software for multi-track recording and editing.  Audacity is available for Windows®, Mac®, GNU/Linux® and other operating systems. Check our feature list, Wiki and Forum.    Download Audacity 2.1.3    Mar 17th, 2017: Audacity




					www.audacityteam.org
				




*AIMP *- free audio playback software supporting asio pcm, dsd and dxd




__





						AIMP
					

AIMP : Free Audio Player : Официальный сайт программы




					www.aimp.ru


----------



## lexluthermiester (Nov 15, 2019)

One of My Favs is Paint.Net;





						Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing
					

Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows.



					www.getpaint.net
				



As close to Photoshop as you can reasonably get. Been using it for years.
But you'll need the .Net Framework runtimes found below(offline installer);


			https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4054530/microsoft-net-framework-4-7-2-offline-installer-for-windows


----------



## Kursah (Nov 15, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> One of My Favs is Paint.Net;
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I like Paint.net and well but find Gimp more closely resembles Photoshop imho. I finally made the move to Gimp entirely about 6 years ago and don't regret it one bit. Is more of a resource hog and takes longer to load because of that, but can do quite a bit more too. Check it out 

You can get either of those installed from ninite.com along with other free software you choose. I use it all the time to do fresh deployments and updates (same installer works for both of it was used to install the software initially).

If you guys haven't used ninite.com, you're missing out. It's worth a gander. I grab many things like Chrome, FF, VLC, Gimp, Revo, Putty, FileZilla, .Net, Java, Foobar, etc. Installs them without any additional bloatware which is the main reason I use it, aside from being a huge time saver.


----------



## cucker tarlson (Nov 15, 2019)

DaVinci Resolve,it's unbelievable such software can come free.
I haven't created many videos in my life,but with davinci it's a lot of fun.
There's countless tutorials on youtube that will let you use it to the fullest.


----------



## potato580+ (Nov 15, 2019)

memory scanner like ce/artmoney, theres plenty else, dont remmember alr
ohyea something i forgot to mentioned
software like blender/unity, those are good


----------



## R-T-B (Nov 16, 2019)

lexluthermiester said:


> Interesting. I wonder why they did that?



Probably due to Windows 10 adding free functionality that is similar.


----------



## Splinterdog (Nov 16, 2019)

Kursah said:


> I like Paint.net and well but find Gimp more closely resembles Photoshop imho. I finally made the move to Gimp entirely about 6 years ago and don't regret it one bit. Is more of a resource hog and takes longer to load because of that, but can do quite a bit more too. Check it out
> 
> You can get either of those installed from ninite.com along with other free software you choose. I use it all the time to do fresh deployments and updates (same installer works for both of it was used to install the software initially).
> 
> If you guys haven't used ninite.com, you're missing out. It's worth a gander. I grab many things like Chrome, FF, VLC, Gimp, Revo, Putty, FileZilla, .Net, Java, Foobar, etc. Installs them without any additional bloatware which is the main reason I use it, aside from being a huge time saver.


I use Gimp as well, but then moved over to Inkscape which I used to design the cover of my novel. What I found most useful was creating a pattern in Gimp, importing it into Inkscape and applying that pattern to a font. For example individual letters having the pattern of a flag, which was precisely what I was looking for.
It's amazing that these incredible programs are free in the first place. There's a bit of a learning curve and you have to stick at it, otherwise skill-fade kicks in.


----------



## xrobwx71 (May 17, 2020)

Do you want Nir Sofer's (nirsoft.net) and Microsoft's Sysinternals tools all in one place and updated frequently?  





