FREEWARES

If you search for inexpensive software, here is my recommended list (I use these tools very frequently !).
Also, if know a cool freeware that is not in this list (for example, a good disk cataloger or a good download manager), please mail me !

First, some sites to get free or cheap software:
http://www.nonags.com/nonags
http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld/links.php
http://www.webattack.com/freeware/
http://www.framasoft.net/rubrique1.html (en français)

24th December 2003: Updated the versions.
26th October 2003: Updated the versions.
28th September 2003: The list is now reordered into decreasing interest (that is: the more used tools are listed first).

http://www.free-av.com/
    Free AV
    The best free antivirus ! With daily Internet updates, etc...

http://www.spampal.org
    SpamPal 1.53
    Highly recommended: without this tool, I would have to daily remove tons of spams out of my Outlook Express mailbox !
    I use HTMLModify, RegExFilter and URLBody as plugins (Bayesian filtering doesn't work).

http://adshield.org
    Adshield 1.2.0.15
    With the Google toolbar, this is the best IE addon ! It allows ads filtering within a mouse-click !
    The new version being not anymore freeware, you can still get the freeware version here, along with 2 block lists: mine (copy it in the installed directory) and a huge one.

http://www.irfanview.com
    Irfanview 3.85
    The best image viewer/converter, etc... ! Check also XnView for a similar list of image formats.
    I use this tool to visualize pictures, convert between formats and photocopy documents !

http://spybot.eon.net.au/index.php
    SpyBot Search&Destroy 1.2
    The best privacy software ! Install Spyware Blaster with this marvelous program.

http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
    Kerio Firewall 4.0.10
    I use this one instead of Sygate or ZoneAlarm.

http://classic.winamp.com
    Winamp 5.01
    WimAmp is my preferred MP3 player. Use the MP3Pro plugin !

http://www.scintilla.org
    Wscite 1.58
    Scite is the best multi-languages editor (it supports around 50 languages in 300Kb !).
    Very useful for editing small sources.

http://www.httrack.com
    HtTrack 3.30
    HtTrack is the best offline browser (it copies websites on your harddisk).

http://www.quickzip.org/
    QuickZip 3.06.1
    QuickZip is the best free clone of Winzip !

http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm
    RegSeeker 1.35
    RegSeeker, the best freeware registry cleaner (now that JV16 is not anymore freeware).

http://www.cdex.n3.net
    CdEx 1.51
    CdEx, the best MP3 ripper !

http://keir.net/neutron.html
    Neutron 1.03
    Neutron is an atomic clock synchronizer in 8 Kb !

http://www.jfitz.com/software/RAMpage/index.htm
    RamPage 1.6
    A tiny memory monitor, which display the amount of available RAM in realtime.

http://www.yourwaresolutions.com/
    FreeRamXP Pro 1.40
    A good memory manager (recommend by Jaroslaw Wroblewski).

http://www.muskcodec.com/
    Musk Codec Pack v 4.0.2
    The best codec pack !

http://www.trillian.cc
    Trillian Basic 0.74F
    The best Messenging software !

http://aignes.com/products.htm
    AmDeadLink 1.42
    Am-DeadLink checks all your bookmarked URLs, allowing you to clean your favorites easily.

http://www.ticon.net/~dpoch/enigmatic
    CacheSentry 1.59
    CacheSentry cleans IE cache safely and fixes some IE cache bugs ! At its first run, it removed 400Mb of files on my computer !

http://www.sysinternals.com
    Homepage of several useful tools: I recommend PageDefrag 2.21, which is small and very useful !

http://www.povray.org
    PovRay 3.5
    PovRay is an excellent raytracer !

http://www.easyphp.org
    EasyPHP 1.7
    An automatic installer for PHP, MySQL and Apache on Windows systems

http://www.codeproject.com/tools/faviconizer.asp
    A small tool to load all icons for Internet Explorer (replaces FavOrg which is not accessible anymore)

http://chemware.co.nz
    Gif Optimizer 2.3
    Trout's GIF optimizer.

http://web125.server50.rhs-it.de/index.php?page=io
    Icon Optimizer 0.9.3.16
    Icon optimizer.

http://www.mozilla.org/products/firebird/
    Firebird 0.7
    Firebird, simply the best browser !

http://www.xpantispy.org/
    XPAntispy 3.72
    Excellent small tool to customize your Windows 2K/XP.

http://lycos26486.l97.lycos.com.cn/default.htm
    Net Transport 1.60c.208
    Excellent alternative to Getright.

http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
    FileZilla FTP 2.2.3
    Very good FTP client.

 

UNTESTED FREEWARES

http://www.pmail.com/
    Pegasus mail.

http://fox.foxmail.com.cn/english.htm
    FoxMail (mail program)

http://www.clonespy.de/english/
    CloneSpy

http://www.bigbangenterprises.de/en/doublekiller/
    DoubleKiller

http://www.fxsearch.com/ldw_eng
    LookDisk

http://www.lyrasoftware.com/disclib/download.html
    DiscLib (disk cataloging program)

Other free antiviruses:
http://www.avast.com/i_idt_153.html
http://www.grisoft.com/html/us_downl.htm

http://boozet.xepher.net/viscd/index.htm
    Visual CD (disk cataloging)


GAMES

http://www.scummvm.org/
    What a pleasure to play Monkey Island 2 under Windows !

http://home.t-online.de/home/kociemba/cube.htm
    An impressive Rubik's cube solver.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~hjetten/dameng.html
    A very strong draughts program.

http://www.tim-mann.org/chess.html
    Very good chess interface. Use Crafty, Ruffian or Yace as free chess engines (also grab the Nalimov endgame tables).

http://www.nada.kth.se/~gunnar/zebra.html
    Very strong Othello program.


SHAREWARES

http://www.cmdiskcleaner.com
    A handy disk cleanup tool (no more freeware)

http://www.pcmag.com
    Homepage for several wonderful utilities: Dupeless and FavOrg !
Dupeless finds duplicate files, that you can remove. FavOrg caches the icons of your favorites bookmarks.

http://www.jv16.org
    RegCleaner, a very good registry cleaner (not anymore freeware).

http://www.outertech.com
    Cacheman 5.50
    Cacheman improves the performance of your PC, by tuning your internal cache files.

http://www.copernic.com
    Copernic 6.1
    Copernic allows to run a search on several searchsites. Very handy !

http://www.divx.com
    DivX 5.1.1
    DivX, the new media format for playing films.

http://www.cs.wisc.edu/~ghost/gsview/
    GsView 4.5 & GhostScript 8.11
    GhostView, the best PDF/PS file viewer !

http://www.opera.com
    Opera 7.20
    My third browser (when Firebird is too slow).

http://www.wholetomato.com
    Visual Assist 7.1.0.1106
    VisualAssist is the best editor addon for Microsoft Visual C.

http://www.ghisler.com
    Total Commander 6.01
    Windows Commander (oups, Total Commander now !) is the best Norton Commander Clone for Windows.
    Check also this site for ALL the plugins: http://totalcmd.nm.ru/index_en.html

http://www.getright.com
    Excellent download accelerator.

RELATED LINKS

http://www.nonags.com/nonags/index.html
    My preferred site for freewares (sorted by category). I like the scoring system.

http://www.webattack.com/freeware/
    A bigger list of freewares (sorted by category)

http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld/links.php
    Huge list of freewares (sorted by category and languages)

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