Gallery: Free and essential Windows apps
by George Ou | February 7, 2008 7:18am PST | Image 1 of 12
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uTorrent
Make the most of your computer without spending a dime. These dozen must-have applications for Windows are all free.
uTorrent, the BitTorrent client, is a must-have for anyone who wants an effective file sharing application that allows you to download large files.
Please see George Ou's blog for details on free and essential apps for Windows.
uTorrent, the BitTorrent client, is a must-have for anyone who wants an effective file sharing application that allows you to download large files.
Please see George Ou's blog for details on free and essential apps for Windows.
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No question is stupid except the ones you don't ask. Just do a google search or sign up here at ZD and download and install it. It's small yet has many more features than MS Paint. Be sure you have MS .NET installed, if don't you'll have to install it first. If you don't want .NET forget paint.NET. There are a lot of good small free graphics programs out there so best of luck.
nt
I can tell just by the picture that paint.net is better than windows paint. I also installed it. (Only 1.5MB) and can verify that its better than windows paint by leaps and bounds. Thanks George.
Paint.NET is open source and written in C#. Its a very good educational tool.
The drawing tools for example are better. That's enough of a reason for me to use it.
its been good to me
The best there is - I killed Norton on my computer and all of my clients too and no one has been unhappy. Been using it for about 4 years. Highly recommend.
Unfortunately the latest AVG 7.5 has become a member of the bloat software club. The program size of 7.5.516 has increased to 32,209KB from 7.0.300 at 10,793KB. The running memory of all its processes has doubled. AVG update insist on installing the latest version. I am going to be forced to find another free antivirus with a smaller footprint to install on older slower computers. After using AVG from day one.
I use avast 4 home. It's free, you just have to sign up. I've found it to have a smaller running footprint than AVG and it does a lot more.
Avast! upgrades are easy, fast, small and incremental!
That's right, upgrades are only the new files you need, so they're even faster and they happen in the background and you can schedule their frequency.
That's right, upgrades are only the new files you need, so they're even faster and they happen in the background and you can schedule their frequency.
Dunno how you missed WINDIRSTAT, ZDNet is where i saw it first.
Incredible graphic interface for viewing used storage space on your hard drive - one of the coolest utilities i've ever used.
VERY handy if you have a BUNCH of files and are wondering what's happening to all your harddrive space.
http://windirstat.info/
Incredible graphic interface for viewing used storage space on your hard drive - one of the coolest utilities i've ever used.
VERY handy if you have a BUNCH of files and are wondering what's happening to all your harddrive space.
http://windirstat.info/
I had AVG and too many virusus got through and it told me that my os was pirated and they were going to report me? I paid for my windows, they really need to fix this problem! So I have gotten AVAST and it work well, I have no complaints and my Windows is ok, not pirated!
i fail to understand the enthusiasm over AVG Free. Yeds it uses resources well and doesn't have the Norton bloat, but it is niot a good detector. Avira is a much better detector and there is a feree version that uses few resources, does silent updates and except for a nag screen after an update you don't even know it's there, until it detects something.
I couldn't agree more strongly. Look at any comparative review or the history of AV Bulletin certs for AVG and Avira for effective detection or scanning speed and Avira always comes out on top.
This article must be rather old. AVG 7.5 and 8 are extremely bloated. Both versions turn a dual core cpu back into a single core system, just running a lot slower than a single core would have been for the same price.
This article must be rather old. AVG 7.5 and 8 are extremely bloated. Both versions turn a dual core cpu back into a single core system, just running a lot slower than a single core would have been for the same price.
Why do people insist on suggesting the bloated and usually virus filled (again, depending on where you download it) K-lite codec pack when programs like VLC exist? It can play almost literally every file type I've come across (the exception here is real media) and it only takes up a couple MB on your HDD.
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
K-Lite isn't filled with viruses, and it has a great uninstaller.
I downloaded the K-lite mega pak from the reference you gave and Blink Personal found a fake codec (rasphone.pbk) that was really the DNSChanger F malware app.
Might have been a false positive, but it certainly makes me wonder.
Might have been a false positive, but it certainly makes me wonder.
First of all, you've put together a great list and I plan to download several of these gems.
However, I must point out a couple of free packages that I see used all day and every day by IT people supporting Unix/Linux servers from desktop Windows PCs. The most useful of these has to be "PuTTY", the free terminal app with great support for OpenSSH/SSL Secure Shell sessions (for those Unix support teams where 'telnet' and 'ftp' are verboten, for sending passwords and everything else in clear-text). Another great app is "nmap" for probing network vulnerabilities. You may want to let your network admin know before running this in all-out mode on your LAN - it has a tendency to set off a few net intruder alarms, and it can highlight local security weaknesses that certain others in your group may not be exactly thrilled about having to explain to their superiors. Supposedly, Intel once had a visiting journalist arrested by the police, just for running a similar network scan on Intel's internal network, without written approval in advance (ouch!).
However, I must point out a couple of free packages that I see used all day and every day by IT people supporting Unix/Linux servers from desktop Windows PCs. The most useful of these has to be "PuTTY", the free terminal app with great support for OpenSSH/SSL Secure Shell sessions (for those Unix support teams where 'telnet' and 'ftp' are verboten, for sending passwords and everything else in clear-text). Another great app is "nmap" for probing network vulnerabilities. You may want to let your network admin know before running this in all-out mode on your LAN - it has a tendency to set off a few net intruder alarms, and it can highlight local security weaknesses that certain others in your group may not be exactly thrilled about having to explain to their superiors. Supposedly, Intel once had a visiting journalist arrested by the police, just for running a similar network scan on Intel's internal network, without written approval in advance (ouch!).
I use PuTTY too, but that's more of a Network, Unix/Linux geek's thing. Auditor CD includes all of these auditing tools.
I have had the K-Lite Co-edit Pack since I used to have K-Lite. I kept it so I could use the media player. The media player is an all around wonderful player that will replace any player (other than web players) that you use. (No Malware, Adware, or viruses/ I've been using it for years)
I've never used FastStone for image processing, and I'm sure it, like others, has its advantages. But for my money (free), IrfanView is the one to have. It will open just about any kind of image/video file, including BMP, GIF, TIF, JPG, PNG, WMF, EPS, PCD, PCX, SWF, FLV, AVI, MPG, MIDI, MP3, WAV. It also has a batch rename/convert function. You can use it for instance to rename all your photos into a series. You can also turn a batch of photos into a screen saver (SCR) or a stand-alone slideshow (EXE). The only image I've found that IrfanView can't open is the CIT (Intergraph Scanned Image) format. But I found XNView can do that.
This a handy item, but one has to be aware that Media Player Classic is end of life and has two highly critical vulnerabilities per http://secunia.com/product/14824/?task=statistics
I just wend 'round with AVG last night and had the same issues. It was so apparent that I began to wonder if I'd picked up something really malicious sometime during the day. In the past, I've gone back and forth between Avast! and AVG. Today, I'm returning to Avast!.
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