__





						KLS SOFT - WSCC - Windows System Control Center
					






					www.kls-soft.com


----------



## Drone (Jul 27, 2020)

*Quad Explorer











						Q-Dir the Quad Explorer
					

Q-Dir (the Quad Explorer) makes your files and folders easy to manage, either installed or as a portable Windows program.



					q-dir.com
				




Empty Folder Cleaner









						Empty Folder Cleaner - Delete empty folders, increase performance
					

Empty Folder Cleaner - Delete empty folders and increase performance.




					www.4dots-software.com
				




QuickViewer



			QuickViewer Project
		

*


----------



## cucker tarlson (Jul 27, 2020)

displayfusion,a nice free tool to set separate wallpapers on each monitor









						DisplayFusion
					

DisplayFusion will make your multi-monitor life much easier! With powerful features like Multi-Monitor Taskbars, TitleBar Buttons and fully customizable HotKeys, DisplayFusion will make managing yo...




					www.displayfusion.com


----------



## Splinterdog (Jul 27, 2020)

Yesterday I came across *Subtitle Edit*, a very intuitive subtitle creation program which is open source and within an hour or so I was rendering a video with hard coded subtitles. 
It was a simple process of creating the .srt and then burning that into the video using another program.
A quite remarkable program and considering it's free, even more so.




__





						Nikse.dk
					






					www.nikse.dk


----------



## cucker tarlson (Jul 27, 2020)

da vinci can do both  video and subtitles


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jul 27, 2020)

Drone said:


> Quad Explorer
> 
> 
> 
> ...


QDir is one of the best file managers made. Been using it for years!



cucker tarlson said:


> da vinci can do both  video and subtitles


True. I personally like Openshot better.




__





						OpenShot Video Editor | Free, Open, and Award-Winning Video Editor for Linux, Mac, and Windows!
					

OpenShot is an award-winning free and open-source video editor for Linux, Mac, and Windows. Create videos with exciting video effects, titles, audio tracks, and animations.




					www.openshot.org


----------



## cucker tarlson (Jul 27, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> QDir is one of the best file managers made. Been using it for years!
> 
> 
> True. I personally like Openshot better.
> ...


da vinci is easy enough for me for such an advanced tool,and cuda acceleration really speeds things up lot


----------



## silkstone (Jul 27, 2020)

I use RBtray quite a lot on one of my computers where I have some programs, or DOS windows that I'd like running in the background, but not taking up taskbar space


			RBTray
		


Take ownership of files and folders via right-click menu is another one. While not a program, i still find it really useful. You'll need to scroll to the bottom for the registry hack. https://www.howtogeek.com/howto/win...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/


----------



## Splinterdog (Jul 27, 2020)

silkstone said:


> I use RBtray quite a lot on one of my computers where I have some programs, or DOS windows that I'd like running in the background, but not taking up taskbar space
> 
> 
> RBTray
> ...


Taking ownership of something you already own has always been a mystery to me. Anyway, How To Geeks is one of my favourites and yes, scrolling to the bottom for those lovely registry hacks is always a time saver. Same for move to, copy to, disable Cortana and my favourite - use Windows Photo Viewer reg hacks.


----------



## Flyingotter (Nov 17, 2020)

Openshot is working for me on my Windows computer,it works very well in video editing.


----------



## copenhagen69 (Nov 17, 2020)

How out of date are most the recommendations? I mean I see IE 9 in there


----------



## Mussels (Nov 17, 2020)

copenhagen69 said:


> How out of date are most the recommendations? I mean I see IE 9 in there



thread is from 2011. it still has some goodies but yeah its outdated.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Nov 17, 2020)

Flyingotter said:


> Openshot is working for me on my Windows computer,it works very well in video editing.


And it's continuously being updated.

BTW, welcome to TPU!


----------



## Frick (Nov 17, 2020)

Splinterdog said:


> Taking ownership of something you already own has always been a mystery to me.



Supremely useful with new Windows installs if you have your stuff spread out over several drives. Just changing permissions is fickle at best.


----------



## Vayra86 (Nov 17, 2020)

copenhagen69 said:


> How out of date are most the recommendations? I mean I see IE 9 in there



You have to admit IE9 was always and still is a better idea than IE6


----------



## copenhagen69 (Nov 17, 2020)

Vayra86 said:


> You have to admit IE9 was always and still is a better idea than IE6


LOL! Cant argue with you there ...


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2020)

CCleaner has a bad reputation these days, i dont recommend it


----------



## hat (Nov 20, 2020)

I heard they had a bout with some malware being slipped in somehow. What would you suggest instead?


----------



## copenhagen69 (Nov 20, 2020)

hat said:


> I heard they had a bout with some malware being slipped in somehow. What would you suggest instead?



