The Big List of Freeware Programs

Started by LGM, Mon 31/05/2004 02:02:43

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LGM

In the spirit of the Big List of Paint Programs topic in the Critic's Longue, I thought it was about time to make a Freeware Program list here in Gen-Gen.

This list is by no means complete. There are many more cool and free programs out there that I do not know about.

This is where you, the reader, come in handy.

We can make this a group effort and have anyone and everyone submit their free programs.Ã,  Anything goes... Just as long as it's not crap.

If it does the job it's supposed to, and does it well, post it here.
It must be truly free.. No trials or naggy shareware. And of course, no adware/spyware of any kind!


'Ere it goes:


GRAPHICS/VIDEO


The GIMP - Usually referred to as Photoshop's arch rival. It can do almost as much as Photoshop can. The interface is a bit daunting at first, but this program itself is very powerful.

Terragen - A neat landscape generator and renderer. Very realistic. It's even been used in movies!

Blender - A very powerful and very free 3D Modeling Program. Reccomended by our very own Shbaz.

IconArt - A neat little icon editor for all your icon editing needs.

Wings3D - A very easy and awesome 3D modeling-only program. Can easily be intertwined with Blender.

Capture Pad - A nifty screen capturing program.

VirtualDub - "VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP)"

ASFTools - "AsfTools is a free windows 98/ME/2000/XP program to process ASF,WMV and WMA files."

Paint.NET - A free program written with Microsoft's .NET SDK. It is constantly being worked on by a university class, and will most likely replace MS Paint in Longhorn.



MEDIA


Adobe Acrobat Reader - Enables you to view PDF files in your web browser, or on it's own.

CD Rider - A great CD Ripper with proper file-naming syntaxes, amongst other awesome features.

DivX Decoder - A crucial codec needed to watch any movie encoded in the DivX format.

Winamp - An awesome multimedia player with AWESOME features found nowhere else.

CDBurnerXP - A great XP-only CD Burning suite. A great alternative for Nero.. Almost.. This program is constantly being worked on, and new features are added with every release.

FreeRIP - Similar to CD Rider, but this has more features and is not in Beta form.

MediaMonkey - The perfect solution to all your MP3 sorting needs! It does everything you could ever need for your MP3 Library.

VLC Media Player - a very good media player, can play most of the video formats, and you dont need to download any separate codecs. Runs on the most operating systems.

K-Lite Codec Pack - Freeware media player with support for most audio and video formats. Uses a windows classic media player interface. Very simple and not bloated.

BurnAtOnce - Another awesome CD Burner program. This one is simplistic and is focused around burning bin/cue image files or ISOs. It can also burn data and audio discs. It's nice and easy and FREE! (It's based around all open-source utilities)

DeepBurner - Another freeware CD Burner suite. This one is the most professional, and there is a PRO copy that can be purchased, with many more features.



AUDIO PRODUCTION


Audacity - A powerful sound recording and editing program.

Anvil Studio - A "user-friendly" MIDI sequencer program thingy.

Skale Tracker - A sample-based music sequencer. Supports VST plugins, and the next version will support soundfonts (Many of which are also free).



DESKTOP PUBLISHING


CutePDF Writer - A PDF maker that "prints" out any document to the PDF file format from any program... anywhere.

Toniarts EasyCleaner - An essential program for keeping your computer clean and running smooth as a baby's buttocks.

ExtractNow - A program that extracts many different compressed file formats. I.E RAR, ACE, ZIP, TAR, BZ2

OpenOffice - The best (free) alternative to Microsoft office.

ClickTeam Install Creator - A neat program that lets you quickly and painlessly create an install program for software or compilations you've created.

ClickTeam Patch Maker - A nice supplement to the Install Creator. Let's you dish out updates/patches for your created and distributed software.

Inno Setup - A freeware install creator. An nice (adless) alternative to ClickTeam's Install Creator.

IZArc - A great extractor that supports any file format you can think of. Appearance is very similar to Winzip.

RoughDraft - A freeware word processor. Although suitable for general use, it has features specifically designed for writers of novels, short stories, articles, poetry, plays and screenplays.



INTERNET


Azureus - A neat Java-powered BitTorrent client.

Xchat - A simplistic IRC Client.

Mozilla / Mozilla Firefox - A very good browser that is web-standards complient unlike that of Microsoft's Internet Explorer. Has inbuilt pop-up stoppers, download manager, IRC client, etc...

HTML Kit - A nice freeware HTML editor which is great for beginners and longtime web designers...

Zone Alarm - A simple but powerful firewall. Monitors all programs that access the internet.

WS_FTP LE - Free for non-commercial use, this is another nifty FTP Program.

FileZilla - Another FTP client including more advanced features, and an FTP server

The Google Toolbar - This toolbar does it all. Block pop-ups, fills out forms, searches google.. It's great!

Messenger Plus! - A great add on in the spirit of DeadAIM for AOL Instant Messenger. Messenger Plus works with MSN Messenger. It removes ads, and basically helps you customize every aspect of MSN Messenger. 100's of plugins are available for download.



