"Must have" - tools and programs

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Bart

Bart

Mister Mediocre
Jan 10, 2002
4,059
113
Germany
AntiVirus
Avira Antivir - including real time protection. >99% detection rate
AVG Antivirus - including real time protection
Rising Antivirus - including real time protection, Emailcheck, Office check, and much much more

AntiSpyware / AntiSpam
AD-Aware SE Personal - Finds Spyware on your computer
Spybot Search & Destroy - Finds Spyware on your computer and can immunize your system
Hijackthis - search and find any evil services running on your machine.
Spampal - free mail classification software. The latest betas use a transparent proxy to classify your incoming mail

Software Firewalls:
Kerio Software Firewall

Analysing / Systemtools
ProcessExplorer - replacement for taskmanager
PRIO - replacement/addon for taskmanager
TCPView - sees all active Connections and their status
AIDA32 - Useful for reporting entire system info to html (hardware, drivers, software etc)
CoreTemp - Shows the temperatur of cpu cores
CPU-Z - Shows many information about CPU, Mainboard and RAM
GPU-Z - Shows many information about the graphiccard
WinUpdatelist - Shows every Windowsupdate. Also lists the place and more information about any selected update
SiSoft Sandra - Informating, testing and benchmarking tool

Harddisks
HDTune - Benchmark your Harddisk and see SMART attributes
DiskCheckUp - monitor the SMART attributes of your harddisk
Partition Magic - split your harddisk into partitions
JDiskReport - Statistics about your folders and files

Tweaking / optimizing utilities
XP-Antispy - disables Windows spy and other annoying functions (like ballon tips, etc)
CCleaner - tidy up your registry
Regseeker - tidy up your registry
StartupCPL - Disable Startup programs and config registrykeys easier
CD-Bremse - Slowdown your CD/DVD spinning speed = makes your optical drives more silent
Autohotkey - create your own windows hotkeys and bind them

Browser
Mozilla Firefox
Opera - some say it's saver than Firefox
Toolbarcop - remove unwanted toolbands / toolicons and addons

Video / Audio / Picture / Media
VLC-Player -it is able to play almost every mediafile (almost all codecs are included).
Subtitle Workshop - freeware subtitle editing tool
ViPlay3 - Mediaplayer
SUPER - universal mediaplayer
DVD Flick - powerful DVD Authoring tool
VirtualDub - for video editing
SubEdit Player - Movieplayer and Subtitle editor
IrfanView - batch-convert, batch-resize or just simply view all kind of images
Paint.NET - easy and comfortable photo-editor (even possible to add plugins)
Orbit Downloader - grab all sorts of streaming videos from the internet
ConvertXtoDVD - convert your movie files to a compatible DVD playable on any home DVD player
CBMC Media Center - free Media Center for Win/Mac/Linux


Burning / Imaging / Mounting
Deamon-Tools - virtual drives. You can mount images (*.img, *.iso, etc) to driveletters
burrrn - small burn program
ImgBurn - easily burn images on media or create images out of media.

Voice communication
Teamspeak Overlay - Addon for teamspeak with it you can see who's speaking

Misc / other programs
7zip - open source file archiver. It can handle RARs, ZIPs and more
Foxit Reader - can show PDF-documents. Faster than any other PDF-viewer with the function to convert text.
cutepdf - free pdf converter. Save your documents into PDF
LuckiDIPS - Save the position of your icons on your desktops
UltraVNC - remote desktop
WinSnap - make and edit screenshots and configure the way how they are made
Password utilities - Recover lost/forgotten passwords
Ophcrack - Windows password cracker
DAMN-NFO-Viewer - let you view NFO files properly
UnFREEze - create own animated GIF-files
Metapad - replacement for MS notepad
Notepad++ - replacement for MS notepad
Notebook Hardware Control - control the hardware and system power management, increasy battery lifetime
WinSCP. Data transfer (FTP; SFTP, SCP, SSH and even a text editor)
 
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http://cdbremse.dyndns.org/CDBremse146.exe gives you the posibilety to let your cd's run less fast (very good if you use it at night to prevent noise)

http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php?mode=Download&id=81 Virtual cd drive.

http://dl.hageltech.com/DUMeter-Install.exe (shareware) let's you see how much you upload and download.

http://mbm.livewiredev.com/download.html how hot is your pc?

http://www.softpedia.com/progDownload/Partition-Magic-Download-2118.html can split your harddrive in more drives.

http://www.sisoftware.co.uk/index.html?dir=&location=downandbuy&langx=en&a= for benchmarks and so on.
 