LOL! if that is true that is crazy!! 

I would be curious what else has taken their place too ..


----------



## Frick (Nov 20, 2020)

Mussels said:


> CCleaner has a bad reputation these days



Why?


----------



## Khonjel (Nov 20, 2020)

Frick said:


> Why?


Avast: No plans to discontinue CCleaner following _second hack in two years_


----------



## Frick (Nov 20, 2020)

Khonjel said:


> Avast: No plans to discontinue CCleaner following _second hack in two years_



Oh that. I'm not actually worried about that.


----------



## blobster21 (Nov 20, 2020)

Frick said:


> Oh that. I'm not actually worried about that.



How many successfull hack will it take before you start worrying about this POS software ?



> many users have expressed their opinions today, claiming that Avast should just retire CCleaner, as the app is only a magnet for state-sponsored hackers, and that the app has no real purpose (many consider registry cleaner apps as being useless or plain harmful).


----------



## Frick (Nov 20, 2020)

blobster21 said:


> How many successfull hack will it take before you start worrying about this POS software ?



I have a formula.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Nov 20, 2020)

Mussels said:


> CCleaner has a bad reputation these days, i dont recommend it





hat said:


> I heard they had a bout with some malware being slipped in somehow. What would you suggest instead?


This was due to a hack. All is well now.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 20, 2020)

two hacks, various bugs, and the way its super naggy and bloaty these days... i'd rather do a clean install of an OS once a year than rely on it


----------



## lexluthermiester (Nov 20, 2020)

Mussels said:


> and the way its super naggy and bloaty these days


To be fair I have not actually used the latest version. Mine is a year or two old....

Edit;
Just downloaded and tested the latest version. While it is a bit naggy, such can be disabled in the settings and it's only doing so in promotion of the pro version of CCleaner, which is understandable. After all, Piriform is a business. I did not detect any nefarious activities by the program and it still does what it claims to.


----------



## basco (Nov 20, 2020)

using CCleaner since years and never had a prob but who am i still on x99 without spectre+meltdown protect and such which is my decision not running latest bios.


----------



## biffzinker (Nov 20, 2020)

lexluthermiester said:


> After all, Piriform is a business. I did not detect any nefarious activities by the program and it still does what it claims to.


Piriform was bought out by AVAST that's why the nagging, and bloat to push their other products.

Also I didn't know about these two things from Wikipedia:


> *Bundled software*
> In December 2018, it was reported that users installing CCleaner would also have Avast Antivirus installed without their permission, with TechSpot claiming this arguably made CCleaner no better than the malware it was supposed to defend against. Piriform denied this.
> In July 2020, Microsoft Windows Defender began flagging the free version of CCleaner as a "potentially unwanted application", stating that "while the bundled applications themselves are legitimate, bundling of software, especially products from other providers, can result in unexpected software activity that can negatively impact user experiences."


----------



## lexluthermiester (Nov 20, 2020)

biffzinker said:


> Piriform was bought out by AVAST that's why the nagging, and bloat to push their other products.
> 
> Also I didn't know about these two things from Wikipedia:


Right, but still, I just tried it this morning. Didn't have any problems.


----------



## Mussels (Nov 21, 2020)

when it bundles other software, sometimes malware, sometimes just annoying unwanted programs... i cant recommend it. It's like how i like and use kaspersky security cloud, but wont recommend it because i hate how it bundles and auto enables its own VPN software


----------



## lexluthermiester (Nov 21, 2020)

Mussels said:


> when it bundles other software, sometimes malware, sometimes just annoying unwanted programs... i cant recommend it. It's like how i like and use kaspersky security cloud, but wont recommend it because i hate how it bundles and auto enables its own VPN software


I did not have any of those experiences. Of course, I denied it access to the internet during install so that might have been it's limitation.


----------



## xrobwx71 (Nov 21, 2020)

*As with all things that manipulate the registry or hard drives have a valid backup image of your hard drives*

Alternatives to CCleaner?





