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.
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)
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.
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.
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)