Handy Little Freeware Programs (& mobile apps).

Discussion in 'The Lounge Bar' started by von Poop, Mar 14, 2008.

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  1. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Just wondering if anyone has any really good little free utilities they use? Stuff that's proved reliable, made certain PC (or Mac) jobs a lot easier and might come in handy for others.
    Obviously I include a caveat that if you're not comfortable with installing some of these useful little things then it's best to leave well alone.

    Here's 3 of my favorites:

    Windows Image resizer.
    I've no idea why this Microsoft program wasn't included with windows, it's great, and reduces resizing pictures to a simple right-click (not available for vista yet):
    Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP

    MWsnap.
    Really good little screen grabber, proves invaluable when trying to take captures of whatever your PC is currently displaying. Most importantly it's very easy to use and can capture just the bits you want rather than the whole screen with a simple selection box:
    MWSnap - Reviews and free MWSnap downloads at Download.com

    Spybot - Search and destroy.
    Excellent free adware/spyware hunter-killer & immuniser. One of the Internets most wholesome projects in my opinion and it really works, certainly far more effective than most commercial ones. I've used it for years now and it's been 100% reliable for me, and is updated with new definitions very regularly
    The home of Spybot-S&D!
    Edit: - IMHO, Spybot is not what it was, and now causes browser slowdown without much fiddling about to set up. I no longer use it.


    Anyone got any more that they think are indispensable, and can be downloaded as freeware from reputable sites?

    Cheers,
    Adam.

    Edit - 9 years on.
    MWsnap now replaced by built in windows snipping tool.
    Spypot - became laughable. Malwarebytes for the win.


    Still use one of the windows toys for stitching pics together.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2017
    von Poop, Mar 14, 2008
    #1
    zola1 likes this.
  2. deadb_tch

    deadb_tch the deadliest b#tch ever

    deadb_tch, Mar 14, 2008
    #2
  3. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Photoshop's great, I love it, but when I want to quickly resize an image without having to go through the palaver of opening it and loading the image I use the image resizer straight from the right-click menu.
     
    von Poop, Mar 14, 2008
    #3
  4. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    Slipdigit, Mar 14, 2008
    #4
    von Poop likes this.
  5. Gerard

    Gerard Seelow/Prora

    great sites guys!
     
    Gerard, Mar 14, 2008
    #5
  6. stevew

    stevew Senior Member

    avg, ad-aware.

    Although not strictly freeware, firefox, thunderbird and the open office suite.

    A few I can think off the top of my head
     
    stevew, Mar 14, 2008
    #6
  7. Ron Goldstein

    Ron Goldstein WW2 Veteran WW2 Veteran

    I could not operate without my GOOGLE desktop.

    The ability to find every and any file on my hard disk by the use of just one keyword is simply beyond compare and this includes ANY type of file including EXCEL & E-Mails

    Quite free
     
    Ron Goldstein, Mar 14, 2008
    #7
  8. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Favs are AVG anti-virus, SyncBak, Lupus File Renamer. Just about everything on here is excellent and free.
    The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
    The Extended Best-ever Freeware Utilities List
    Nice one Jeff (I thought you might have 'a few' up your sleeve), after a nightmare of defragging over the last few days I just tried out 'jkdefrag' from there running as a screensaver. Seems to do the trick and run at about 10 times the speed of the useless windows product... most importantly without me having to remember to run it.
    I shall have to work through this chap's lists.

    I see he thinks spybot's old hat these days, I should look into that too.


    Edit: Merging 2 posts
    I never quite got on with Google desktop as I found it a little intrusive, might have to give it another go.
    One essential Google thing for me is their toolbar though, the spellcheck and translator are well worth an extra menu bar on IE, which is something I usually avoid like the plague.
     
    von Poop, Mar 14, 2008
    #8
  9. Za Rodinu

    Za Rodinu Hot air manufacturer

    In the past I used to have a great little utility, that allowed me to list the contents of a folder, disk, whatever, and then exported the results to a spreadsheet. Do anyone of you know anything about this?

    I use to go to Tucows, this was called CD Catalog or something like it, but now I can't find anything like that over there.

    Cheers!
    Miguel
     
    Za Rodinu, Mar 14, 2008
    #9
  10. geoff501

    geoff501 Achtung Feind hört mit

    Although not strictly freeware, firefox, thunderbird and the open office suite.


    Just found a useful tweak for OpenOffice, I did not bother with the Memory settings but the Java runtime setting made a big difference:

    "Here's how to cut down OpenOffice.org's startup time:
    Start OpenOffice (it doesn't matter which application you load, Calc,
    Impress, or Writer will all work)
    Click Tools>Options
    Select Java menu and uncheck "Use a Java runtime environment"
    Select the Memory Tab and change the following options:
    Number of steps: 30
    Use for Open Office: 128
    Memory per Object: 20
    Number of Objects: 20
    Next time you start an OpenOffice.org application it should open much
    more quickly. But it will also eat up more memory. If you have an older
    computer with less than 1GB of RAM, you might want to just live with a
    slow load time. Or buy more memory."
     
    geoff501, Mar 31, 2008
    #10
  11. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    In the past I used to have a great little utility, that allowed me to list the contents of a folder, disk, whatever, and then exported the results to a spreadsheet. Do anyone of you know anything about this?