						Free PC cleaner & Privacy tool
					

Free PC cleaner & Privacy tool




					privazer.com
				



https://www.bleachbit.org/  <--Be careful with the advanced settings 

You can open an elevated command prompt - Hit the start button -type cmd - Hit CTRL + Shift + Enter and the elevated prompt should open.
In this elevated prompt copy and paste *%SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c Cleanmgr /sageset:65535 & Cleanmgr /sagerun:65535*

This will open an advanced version of the Microsoft Disk Cleaner with more options than the default. Most of the time, this is all you need to reclaim disk space and to keep your computer tidy. Plus, IMO, it's the safest for novices and people without proper backups.


----------



## Splinterdog (Dec 29, 2020)

Free software from Ashampoo.








						Terrific Freebies from Ashampoo | Daves Computer Tips
					

Ashampoo is currently offering a selection of terrific software for free. There are some real gems among the titles– for example, Ashampoo Burning Studio 2021 which, with a feature set that goes way…



					davescomputertips.com


----------



## Jetster (Dec 29, 2020)

Sycnex Windows10Debloater   I just tried it and so far so good.

It's a script you run from the PowerShell
Takes a lot of annoying shit out including One Drive

Windows 10 Debloater Overview - 2019 - YouTube


----------



## P4-630 (Jan 8, 2021)

Windows File Recovery by Microsoft








						Get Windows File Recovery from the Microsoft Store
					

Currently available for Windows 10 2004 and above.   Accidentally deleted an important file? Wiped clean your hard drive? Unsure of what to do with corrupted data? Windows File Recovery can help recover your personal data.   For photos, documents, videos and more, Windows File Recovery supports...




					www.microsoft.com


----------



## lemonadesoda (Jan 11, 2021)

Windows file recovery - looks useful. Ah, it is a command line tool only. And you have to use MS “Store”.

skip.


----------



## VulkanBros (Jan 12, 2021)

FAR - a  powerful "Find And Replace" utility - Find And Replace Utility

From SourceForge: 


> Search and replace operations on file content accross multiple files. Recursive operations within entire directory trees. FAR comes with support for regular expressions (regex) over multiple lines, automatic backup and various character encodings. Run grep like extractions to condense or rearrange sources, or perform bulk file renaming


----------



## Splinterdog (Jan 25, 2021)

Video Proc - a video editing, conversion, recording and downloading suite is free to download at Neowin. The only snag is that there are a few hoops to jump through such as multiple questions and your interest in all things science.
But the program is well worth it and I've been using it for years. It's worth about $30.








						VideoProc v4.1 (worth $78.90) now free to download
					

Here's your free license of VideoProc for Windows & Mac. An easy solution to process, download and convert video/audio, record screen, rip & backup DVD with hardware acceleration. Ends Feb 9.




					www.neowin.net


----------



## biffzinker (Jan 25, 2021)

lemonadesoda said:


> And you have to use MS “Store”.


You can close out of the account prompt, and still download. Unless you don't like interacting with the store.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jan 25, 2021)

Splinterdog said:


> Video Proc - a video editing, conversion, recording and downloading suite is free to download at Neowin. The only snag is that there are a few hoops to jump through such as multiple questions and your interest in all things science.
> But the program is well worth it and I've been using it for years. It's worth about $30.
> 
> 
> ...


There's a catch and a lot of people can't or won't do this, You need a work email to get the license. Then there's a whole lot of hoops you have to jump through. Not very cool at all... Kinda shady IMHO.


----------



## Splinterdog (Jan 25, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> There's a catch and a lot of people can't or won't do this, You need a work email to get the license. Then there's a whole lot of hoops you have to jump through. Not very cool at all... Kinda shady IMHO.


Well fine. It's up to the individual, but the actual program is excellent.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Jan 25, 2021)

Splinterdog said:


> Well fine. It's up to the individual, but the actual program is excellent.


Yeah, I just tested it. The video codec encoder selection is lacking to say the least and the audio encoder isn't much better as it limits bitrates to pathetically low levels. I could keep going with that list, but one word sums it up: *Garbage*.

Anyone who wants a media encoder/recoder will want something with more features.

XmediaRecode comes to mind and is excellent;





						XMedia Recode - Download
					

XMedia Recode is a free All-In-One video converter and audio converter tool.



					www.xmedia-recode.de
				



It's actually free, no hoops to jump through.

