Web Browsers

I can't name a paid-for web browser in truth. This is a hotly debated topic and there are many varying opinions. The general concensus among web developers and (in general) other IT developers is that Mozilla Firefox is the browser of choice. Alternatives include Google Chrome (generally agreed to be less resource intensive), Opera and of course Internet Explorer, though the latter is bundled with (nearly) all installations of any Windows OS anyway.

Alternatives to Microsoft Office

I can name only one real free alternative - Open Office. My opinion is that Open Office is perfectly fine for individuals and small businesses, but I honestly don't believe that it scales well and I believe that Microsoft Office is a far superior product (but you'd expect it to be with the money you pay for a license!)

Anti-virus

I'll list these:

1) AVG Free Edition

2) Avast Anti Virus

Alternative, though not recommended by myself as it does not scan e-mails as they come in:

2) AntiVir

Anti-spyware/malware

My favourite is malwarebytes but I always used to use Ad Aware and Spybot search and destroy

Text Editors

My favourite is Activestate's Komodo Edit but others often recommend Notepad++ and Textpad

Image Editing Software

I use only one alternative to photoshop as I can't bear to part with the ridiculous amount of money that Adobe ask for the privelidge of using it.. and that's paint.net. There are probably alternatives out there but I've never found them!

Image Editing: The GIMP

Sound Recording/Editing: Audacity

FTP: FileZilla

Archive/Zip: 7-Zip

Media Player: VLC (will play just about anything)

image editing software

i use only one alternative to photoshop as i can't bear to part with the ridiculous amount of money that adobe ask for the privelidge of using it.. And that's paint.net. There are probably alternatives out there but i've never found them!

GIMP

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Mplayer is pretty good as a Media Player

Edited 27 January, 200917 yr by *tim*
beaten to it

CD Ripper- CDex

Email/News/RSS Thunderbird

Opening PDFs without a 60Mb Adobe download - Foxit

CD burning - AShampoo

List of Lists

Giveaway of the Day - free licensed software daily. Today: CHM Editor 1.3.3.4 - CHM Editor is a handy WYSIWYG editor which can be used for editing and translating CHM files. You can translate ...

Best Freeware downloads and tips at TOPFREEWARE.NET

SnapFiles - software reviews, download freeware and free trial programs

NirSoft - freeware utilities: password recovery, system utilities, desktop utilities

microsoft synctoy

tweakui

rocketdock

open office

foxit pdf stuff

quicktime alternative

realplayer alternative

avira antivir (works well on windows 7)

Many of the above and -

Avant Browser IE based

Orca (ffrom Avant) Gecko based

Q-Dir multipane explorer

AutoMZ and MZUltimate - windows tweakers and truly excellent

SysInternals Suite - Process explorer, Autoruns and many more

CrapCleaner

Faststone Image Viewer

Irfanview - image viewer / convertor

Notetab text editor

KMPlayer and VLC (Videolan) media players

The best music player is definitely Winamp. To burn CDs/DVDs I prefer CDBurnerXP or something I just found for myself: Astroburn. The best film players are VLC player and Media Player classic which comes bundled with freeware K-Lite codec pack. Good anti-spyware tools are Hijack-This ( advanced users only ) and Superantispyware. Already mentioned Foxit reader is my favourite PDF reader ( lol @adobe ) and Openoffice 3 is a very capable but small replacement for M$ Office.

You can find free software to do basically everything. Just use some Google and you can find anything.

Just in case you dont know, this is quite an interesting website about freeware apps.

Gizmo's - Gizmo's List - The Best Freeware Reviewed and Rated | Gizmo's Tech Support Alert

I use Firefox and AVG, both are very good at what they do.

I find OpenOffice akin to slate and chalk...

PSP Video 9

Cut your video files down in size but retain a 720 res.