Glenn's Essential Freeware List
This is a list of my favourite freeware. The programs I use regularly to
help me get things done. There's a bunch more I use occasionally but I consider
these programs essential. Yes, there's a few of my tools in here as well, I
wrote them because I couldn't find anything to do the required task. My
criteria for good software goes something like this: it must do the required
task quickly and reliably with minimal interaction; it's ok to have advanced
features so long as they don't interfere with the primary task; they must not
nag, expire, phone home or other stupid stuff; they must not do or install
anything other than what is advertised.
There's a lot of good virus checkers out there including a number of freeware ones but there's only a handful of good trojan and hijack detectors. I use Ad-Aware and Spybot together and so far they haven't let me down. That and sensible surfing.
An excellent digital audio editor. I use it regularly for digitising my LP collection. There's a stack of good features which go way beyond my requirements but the UI remains simple for my simple needs.
I use this as my primary tool for keeping the various web sites up to date which means I use it nearly every day. When I make a change to any files, I just run this app, choose the site in question and click the go button, the site is synchronised in seconds.
I put this on every computer I touch that doesn't already have some form of virus protection. It does all the things you'd expect from an anti-virus program and maintains an up-to-date virus database.
I like it because it's simple and cute. It gives me an unobtrusive calendar on my desktop with a few important upcoming dates. It's one of two applications in my startup folder.
I use this one at work as a no frills tool to monitor key machines. It's proved its worth many times by catching high cpu usage, low disk space, network connectivity and usage etc. Because it's small and nearly zero cpu it doesn't impact the box so it's fine to put in the startup folder and leave running 24/7.
I use this mainly at work when certain machines mysteriously run out of disk space and consequently stop working. It reduces a potentially lengthy task to a few seconds.
This browser is an absolutely essential part of safe surfing. Explorer is simply not safe, you shouldn't be using it. There's also a truckload of optional plug-ins that make surfing fun. Don't be afraid to change over, if you're comfortable with IE, you'll be comfortable with Firefox.
This is an oldie. It provides the standard dual explorer view for ftp sessions. Occasionally it tries to do an online update and throws an exception. I probably should start looking around again. Any suggestions?
A top of the line PDF reader. Don't put up with the bloat and comatose operation of that other reader. This is a completely free and fully functional PDF reader.
This is absolutely essential to my sanity. Without it I'd rather have no email at all. I run it all day, every day. It regularly polls my various email accounts, removes the spam and downloads the rest. From there I tell it what's good and bad and it continually gets better. I also use it for several friends who have become exasperated with the spam situation.
This is my current instant messenger of choice. It's small and unobtrusive. No ads, no bloat. Supports AIM, Gadu-Gadu, ICQ, IRC, Jabber, MSN, Yahoo and others.
This is an real gem. Handles all my text editing needs. It has syntax highlighting for dozens of languages/formats/whatever including html/css with tag completion. The little ftp plugin means I can update the web site in seconds all within a single program. After I save a file and upload it, each subsequent save automatically uploads it, magic!
I needed an audio player that went beyond the mickey mouse garbage that ships from redmond. After a lot of searching I found this little gem. Out of the box, it works like most other media players albeit with a cute graphic interface. But once you start exploring the options and the available plugins, you'll start to see the potential. Works well for format shifting.
There's a lot of good virus checkers out there including a number of freeware ones but there's only a handful of good trojan and hijack detectors. I use Ad-Aware and Spybot together and so far they haven't let me down. That and sensible surfing. Oh yeah, don't use Outlook Express under any circumstances and don't use Outlook if you can help it.
Did I mention that you shouldn't use Outlook? This is the program you should be using instead. When I finally moved over to this program, I kicked myself for waiting so long to do it. This is truly a class act. It handles all my email needs and it's smaller, faster and a whole lot more secure than Outlook. It took me no time to get it set up and working.
A (very) tiny bittorrent client. It handles all the bittorrent functions i require inside a 215KB executable, unbelievable!