Handbrake is also excellent;





						HandBrake: Open Source Video Transcoder
					

HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder.



					handbrake.fr
				



It's also actually free with no hoops to jump through.

MediaCoder is also a very good one;





						MediaCoder - Download Latest MediaCoder
					

MediaCoder is a free universal audio/video batch transcoder, putting together lots of excellent audio/video codecs and tools from the open source community into an all-in-one solution, capable of transcoding among different audio/video formats with many extra features.



					www.mediacoderhq.com
				



Or a portable version;





						MediaCoder - Download latest MediaCoder Full Pack
					

MediaCoder is a free universal audio/video batch transcoder, putting together lots of excellent audio/video codecs and tools from the open source community into an all-in-one solution, capable of transcoding among different audio/video formats with many extra features.



					www.mediacoderhq.com
				



It's donation-ware but but will only ask for donations, it will not limit functionality at all. Still though, no hoops to jump through.

All three of these are greatly better options than Video Proc and you will not have to jump through any hoops or get over any hurdles to get them.


----------



## Splinterdog (Jan 26, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> Yeah, I just tested it. The video codec encoder selection is lacking to say the least and the audio encoder isn't much better as it limits bitrates to pathetically low levels. I could keep going with that list, but one word sums it up: *Garbage*.
> 
> Anyone who wants a media encoder/recoder will want something with more features.
> 
> ...


You make excellent points, but I must point out that for my meagre purposes, VideoProc does the trick, mainly the downloader and DVD rip.
For more elaborate video processing, I have other progs.


----------



## ThrashZone (Jan 30, 2021)

Hi,
Not a program but don't go on the net without it
Ublock Origin browser add-on


----------



## lemonadesoda (Feb 6, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Not a program but don't go on the net without it
> Ublock Origin browser add-on


What does it do? You are making us work to have to go find out.


----------



## djisas (Feb 6, 2021)

ThrashZone said:


> Hi,
> Not a program but don't go on the net without it
> Ublock Origin browser add-on



It makes life much easier...
Nothing annoys me more than adds, I wish chrome mobile had it, but at least firefox does...


----------



## Mussels (Feb 7, 2021)

Not quite a useful *program* but adguard DNS has been a lifesaver for me

just having all those ads blocked network wide is awesome (and they do have apps for various platforms as well, but the DNS is agnostic)


----------



## djisas (Feb 7, 2021)

Mussels said:


> Not quite a useful *program* but adguard DNS has been a lifesaver for me
> 
> just having all those ads blocked network wide is awesome (and they do have apps for various platforms as well, but the DNS is agnostic)



For me, the issue is in my smartphone, anything outside firefox is half screen of adds, with FF it's all clean content, FU google for plaguing your own software with trash and making money with it...


----------



## Mussels (Feb 7, 2021)

djisas said:


> For me, the issue is in my smartphone, anything outside firefox is half screen of adds, with FF it's all clean content, FU google for plaguing your own software with trash and making money with it...


on android you can change DNS, so i use it on my phone even off wifi


----------



## Drone (Feb 12, 2021)

Audio player for Win/Unix/nacOS

Downloads | Clementine Music Player (clementine-player.org)


----------



## lZKoce (Feb 12, 2021)

Mussels said:


> Not quite a useful *program* but adguard DNS has been a lifesaver for me
> 
> just having all those ads blocked network wide is awesome (and they do have apps for various platforms as well, but the DNS is agnostic)



Can you stack that with the "Family shield" form OpenDNS? Or you can only have one DNS at a time?


----------



## Mussels (Feb 12, 2021)

lZKoce said:


> Can you stack that with the "Family shield" form OpenDNS? Or you can only have one DNS at a time?


you can only have one at a time
adguard to have a family friendly version as well you can set on kids devices, blocks youtube comments and similar things


----------



## Space Lynx (Feb 12, 2021)

new edition of shutupten is out, feb 9th update.