WEB DESIGN


nvu - A nice windows (It says it's for Linux but there's a windows download in the download section) WYSIWYG html editor.

Trellian Webpage Editor -Ã,  It has some nice features, even built in FTP support for uploading your files.

Selida 2 - This is a very professional looking HTML editor.. All the usual features, and tons more. It even has a true WYSIWYG editor aswell. This is as close to Frontpage, features wise, you can get!



SYSTEM UTILITIES


Ad Aware - Removes alot of Adware from your computer.

AntiVir Personal Edtiton - A free and effective Anti-Virus program.

RegScrubXP - Great for XP users. Cleans out all errors and unnecessaries in the Windows Registry. It makes Windows performance noticably faster.

CodeStuff Starter - The perfect alternative to "msconfig". Takes care of all your startup processes, and even running processes.

TuneXP - Some great tweaks for Windows XP that make your system run faster than ever.

Trend Micros Housecall- Not really a program but a very helpful anti-virus system using the latest updates from the Trend Micro website. The utility is web-based, and is free to use... and is good if you dont wanna wait to download a program, and the latest updates... only downside is that it doesn't protect your computer at all times like regular virus scanning software.

Spybot: Search & Destroy - Used in conjunction with AdAware, these two programs are all you really need for spyware removal.

AVG Anti-Virus - Free, kept up-to-date, works great.

HDCleaner - HDCleaner uses a highly intelligent engine to scan your hard disk & improve PC performance!.You needn't know about the system and file types. Only click your mouse,it will clean all the junk files quickly and safely.

RegCleaner - Another registry cleaner. Catches stuff that RegScrubXP misses

RegSeeker - The best registry cleaner I've come across. If you only want one, get this'n.



MISCELLANEOUS


VDMSound - A great program that will help XP users run almost any older game. Even Grim Fandango!

Name Generator 2 - A useful program when you just can't think of a name for your character.. Or just for plain fun.



This list was last updated on July 16th, 2004 at 6:04 PM GMT-6
You. Me. Denny's.

TerranRich

This is an awesome list, LGM, and well-formatted, too! ;)

This is an important list for all of us, and it's about damn time, too. :)
Status: Trying to come up with some ideas...

LordHart

#2
Trend Micros Housecall - http://housecall.trendmicro.com/
Virus Scanning Utility
Not really a program but a very helpful anti-virus system using the latest updates from the Trend Micro website. The utility is web-based, and is free to use... and is good if you dont wanna wait to download a program, and the latest updates... only downside is that it doesn't protect your computer at all times like regular virus scanning software.

Spybot: Search & Destroy - http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file_description/0,fid,22262,00.asp
Spyware Removal Utility
Used in conjunction with AdAware, these two programs are all you really need for spyware removal.

Mozilla / Mozilla Firefox - http://www.mozilla.org
Web Browser
A very good browser that is web-standards complient unlike that of Microsofts Internet Explorer. Has inbuilt pop-up stoppers, download manager, IRC client... etc...

HTML Kit - http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
HTML Editor
A great freeware HTML editor which is great for beginners and longtime web designers...

WinAce - http://www.winace.com/
Zip/RAR/Ace Unzipping Utility
An all purpose Unzipping utility that can open up Zip files, RAR files and Ace files... compression is better than that of WinZip as well.

I'll add more later...

Ben

Mind if I add some?

Ultimate Zip - Archive utility.. I think it might be shareware now, but you can still download a functional free version.

Smart FTP - Very nice FTP client.

Skale Tracker - Sample-based music sequencer. Supports VST plugins, and the next version will support soundfonts (Many of which are also free  ;) ).

Zone Alarm - A simple but powerful firewall. Monitors all programs that access the internet.

LGM

Thanks for all the replies! I've updated ;)

lat0r
You. Me. Denny's.

Moox

AGSforums.com AGS-a powerfull yet free adventure game proggie

MrColossal

"This must be a good time to live in, since Eric bothers to stay here at all"-CJ also: ACHTUNG FRANZ!

juncmodule

QuoteZoneAlarm isn't free, Ben.

Yes it is.

From the Zonelabs site:
QuoteZoneAlarm is free for individual and not-for-profit charitable entity use (excluding governmental entities and educational institutions).

http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/company/products/znalm/freeDownload.jsp?lid=zaskulist_download

later,
-junc

EDIT: Screw you Eric. :P

rtf

#8
Three cheers for LGM for making this list!

This will definatly be put to use by me.Ã,  Ã, :)

Add Anvil Studio.  That's what I use.  It is very user-friendly and all that
I fail at art.

MrColossal

http://www.nvu.com/ Is a nice windows [I know it says Linux but there's a windows download] WYSIWYG html editor that I've just downloaded. Haven't given it much of a go yet but it looks good and isn't bloated like my current Dreamweaver MX 2004 Alpha 2: Electric Boogaloo
"This must be a good time to live in, since Eric bothers to stay here at all"-CJ also: ACHTUNG FRANZ!

strazer

Clickteam Install Creator (Freeware - Displays Clickteam ad)
Clickteam Patch Maker (Freeware - Displays Clickteam ad)
Inno Setup (Freeware)

LGM

Thank you so much for all of your contributions! The list has been updated again.

