• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

Your Fab Five Freeware?

kleinkinstein

kleinkinstein

Senior member
What are your favs? Your five most coveted freeware and/or open source Windoze apps?

...I'll start, and aside from all the fantastic apps from Piriform...

1st Fav 5.....
CintaNotes 1.8.2
Q-Dir 5.37
SyncBack 3.2.26.0
VLC 2.03
Xmedia Recode 3.1.2.8

2nd Fav 5.....
7-Zip 9.20
Greenshot 1.0.2.2011
NitroPDF 2.5.0.41
Foobar 1.1.15
TeraCopy 2.27

Bonus Fav 5.....
LibreOffice 3.6.3
The Gimp 2.8.2
Geek Uninstaller 1.0.4.7
DVD Shrink 3.2.0.15
KeyPass 2.20
 
Malwarebytes Antimalware
Super AntiSpyware
CCleaner
Winrar
Firefox

Whole bunch more but it seems like those are the ones I use most often, mostly on other peoples computers when I fix 'em.
 
CCleaner
Firefox
Malwarebytes
Adobe DNG Converter
VLC Media Player

Honorable Mention
Filezilla FTP Client
Clonezilla
Gparted
 
Had not heard of CintaNotes or Greenshots - nice ones, will use them a bit, I think. Thanks.

My list must be familiar to a lot of people :

Total Commander (power file-explorer like none other)
gVim (ultimate text editor for those who dislike using the mouse, though I use the 'graphical' version)
Notepad++ for those that find gVim too geeky
Macrium Reflect disk image and backup software
Belarc Advisor : PC Audit software - you should always run this and keep a printout copy with you to review
Slick Run : a free floating command line for Windows. You could live without it, but you'd probably never know what you are missing. (It's 'geeks only', but may never bother others using the machine)

I'm not listing some that almost everybody must have on their machines : Firefox, Picasa, CutePDF (or NitroPDF), VLC, etc.
 
I used to like Teracopy but I ended up with some random network file copy issues that were resolved when I uninstalled it.

Chrome
7zip/WinRAR
VLC
Putty
 
I think the more interesting question would be "favorite payware?" What's valuable enough to buy because there isn't a free replacement.
 
Can't believe no one has mentioned

Handbrake - Better than paid versions for what it does

Also:

Avast
The KMPlayer
ImgBurn
Mozilla Firefox
 
lxskllr said:
I think the more interesting question would be "favorite payware?" What's valuable enough to buy because there isn't a free replacement.
Click to expand...
Nice thought, but if there's no free replacement, would make for a captive customer. Frankly, in today's world I can't think of anything like that (ie, there's always a free alternative, even if crappy).

Probably you meant - what's good enough to buy even though freeware alternatives are available?, but we'd need a different thread for that.

Many of the above freeware manage functionality that I'd not pay for - like a text editor or a file explorer. OTOH, stuff like anti-virus or disk-imaging, I'd put down some money if the free stuff wasn't there. Media players and internet browsers fall somewhere in between - might end up paying, but grudgingly.
 
radhak said:
Nice thought, but if there's no free replacement, would make for a captive customer. Frankly, in today's world I can't think of anything like that (ie, there's always a free alternative, even if crappy).

Probably you meant - what's good enough to buy even though freeware alternatives are available?, but we'd need a different thread for that.

Many of the above freeware manage functionality that I'd not pay for - like a text editor or a file explorer. OTOH, stuff like anti-virus or disk-imaging, I'd put down some money if the free stuff wasn't there. Media players and internet browsers fall somewhere in between - might end up paying, but grudgingly.
Click to expand...

That's all kind of the point. All the usual suspects are being listed, and are expected from general users. How do you pick a top 5? Some aren't much fun, but are necessary for a properly running system.

I didn't pay for a single thing on Windows aside from games. I suspect many people are the same. That's why "What do you pay for?"(not pirate) is the more interesting question. That would suggest software that's so much better than the competition that people would be willing to put out money for it.
 
lxskllr said:
That's all kind of the point. All the usual suspects are being listed, and are expected from general users. How do you pick a top 5? Some aren't much fun, but are necessary for a properly running system.

I didn't pay for a single thing on Windows aside from games. I suspect many people are the same. That's why "What do you pay for?"(not pirate) is the more interesting question. That would suggest software that's so much better than the competition that people would be willing to put out money for it.
Click to expand...

I paid for Revo Uninstaller Pro. No more digging through registry files after uninstalling.
 
AVG Free 2013 (low resource + effective)
Google Chrome (fastest browser by far)
VLC Player (low resource + silky smooth playback on slower systems)
Smart Defrag 2 (awesome program with scheduling, background defrag + page file defrag..features usually only available on paid programs)
Microsoft Skydrive (7GB free cloud storage to back up important stuff)
 
I can't make a top 5... Here's my list of freeware

Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Thunderbird
ZoneAlarm AV+Firewall
OpenOffice
CCleaner
MSI Afterburner
uTorrent
Defraggler
Foxit Reader
GIMP
ImgBurn
Imgur Uploader
Notepad++
Steam
VLC player
Audacity
Paint.NET
7-Zip
CPUID CPU-Z
CPUID HWMonitor
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top