						O&O ShutUp10++ – Free antispy tool for Windows 10 and 11
					

With the freeware O&O ShutUp10++, unwanted Windows 10 and 11 features can be disabled and the transfer of sensitive personal data onto Microsoft prevented.




					www.oo-software.com
				




as always remember to run as admin. i also block it in my firewall, meh.


----------



## HK-1 (Apr 9, 2021)

Splinterdog said:


> Video Proc - a video editing, conversion, recording and downloading suite is free to download at Neowin. The only snag is that there are a few hoops to jump through such as multiple questions and your interest in all things science.
> But the program is well worth it and I've been using it for years. It's worth about $30.
> 
> 
> ...


Thanks for the indication friend, although I prefer to use this from here: https://kdenlive.org/en/features/   free and works very well


----------



## Splinterdog (Aug 24, 2021)

Video Proc is free again!








						VideoProc v4.2 (worth $78.90) is free to download until Friday
					

Here is your free download of a licensed copy of VideoProc - an easy solution to process, download and convert video/audio, record screen, rip and backup DVD with GPU hardware acceleration.




					www.neowin.net


----------



## Space Lynx (Aug 24, 2021)

Splinterdog said:


> Video Proc is free again!
> 
> 
> 
> ...



it says it requires a work email to claim it... weird... so I can't use a personal email?  i mean technically my job is remote, but still all my video stuff is cloud based, so I technically still can't claim I need this for work. I will pass I guess.


----------



## Splinterdog (Aug 24, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> it says it requires a work email to claim it... weird... so I can't use a personal email?  i mean technically my job is remote, but still all my video stuff is cloud based, so I technically still can't claim I need this for work. I will pass I guess.


Me too because of all the hoops we have to jump through. Looks like an info harvesting scheme to me.


----------



## lexluthermiester (Aug 25, 2021)

lynx29 said:


> so I can't use a personal email?


Nope. It's not really free. VideoProc isn't that great either.


----------



## Space Lynx (Aug 25, 2021)

lexluthermiester said:


> Nope. It's not really free. VideoProc isn't that great either.



I have no need for it anyway so I will pass for now


----------



## vectoravtech (Sep 1, 2021)

(Prevent the installation of spyware and other potentially unwanted software! Simple, effective, trusted.)
I would use this to prevent ransomware. I couldn't update my antivirus with this so be warned.








						SpywareBlaster
					

Prevent the installation of spyware, adware, malware, and more. Free download.



					www.brightfort.com
				










						Geek Uninstaller - the best FREE uninstaller
					

Efficient and Fast, Small and Portable. 100% Free




					geekuninstaller.com


----------



## Mussels (Sep 1, 2021)

Holy crap spyware blaster is still around?

They havent updated their website in like 10 years, downloads page shows its recently updated tho :O


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 1, 2021)

Mussels said:


> Holy crap spyware blaster is still around?


That's what I was thinking... Had to double take..


----------



## Logan7 (Sep 7, 2021)

cucker tarlson said:


> DaVinci Resolve,it's unbelievable such software can come free.


Agreed.

A number that I use or have used:
Advanced Renamer - batch file/folder renaming, very powerful
Autoruns - Microsoft Sysinternals; most probably know of this but I don't remember seeing it mentioned, maybe I missed it
DisplayCAL - one of the best monitor calibration software (if you have the appropriate device for calibrating of course)
FanControl - easy-to-use customizable fan control software, highly recommend this one (forum link)
HCFR - calibration software that is more suited for calibrating TVs (again need the appropriate calibration device)
Hugin - panorama photo stitcher
Logitech Setpoint - if you have certain Logitech keyboards, this will allow you to remap, for example on mine, the home, mail, shutdown, and calculator buttons at the top of the keyboard. It is older software but still works. For example I remapped my calculator key to put my PC into sleep and my home button to run F.lux (with a -noshow modifier)
MPC-HC - many know of this media player, it is without a doubt my favorite. Development is active again.
MadVR - a renderer that allows MPC-HC to use your monitor calibration profile when playing video, among many other things you can do with it
MusicBee - music player that is highly customizable
Speccy - shows basic computer specs in a nice interface; made by Piriform, I don't think its been updated in a few years but it still works fine
XnViewMP - image viewer program; the big advantage of this one is that it's fully color aware. Not many are, I believe FastStone is only partially. I used to use FastStone but switched to this for that reason. With a little tinkering I got the interface to look almost identical to how FastStone looks. I love in particular the ability to customize labels with EXIF/metadata info.
WifiInfoView - made by Nirsoft, shows WiFi signal strength and more


----------



## lexluthermiester (Sep 7, 2021)

Logan7 said:


> MPC-HC - many know of this media player, it is without a doubt my favorite. Development is active again.