    I use to go to Tucows, this was called CD Catalog or something like it, but now I can't find anything like that over there.

    Cheers!
    Miguel

    Here are two, Miguel, that work pretty well and require no install, just unpack and start.

    The second one can write to Excel. The top one only exports to text doc, but the info can be imported easily to Excel if you know how to do that.

    JR Directory Printer - Free Directory / Folder Lister Tool

    Dirlister free download. This little program let you make a list of the files in one or more selected directory with ease.
    If you need to have the list of your MP3 files,...
     
    Slipdigit, Mar 31, 2008
    #11
  12. BakerCo563rd

    BakerCo563rd World's Okayest Poster

    Irfanview is a great little photo editing program. While it doesn't have all the bells and whistles of Photoshop, it's great for doing quick little edits or resizing images. I swear by this thing. IrfanView - Official Homepage - one of the most popular viewers worldwide

    Another great image editing program which is free AND nearly on par with Photoshop is The Gimp. I had it for a little while, but it was a little too complicated for my tastes. However, I'm sure there are many of you out there who will appreciate it (and be able to figure out how to use it!) a lot more than I did. GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
     
    BakerCo563rd, Mar 31, 2008
    #12
  13. uksubs

    uksubs Senior Member

    Spywareblaster great as it block spyware loading onto your pc :rolleyes:
     
    uksubs, Mar 31, 2008
    #13
  14. Slipdigit

    Slipdigit Old Hickory Recon

    Slipdigit, May 4, 2008
    #14
  15. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Mydefrag (formerly JKDefrag).
    MyDefrag v4.3.1
    Been using versions of this for years, and it beats the Windows defragger into a cocked hat.

    Revo Uninstaller (The Freeware one):
    Download Revo Uninstaller Freeware - Free and Full Download - Uninstall software, remove programs, solve uninstall problems
    Another utility that savages the feeble Windows options.
    Complete elimination of programs right down to the registry (great for those games with corrupted installations or save files, that won't reinstall), along with some excellent tools for tidying Junk files & stopping startup programs.

    Revo's pretty powerful, so maybe use with some caution if you're a bit uncertain about pooters - but I've always allowed it to delete whatever it says is junk or a leftover install file and haven't had a problem on several machines.

    Edit - JKDefrag - Hoohoo. Remember when we used to worry about fragged drives?
    Revo - still very powerful tool. Possibly too powerful. Use wisely.
     
    Last edited: Jul 8, 2017
    von Poop, Jan 22, 2011
    #15
  16. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    Cheers for the Revo link Adam. It found 66Mb of thumbs and temp files on mine (mostly from the kids). I'll let you know if I've lost anything important.:unsure:

    By the way, do you find that Spybot slows your start-up ? I just load it every now and then. I found it a real nuisance to have on all the time.
     
    Rich Payne, Jan 22, 2011
    #16
  17. von Poop

    von Poop Adaministrator Admin

    Only 66Mb? You're a tidy man then. Did one once on a friend's pooter and it found nearly half a gig :unsure:

    Gave up on spybot a while back mate.
    Some sort of browser conflict with their massive quarantine list now seems to turn everything to porridge doesn't it - they never appeared to sort it, so I binned it. Shame, as it was an excellent program.
     
    von Poop, Jan 22, 2011
    #17
  18. Rich Payne

    Rich Payne Rivet Counter Patron 1940 Obsessive

    Ah, glad to know that it's not just me struggling with Spybot. Last time when I deleted it, I completed their survey and had a personal e-mail back within a day about how I could possibly improve things. The trouble is, it was too computer-technical for me.

    It's a puzzle how I can pick up a technical manual for something metal and understand it straightaway but two sentences of computer instructions are enough to induce a sort of temporary B.S.E. in my thought processes.:rolleyes:
     
    Rich Payne, Jan 22, 2011
    #18
  19. nicks

    nicks Very Senior Member

    nicks, Jan 22, 2011
    #19
  20. CL1

    CL1 116th LAA and 92nd (Loyals) LAA,Royal Artillery

    I know everyone has a good anti virus programme on their PC however this free prog can be installed on an infected machine to assist (thats if it ever happens to you)
    Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool 2010


    Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool 2010 is a utility designed to remove all types of threats from computers. Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool 2010 uses the effective detection algorithms realized in Kaspersky Anti-Virus and AVZ.

    Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool 2010 does not provide resident protection for your computer. After disinfecting a computer, you are supposed to remove the tool and install a full version of antivirus software.

    Advantages:

    Simplified interface.
    Can be installed to an infected computer (Safe Mode supported).
    Composite scan and disinfection system: signature detection and heuristic analyzer.
    Gathering system information and interactive creation of scripts for disinfection.
    General functions:

    Automatic and manual removal of virus, Trojans and worms.
    Automatic and manual removal of Spyware and Adware modules.
    Automatic and manual removal of all types of rootkits.
    Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool 2010 is Freeware.
     
    CL1, Jan 22, 2011
    #20
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