Recommended Applications
These are the applications that I use and recommend to my friends & family
The applications are listed in order of preference.
Always use the first application listed in each category if you can.
Key:
Note that “free” in the following key refers to no $ cost, not to any sort of free / open source license.
$$$ Commercial Application. This application requires a key to install or is unavailable for free download.
$$ Non-Free Forced Registration. Application installs for free, but will expire or run with reduced features after a given time.
$ Non-Free Optional Registration. Application installs for free and runs forever, but displays nags, etc. requesting registration.
* Linux / FreeBSD version ALSO. Software ONLY available for Linux / FreeBSD is not listed here.
[Internet / Networking]
Web Browser
If you have a newer computer with a multi-core processor and at least 4GB of RAM, your best best is probably Google Chrome or WaterFox (a 64 bit variant of Firefox). Chrome has slightly faster javascript performance, and Waterfox has much better extension / add-ons. Firefox* is great for people using older / slower computers (including tablets and netbooks) and it’s wide variety of add-ons make it a very powerful browser. Maxthon is another great web browser. It has full Microsoft Internet Explorer compatibility, tabbed browsing, popup blocking, banner ad blocking, favorite groups, flash file save to hard drive, and hundreds of available plugins. If you prefer to use Microsft Internet Explorer, make sure you’ve updated to IE9 and are running SpyBot Search & Destroy regularly.
Firefox / Waterfox extension
I use the following: AdBlock Plus, Ant Video Downloader, CSS Usage, DownThemAll, Element Hiding Helper for Adblock, Firebug, Firecookie, Flashblock, Fox To Phone, Stylish, US English Spellchecker, Wappalyzer, Web Developer
Automated Downloader
WinHTTrack* makes downloading / mirroring full sites easy. Net Transport or the command line Wget* work well for downloading large single files from poorly connected sites requiring several retries to finish. Net Transport also has the advantage of being about to download files from MMS or RTSP (Windows Media Format) streams. If you just want to download a video from a website, install Ant Video Downloader into your Firefox / Waterfox web browser and it will make a handy toolbar icon.
Instant Messaging
Pidgin (formerly GAIM)* is my current favorite IM client. Miranda IM is another the best of the freeware instant messaging programs. It’s very light weight and offers hundreds of plugins to increase functionality, but no voice or video chat. Trillian$ works well and allows access to all of the major IM networks, but requires a pay upgrade to enable voice and video chat. If you just need MSN & Yahoo, you can use the small a-patch to remove the advertisements & other annoyances from Live Messenger. A-patch makes Live Messenger very usable and much less bulky.
Voice Over IP
Skype* has excellent sound quality and allows calls OUT to regular phone (IN is coming soon) without having to do any firewall / routing reconfiguration. It also offers instant messaging and file transfers. MSN / Yahoo / AOL IM also offer voice chat (and video). A less hyped competitor, Gizmo Project, boasts a similar feature set and allows for much larger conference calls. Gizmo was recently purchased by Google and part of it’s technology is now integrated in to gmail.
Remote Administration
Remote Desktop built into Windows Vista Business / Ultimate, XP Pro and Windows Server Versions is best. If you have a different version of Windows, you can use UltraVNC which has a built-in webserver with a Java application requiring no installation on the client machine. PuTTY is the best client for SSH (Command line only, generally only used for Linix / FreeBSD / etc servers). If you need to remote admin a very novice user’s computer, consider PC Helpware. This application lets you create and send a single EXE file to them. They run this and it connect in to your VNC viewer without the need for them to forward ports or configure anything.
Desktop Sharing / Web Meetings
For an alternative to WebEx and Microsoft Live Meeting, try Microsoft SharedView, CrossLoop, Yuuguu (also supports Mac), Mikogo, or DimDim (open source). They allow desktop sharing with no firewall / router configuration required, but unlike WebEx and Live Meeting, they’re completely free! If you don’t want to mess with installing applications, Windows Vista & Windows 7 have built in remote assistance, as does Windows Live Messenger.