It's not being maintained anymore. MPC-BE is a fork that is being maintained.








						MPC-BE
					

Download MPC-BE for free. Media Player Classic - BE. Media Player Classic - BE is a free and open source audio and video player for Windows. Media Player Classic - BE is based on the original "Media Player Classic" project (Gabest) and "Media Player Classic Home Cinema" project (Casimir666)...




					sourceforge.net
				





Logan7 said:


> XnViewMP - image viewer program; the big advantage of this one is that it's fully color aware. Not many are, I believe FastStone is only partially. I used to use FastStone but switched to this for that reason. With a little tinkering I got the interface to look almost identical to how FastStone looks. I love in particular the ability to customize labels with EXIF/metadata info.


I personally prefer the standard XnView. "MP" is a big departure from the intuitive UI that made XnView a joy to use.


----------



## xrobwx71 (Sep 7, 2021)

Steve Gibson's *site *has a lot of freebies but one of my favorites is his *DNS Benchmark *software.


----------



## Logan7 (Sep 11, 2021)

One more I forgot about:
PhotoRec (part of TestDisk)
For recovering photos from a corrupted SD card (and other forms of storage).
Somehow last month my camera's SD card got corrupted and I was missing over 100 of the last pictures I took. Some but not all of them would show in the camera, but none of them were showing when the card was plugged into a PC. With PhotoRec I recovered every picture.

Something you won't need very often, but its fantastic when you do need it.


----------



## mrpickem (Oct 5, 2021)

Can anyone recommend a free ftp client.  There use to be a Chrome extention called codeanywhere that you had most ftb abilities as well as ability to edit webpages in real time, but its no longer available.  Something similar would be great formy use as I maintain occasional updates on 2 sites as well as moving files around.  I like the idea of a browser extension allowing flexibility to have access from multiple locations.  But a stand alone client would also work.  Currently I'm using a Chrome app sFTP on trial and it works ok but trial time is almost up.


----------



## Hachi_Roku256563 (Oct 5, 2021)

mrpickem said:


> Can anyone recommend a free ftp client.  There use to be a Chrome extention called codeanywhere that you had most ftb abilities as well as ability to edit webpages in real time, but its no longer available.  Something similar would be great formy use as I maintain occasional updates on 2 sites as well as moving files around.  I like the idea of a browser extension allowing flexibility to have access from multiple locations.  But a stand alone client would also work.  Currently I'm using a Chrome app sFTP on trial and it works ok but trial time is almost up.


I use Filezilla to do FTP transfers


----------



## cvaldes (Oct 5, 2021)

mrpickem said:


> Can anyone recommend a free ftp client.  There use to be a Chrome extention called codeanywhere that you had most ftb abilities as well as ability to edit webpages in real time, but its no longer available.  Something similar would be great formy use as I maintain occasional updates on 2 sites as well as moving files around.  I like the idea of a browser extension allowing flexibility to have access from multiple locations.  But a stand alone client would also work.  Currently I'm using a Chrome app sFTP on trial and it works ok but trial time is almost up.


I have used ncftp as my default FTP client for the past two decades. There are various clients including macOS, various Linux distros, Windows, UNIXes, etc.


----------



## xrobwx71 (Oct 5, 2021)

mrpickem said:


> Can anyone recommend a free ftp client.  There use to be a Chrome extention called codeanywhere that you had most ftb abilities as well as ability to edit webpages in real time, but its no longer available.  Something similar would be great formy use as I maintain occasional updates on 2 sites as well as moving files around.  I like the idea of a browser extension allowing flexibility to have access from multiple locations.  But a stand alone client would also work.  Currently I'm using a Chrome app sFTP on trial and it works ok but trial time is almost up.








