Free/ open source software?

[theengel]

Textpad (for text file editing)
7zip (for archives & zip files)
NCH Software (for editing sound files & converting to MP3... although I don't know if they still exitst; I keep an old version backed up)
Freemake (for converting video)
VLC (to play video)

[Ottawatech]

Teracopy for speeding up those file transfers to your USB key.

[rthonpm]

One of my favorite sites. FileHippo.com - Download Free Software

Like CCleaner all the stuff from piriform is legit

File Hippo used to be a better site: too much garbage now, as well as 'special installers'. Try https://ninite.com/ instead: it has most of the common software for almost every purpose. Best of all: you select the software you want and the site creates a download file for you. It installs the software the first time you run it, and then updates anything there are updates for when you run it in the future.

The best are:

7-Zip: great not only for compression and extraction, but it also works to unpack a lot of .exe files for making driver installs without all of the bloatware (*ahem* HP) much easier.

VLC: Plays just about anything.

PuTTy: Can't manage Linux servers without it.

Classic Start: Makes Windows 8/8.1 and Server 2012 usable again.

Firefox: Great browser that works on everything. I tend to go with their Extended Support Releases (ESR), which get the security updates over the latest and greatest feature set, but there's nothing that great that's getting missed. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefo...nizations/all/ Between that and the ublock Origin add-on there's not much more you can ask for from a browser.

[qbert69]

GWX Control Panel:

Ultimate Outsider - Software Downloads



PS--*Kills* "Get Windows 10" systray update icon, removes & deletes Windows 10 download cache folder, and sets updates to NOT automatically download and install.

[nekowaiidesu]

A lot of good recommendations here!
surprised no one has mentioned:

eM Client (free email client for windows. supports MS and Gmail exchange. I'm currently using it at work in place of Outlook.)
Notepad++ (great text editor. especially useful for code)
Google Chrome (beats Firefox nowadays imho) / Chromium (for Linux users) / Tor (if you're on THAT side of the internet)
Paint.NET (poor mans Photoshop. Easier to use than GIMP in my opinion)
Malware Bytes (free version / trial) - Spybot S&D too (already been mentioned though)
mIRC (great IRC client for windows. can still be used after trial expires)
WireShark (Packet sniffer / network analysis)
ZenMap (Network scanner. It's NMap with a GUI)


Got a bunch more, but they are getting more specific to programming and network security - If anyone interested, just ask for more. Also keeping it to windows as there are so many open source wares for nix (and they're pretty easy to find too. if you're using nix you'd probably already know most of em)

Also as a South African and Linux user I have further promote Ubuntu! Great OS. Easy to find loads of open source wares!

[Iowatech]

The Pale Moon browser is a Firefox fork that I think runs faster.

D'OH!



(Open the link at your own peril.)
Pale Moon Devs Ponder Dropping Current Codebase and Starting from Scratch

[NeoMatrix]

{snip}

Classic Start: Makes Windows 8/8.1 and Server 2012 usable again.

Thanks for the "Classic Start" shell software. I'm giving it a try now....

Let me know if you have any more shareware gold nuggets like the above.

[zed255]

NAS4Free, used to resurrect an older PC as a NAS box. Great for internal easy file sharing and scan to folder with older MFPs.

Home '|' NAS4Free - The Free Network Attached Storage Project

[SargeNZ]

Asteriskkey - Reveals passwords hidden under asterisks. Good for mail apps where the client can't remember the SMTP password, I run this about every second install.

irfanview - Fast and powerful image management. Batch and one-off processing. Opens almost anything, with extensions available for anything else. This is the VLC of still images. I teach my clients to use the batch resize when making contact sheets, rather than printing 200 photos at 18mp each.....