Keep them coming! That nvu link is something new, Eric.. thanks a bunch!

Also, Eric, would you mind stickying this thread? Or is that not plausible?
You. Me. Denny's.

strazer

#12
According to the website FTP Explorer isn't free.

I recommend
WS_FTP LE (Free for non-commercial use) Very simple FTP client
or
FileZilla (Freeware) FTP client including more advanced features, including a FTP server

MrColossal

I must caution people on NVU... it seems to have a fiew bugs but I haven't really delved into Mr. Internet to see if they are being working...

So don't download it, think it's awesome and delete everything else you have.

E
"This must be a good time to live in, since Eric bothers to stay here at all"-CJ also: ACHTUNG FRANZ!

Barbarian

#14
http://cutka.szm.sk/ffdshow/about.html
A free Decoding filter for most DIVX movie-files, and without all the Spyware/Adware junk that DIVX.com forces on you.

http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_dwnl_free.php
AVG Anti-Virus software. Free, kept up-to-date, works great (it's what I use).

http://www.romanlab.com/apw/index.html
Ã,  A nice little and free utility for keeping track of all your passwords.
You only need remember one main password (rather than dozens) to access you list.

http://www.roboform.com/
Ã,  Ã, Nifty little tool that add onto IE, NetScape, Mozilla and FireFox browsers.. that can store and remember all of your many "Username", "Password" and "Forms" for sites you may frequest. Just need to enter in your one main password when launching, then it can easily and automatically fill in the required information for websites.

http://www.mailwasher.net/
Ã,  Ã, A free utility for filtering out Spam mail before it even get's to your computer.

http://www.panicware.com/product_psfree.html
Pop-Up Stopper Free Edition. Prevents most Pop-up ads from ever appearing from your browser when it's activated.

http://www.software602.com/download/home.html
Ã,  Ã, What they say...
"Alternative to MS Office compatible with Word/Excel files! The suite is composed of four full-featured applications: a word processor, spreadsheet, photo editor and digital photo organizer. FREE!"
Ã,  Ã, What I say... Yes, It works great. I use it.

http://www.trellian.com/webpage/
Free: Trellian Webpage Editor. It has some nice features, even built in FTP support for uploading your files.

Ã,  Ã, Well, there's a few goodies for now. I can post more if you'd like?Ã,  Ã, ;)
Enjoy.

--- Big Don, the Barbarian.
"Escape from Evergreen Forest! (Big Don's Adventure, 1)"
http://www.agsforums.com/yabb/index.php?topic=14181.0
Conan: "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of the women!"
Mongol General: "That is good."

Blade of Rage: www.BladeOfRage.com

Timosity

#15
" VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP)"

As it says it's not quite as powerful as Adobe Premiere but it kicks arse as a completely free video processing tool.
http://www.virtualdub.org/


"AsfTools is a free windows 98/ME/2000/XP program to process ASF,WMV and WMA files."
http://www.geocities.com/myasftools/


I guess most people know about this one
http://www.scummvm.org/


Dosbox - If you have XP and you want to use DOS
http://dosbox.sourceforge.net/


VDMSound - another program to get older games to work in XP - including GF
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vdmsound/

edit: actually I'm not sure if this is the same thing but here's another link
http://www.ece.mcgill.ca/~vromas/vdmsound/

There's a few more progs, I'll probably think of some more later

Great Idea LGM

strazer

Quoteactually I'm not sure if this is the same thing
It is. Better use the http://ntvdm.cjb.net/ url.

Good choices, Timosity. I think the programs should be in some way related to adventure gaming & creation, otherwise this list could go on forever.

LGM

Thanks once again for all your entries!

Don't feel insulted if I do not include your suggestions into the list.. I don't want this list to go on forever! I review all the links you give, and decide if it's something more people would like to use..

Great job, people!
You. Me. Denny's.

Ryukage

POV-Ray Raytracer
If you can handle creating scenes using a programming language instead of a wireframe modeler, this program provides the most realistic 3D renderings you'll ever see. Period.  This is because it uses real scientifically-correct mathematical physics modeling, instead of faking it like polygon renderers do.  There's a shareware frontend available that provides wireframe preview and editing, but using it tends to degrade the quality of the scene somewhat, since it's not as precise or versatile as the underlying scripting language.  Using the frontend also make it difficult or impossible to take advantage of the large collection of utilities and include files that users have created.  The native scripting language is no harder to learn than any of the scripting languages used by game engines, and it's better-documented than most of them.  Personally I find povray's script language easier to use than the GUI interfaces sported by most of the polygon modelers I've tried.
Ninja Master Ryukage
"Flipping out and kicking off heads since 1996"

kl4Uz

Bitdefender - A very good antivirus program. There's a free version available. Updates are also free (there's even an auto-update function included)

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