Peer 2 Peer file sharing
BitTorrent is the current king of P2P applications and uTorrent the best client for using BitTorrent. Vuze* is quite a bit slower than uTorrent, but runs on Java so it will work on FreeBSD / Linux / etc as well as Windows. Non-BitTorrent networks such as Kazaa (FastTrack)/ Emule (Edonkey)/ BearShare (Gnutella) / Etc. are only recommended if you’d like to wait through 8 day queues before your download starts, then have the RIAA / MPAA at your door the minute it finishes.
Filezilla is a very simple to use FTP client that can connect to any FTP server as well as most SSH servers in SFTP mode. They also offer a simple FTP server software that is very easy to install and configure.
[System Tools / Security]
Anti-Virus
Microsoft Security Essentials is dominating the free AV market currently, and is even free for small businesses. AVG* is another great chose, but Avast! is also viable. A commerical version$$$ is required for corporate use, but even the free versions are superior to McAfee Antivirus$$$ and Norton Antivirus$$$. If you’re looking for something that’s open source, and can be used free for business use, try Moon Secure.
Office Applications
LibreOffice (a free software for from OpenOffice.org) is a free alternative to the very expensive Microsoft Office$$$. It can read and write MS Word / Excel / Powerpoint documents just as well as genuine Microsoft Office, but the included database tool can not write MS Access files. Make sure you grab the free PDF Import extension to open simple PDFs in an editable state. The free Visual Studio Expressproducts from Microsoft have an easy to use HTML editor if all you need to edit are HTML files.
PDF
I’ve always found the Foxit PDF Reader to be MUCH faster and less bloated than the Adobe PDF Reader. Should you have the need to create PDF files, use CutePDF Writer or check out other free PDF software. If you need to convert PDF to something more useful like MS Word, you can either use online resources such as PDFOnline.com and Koolwire, or download apps like NuancePDF (which is a reader that has a cloud-based converter built in to it). If your PDF is a scan or fax, PDF conversion software won’t work (because your PDF is just 1 big image per page) and you can use a OCR software such as FreeOCR to at least extract the text from the PDF.
File Compression
7-zip is not only the best archiver, but it’s also the inventor of the best archive format, 7z. 7z makes smaller files than anything out there, and the clean UI makes it trivial to learn and use. ZipGenius is the 2nd best of the freeware utils and can open nearly all compressed files. I ranked it below 7-zip due to it being a bit glitchy and likely to crash at time. Both can create industry-standard zip files as well as higher compression formats such as 7z.
File Encryption
TrueCrypt works in a way similar to Daemon-Tools from the CD Backup section above. It creates a file that is then mounts that file, making it become available as a drive letter in Windows. This file is encrypted with a password, preventing the drive from being mounted by anyone who doesn’t know the password.
File / Folder Syncronization
The free SyncToy from Microsoft is has a Great UI for setting up Sync events, then you simply add a scheduled task to call the .exe file with -R as a parameter and you have automatic synchronization of your files! Can sync to/from anything with a drive letter (including your USB pen drive, digital camera, etc.) and even UNC paths to other machines on your network (\\server\fileshare).
File / Folder Comparison
WinMerge is a great tool to visually see the difference between two files or folders. I’ve used this tool on several occasions to find difference between one version of a file and another. A must have for any programmer with a large collection of source code.
File Undeletion / Recovery
Recuva works wonders for recovering accidentally deleted files. It’s very simple to use and is made by the same people who make the popular system cleaning application, CCleaner.
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[Multimedia]
Audio Player
AIMP is my current favorite full-featured player and has built in stream recording. Foobar2000 is nice and minimal. Winamp is has a few extra features, but not enough to justify it’s bloat. Please, PLEASE don’t use iTunes as your main audio player.
Video Player
VLC*, KMplayer, and MPUI (a front end for MPlayer*) work well without requiring extra codec installation. Windows Media Player 11 and Media Player Classic HomeCinema are good choices if you already have the necessary codecs installed or for use with the powerful FFDshow / Haali Media Splitter / AC3Filtercombo.
