Useful Windows Freeware/Shareware

[dsvochak]

Recently in another thread ( http://forum.thinkpads.com/viewtopic.php?t=17079 ) I learned about Foxit PDF reader, which appears to be a promising replacement for Adobe Reader. This got me to thinking about what other Windows freeware/shareware forum users might be using that I might be interested in. And it occurred to me that others might be wondering the same thing. When I say "freeware/shareware" I'm not talking about Anti Virus, browsers, anti-spyware or things like that. I mean useful little pieces of software that I use almost daily to make my work easier.

So here are mine:

1. Starre Envelope Printer A $15 program available at http://www.starre.com/ that does exactly what it says.

2. FileSync ( http://www.fileware.com/index.htm ) free. I regularly have to move or update files from machine to machine over a network. In my situation, this program is a lot easier than trying to use briefcase.

3. PrintDesktop ( http://www.printdesktop.com/ ) free. The name describes what it does. Useful for capturing error messages, etc.

4. OE Spellcheck ( http://www.geocities.com/vampirefo/ ) free. If you're not using MS word, works, or office and you are using Outlook Express for e-mail, this program adds spell check to OE.

[carbon_unit]

http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/ will save files to PDF.

[aabram]

Quick round on my daily freeware below:

1) FTP: Filezilla, free, http://filezilla.sf.net

2) SCP/SFTP: WinSCP, free, http://winscp.net/eng/index.php

3) SSH: Putty, free, http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/. De facto standard, I believe, among free SSH clients.

4) Coding/editing: Notepad2, free, http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html. This one I'm especially happy about because it supports UTF-8 and actually working syntax highlighting. All UTF-8 enabled editors I've seen are crippled in the coding section and all nice coding editors are crippled in the unicode departement.

4a) Multi-language-editing/converting: UniRed, free, http://www.esperanto.mv.ru/UniRed/ENG/index.html. Another full unicode editor (incl UTF-16), useful for converting text between various codepages (incl to and from HTML entities).

5) IM client: Miranda, free, http://www.miranda-im.org/. The lightweightest multi-protocol Windows IM-client out there. Not as shiny as Trillian (avatar support hackish, not 100% unicode compatible yet) but as unobtrusive as it can get, unbeatable at saving screen estate.

6) Virtual desktops: VirtuaWin, free, http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net. There are some useful modules available that provide additional functionality, for example Alt+drag for every window (hold Alt and drag any window by clicking anywhere inside it, not just the titlebar).

7) Desktop organising: AllSnap, snaps windows to screen edges and to other windows, free, http://ca.geocities.com/ivanheckman@rogers.com.

8) Time sync: Automachron, free, http://www.oneguycoding.com/automachron.

9) Benchmarking: Clibench, free, http://clibench.daemonware.ch. For quick benchmarking and comparing configurations/systems. Very lightweight, no 3D, just memory/cpu/hdd.

10) ISO mounting: Daemon Tools, free for non-commercial use, http://www.daemon-tools.cc.

11) Disk space overview: SpaceMonger, free, http://www.werkema.com/software/spacemonger.html. A must have tool to quickly discover where the heck all that free space has gone. One must really use it on ones own harddisk to grasp it's usefulness.

[tfflivemb2]

I know that it is a little off topic, but here is a site where you can get old versions of software like Acrobat Reader, without having to DL the monsterous version that is out now:

www.oldversion.com

I have used this several times for laptops with small hard drives, where I needed small versions of winzip, reader, etc.

[Navck]

http://aftermath.dyndns.org:8888/~aimadhack/
Aim Hack, nukes off those annoying advertisements off AIM and other features while keeping client compatablity (Such as file transfers being barfed up by other programs)

http://apatch.alphalink.com.au/
Apatch, nukes off those annoying advertisements and even search options if you want, and a lot more settings

I love those programs, good for getting off those advertisements. "iDate, find your partner today" *Cold shiver*

[AlphaKilo470]

www.irfanview.com : A pretty decent image viewing software for Windows. It also includes a very handy thumbnail program as well.

[MichaelMeier]

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[yukit]

This is a shameless plug, & a bit unusual freeware, but some people may find it useful.
VMware has released a free player & Ubuntu virtual machine configured with Firefox browser.

You can use the player with your existing WS VMs & Virtual PC VMs.
If you google around, you can find VMs with empty virtual disk that you can install your favourite OS inside.

You can get to the Player & Browser VM here:
http://www.vmware.com/vmtn/vm/browserapp.html