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

[droopyRO]

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

 

[twilyth]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

Unofficial Windows 98 Second Edition Service Pack 3.37

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

Who knows who might need this

 

[Frick]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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

 

[Frick]

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.

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]

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]

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]

Acrylic Wifi: Free and has 802.11ac support!

 

[Frick]

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]

WPS office

 

[Blue-Knight]

WPS office

Not recommended.

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

 

[yesyesloud]

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