Image Viewer
XNview can view / edit / convert all common types of image format and has several Addons available. ACDSee$$$ is the best of the commercial apps, but it’s features over XNview don’t justify it’s price tag.
Image Editor
Paint.NET is a great freeware editor supporting many advanced features such as layers while still having an easy to understand UI, and it can also load Photoshop (.psd) files with a plugin. GIMP* has more features, but at the cost of a drastically more complicated UI. Photoshop$$$ and Paint Shop Pro$$$ are the leaders in commercial image editing software, but are priced out of the reach of most users. DraftSight lets you edit industry-standard .DWG (autoCAD) files, if you need to view / edit CAD drawings.
Audio Editor
Audacity* does as much as most enthusiasts would ever need. Sound Forge$$$ is more advanced, but not enough more so than Audacity to justify the cost.
Video Editor
The best of the free video editors is AviDemux, with straightforward cutting / encoding. Virtual Dub* will edit most common media files other than MPEG2/DVD (It can read MPEG1, but not write it). TMpegEnc$$ (for MPEG2 Functionality) can cut / join MPEG1 & MPEG2 files as well as convert MPEG2 files to MPEG1 for opening in Virtual Dub.
Format conversion (Video or Audio)
Freeware SUPER and MediaCoder easily takes care of all video / audio conversion needs (including converting to Zune / iPod / PSP formats for portable media players) without having to install separate codecs. Simple audio conversion (drag a bunch of MP3s on to a box and convert them to MP4s) can be handled very easily by LameXP. For either of these apps, MediaInfo will help you determine everything you need to know about your source video to make correct decisions about bitrate / etc. for your converted file. If you’re just looking to download a youtube video to AVI or MP4, try the online service vixy.net.
DVD / Blu-Ray Movie Backup
DVD Shrink, using DVD43Free to decrypt (runs in your system tray) and any CD burning tool make a great freeware way for making back-ups of distribution DVDs that fit on DVD-R sized media. This combination offers nearly all of the features of Nero Recode 2$$ (Included in Nero Ultra Edition) and Clone DVD$$$ without any of the costs. Commercial AnyDVD$$$ is an alternative to DVD43Free, and generally updates more often. If using Dual Layer DVD-R media, just using AnyDVD or DVD43Free along with a CD burning tool will work, as the content from most commercial DVDs does not need to be transcoded (resized) to fit on a dual layer DVD-R. Blu-Ray backups seem to require AnyDVD due to their more complex protections. I recommend AnyDVD + RipBot264 for ripping blu-ray discs to AVCHD (which can be burned on to BR-R media nad played in normal blu-ray players).
Copyrighted Data CD Backup
Use BlindWrite$$$ to back up all of your critical CDs to an image, then mount that image with Daemon-Tools or Alcohol 52% while you store your original away safely. The image will then appear as a drive in Windows and can be used as if the original were in the drive. Unfortunately, I’m unaware of any free software capable of backing up copyrighted data CDs. Also, most CD burners are incapable of WRITING the copyrighted discs. If you need to backup to a CD, just burn the actual image file to it and mount it with Daemon-Tools from there.
Hard Drive File / Audio CD Backup
ImgBurn is an excellent cd burning program with a very minimal footpring and interface. I recommend it for all of your hard drive data and cd image (all formats) burning needs. CD Burner XP Pro is a good program, offering all of the features of the propular commercial Nero application, including the ability to burn ISO and Bin/Cue files to CD. CD Burner XP Pro also allows you to save audio tracks from a distribution CD to MP3 files on your hard drive. Also consider ExpressBurn.
Tutorial / Help / Demo Creation
Wink does everything that Adobe Captivate does, but for free. Basically, it records screen activity, then saves it to Flash SWF, PDF, HTML, or EXE for easy distribution. This is a must for any software developer looking to create a quick and easy demo / help system. If you need to record actual video from something on your screen into an AVI or Flash file, consider using Debut or CamStudio. The screen capture tool packaged with Microsoft Expression Encoder is also nice.