						Free FTP Client for Windows :: WinSCP
					

WinSCP is a free SFTP, SCP, Amazon S3, WebDAV, and FTP client for Windows.




					winscp.net
				




I've used it for years.


----------



## DoH! (Jan 28, 2022)

I use this Program Updater "*Patch My Pc*" which keeps me informed every week.








						Home Updater: Overview and Download | Patch My PC
					

Our home updater is a free, easy-to-use program that keeps over 300 apps updated on your PC. A key component of staying safe online is keeping your apps patched.




					patchmypc.com


----------



## xrobwx71 (Jan 28, 2022)

DoH! said:


> I use this Program Updater "*Patch My Pc*" which keeps me informed every week.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Love this little program. I use it on multiple PC's at home and work.


----------



## Splinterdog (Jan 28, 2022)

xrobwx71 said:


> Love this little program. I use it on multiple PC's at home and work.


Is it free? I couldn't really tell from the website.


----------



## Mussels (Jan 29, 2022)

Splinterdog said:


> Is it free? I couldn't really tell from the website.


Home updater is free, their other programs are not.

If the two users above were 0 post noobs i'd have hit the spam button, my mod-senses tingled so hard
Hell i found reports of it being a trojan on malwarebytes forums, and it was deemed clean and whitelisted.

I have daily backups so i'm giving it a shot here, but it might be that one rare updater thats not malware ridden trash


----------



## VulkanBros (Feb 5, 2022)

DoH! said:


> I use this Program Updater "*Patch My Pc*" which keeps me informed every week.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Seems legit and neither Kaspersky Internet Security or some of the other Security tools freaked out. 
It found Notepad++ and GreenShot to be outdated - which where correct - and updated the apps without any hiccup's - nice tool


----------



## Mussels (Feb 6, 2022)

Yeah i had no issues or problems with it


----------



## xrobwx71 (Mar 5, 2022)

Splinterdog said:


> Is it free? I couldn't really tell from the website.


Yes.



Mussels said:


> Home updater is free, their other programs are not.
> 
> If the two users above were 0 post noobs i'd have hit the spam button, my mod-senses tingled so hard
> Hell i found reports of it being a trojan on malwarebytes forums, and it was deemed clean and whitelisted.
> ...


I've been using it for years without issue. 

I spend hours at my job maintaining the Server environment for our Point Of Sale system and would never use or recommend anything that would be detrimental to its functioning. However, I keep an eye on its changelogs.


----------



## Logan7 (Jun 8, 2022)

For those with cameras like GoPros, Gyroflow is a new open-source alternative to the $99 USD ReelSteady.

https://gyroflow.xyz/
https://github.com/gyroflow/gyroflow



> Supported formats:​
> Sony (a1, a7c, a7r IV, a7 IV, a7s III, a9 II, FX3, FX6, RX0 II, RX100 VII, ZV1, ZV-E10)
> GoPro (All models with gyro metadata, starting with HERO 5)
> Insta360 (OneR, SMO 4k, GO2)
> ...


----------



## P4-630 (Jun 22, 2022)

WifiDiagnosticsView a Wifi diagnostics tool for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista​








						Wifi diagnostics tool for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista
					

Wifi diagnostics tool for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista that monitors the wireless network service of Windows operating system and displays any event that occurs while WifiDiagnosticsView is running.



					www.nirsoft.net


----------



## xrobwx71 (Jun 23, 2022)

P4-630 said:


> WifiDiagnosticsView a Wifi diagnostics tool for Windows 11/10/8/7/Vista​
> 
> 
> 
> ...


Just about anything from Nirsoft is useful.

I'm sure this has been posted before but its worth a reminder. *WSCC* It puts all of Nir Sofer's tools and Microsoft's Sysinternals Suite (and a few others)in one place. It's frequently updated.  The packages are downloaded and updated direct from the Authors site. It's the first thing I add to my Portable Tech Drive.


----------



## Mussels (Jun 26, 2022)

Nirsoft do indeed make great stuff, somehow i never knew of this one

Edit: that's right, they have 30,000 various little tools for and the relevant ones get buried


----------