Don't need anti-virus, anti-spyware or firewall... soooo...

vim: code/text editor
k3b: cd burner
xripper: cd ripper
openoffice: what it says on the tin
firefox: ditto
mrxvt: tabbed terminal (dunno if you can count that but i use it every day)
mutt: email
slrn: news reader
gaim: chat prog
bitchx: irc
the gimp: image proggy
3ddesk+brightside: makes 3d desktop switching :cool:
wine: for playing windows games in linux
xine: multimedia/dvd player
xmms: mp3/ogg etc player

and when i do need to use windows its because of:

wotgreal: unreal script editor/compiler/ide


sorry about lack of links but most of these are installed for free with linux anyway
 
Imgburn is a must (updated DvDdycrpter)

http://www.imgburn.com/

Foxit pdf reader (small install about 2mb unlike that adobe bloatware)

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Real Alternative
You do need a player that is capable of playing RealMedia. The included Media Player Classic supports it and works very well. Supported: RealAudio (.ra .rpm), RealMedia (.rm .ram .rmvb .rpx .smi .smil), RealText (.rt), ReadPix (.rp), RealMedia embedded in webpages. .smi and .smil files sometimes only play the first part of a clip. This is a limitation of the current Media Player Classic. The RealMedia Browser plugin supports Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape and Mozilla.

Some advantages compared to RealPlayer :

- Quick and easy install
- It's easy to make an unattended installation
- Proper uninstallation
- No background processes
- Use a player of your own choice
- Low on resources
- No advertising, no registration forms, nothing annoying


http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm

QuickTime Alternative

As a bonus, Internet Explorer will play all QuickTime movies that are embedded in a webpage. You do need a media player that is capable of playing QuickTime files. The included Media Player Classic supports it and works very well. The QuickTime Browser plugin supports Internet Explorer, Opera, Netscape and Mozilla. The QuickTime plugins include iPIX and QuickTimeVR.

Some advantages compared to QuickTime player :

- Quick and easy install
- It's easy to make an unattended installation
- No background processes
- Use a player of your own choice
- Low on resources
- Smaller size


http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alternative.htm

xp-AntiSpy

The xp-AntiSpy is a little utility that lets you disable some built-in update and authentication 'features' in WindowsXP.
For example, there's a service running in the background which is called 'Automatic Updates'. I don't know what this service transfers from my machine to other machines on the internet, especially the MS ones. So I play it safe and disable such functions. If you like, you can even disable these functions manually, by going through the System and checking or unchecking some checkboxes. This will take you approximately half an hour. But why wast time when a little neat utility can do the same in 1 minute? This utility was successfully tested by lots of users, and was found to disable all the known 'Suspicious' Functions in WindowsXP. It's customiseable, but comes up with the Default settings, which are recommended

http://www.xp-antispy.org/
 
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SysInfo:-
http://www.snapfiles.com/reviews/AIDA32/aida32.html - Useful for reporting entire system info to html (hardware, drivers, software etc).

Remote desktop:-
http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/ - Supports MS & Domain logins

IE Hell:-
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/toolbarcop.html - Remove unwanted addons / toolbars from IE which can't be removed using conventional methods.

AntiSpam:-
http://www.spampal.org/ - Fantastic free mail classification software. The latest betas use a transparent proxy to classify your incoming mail, so no need to bounce the connection through it manually (which causes problems with some mail providers).

SysInternals:- I can recommend every single tool on this site; absolutely fantastic, here's some of the more used ones...
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PsTools.html - Some very useful command line process tools.
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/BgInfo.html - Display system info as a part of your backdrop
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Autoruns.html - Display & amend every single component started with Windows
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/ProcessExplorer.html - Awesome replacement to MS Task Manager
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/RootkitRevealer.html - The original RKR

NirSoft:- Again some fantastic freeware tools...
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/index.html#password_utils - Recover lost/forgotten passwords from mutliple applications.
http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/wul.html - View currently installed Windows Updates, components and info links.
 
bartio said:
Mozilla Firefox = browser ;)
Click to expand...
This post will prolly be labeled as a trolling, I'll atleast try to be an educted troll or so.. so here goes anyway..

When it comes to alternatives to IE, most people instantly shout (and prolly only know) Firefox.
While the idea of alternatives to IE are nice, the alternative should be a decent product.
Sadly Firefox isnt, see here: 611 Defects, 71 Vulnerabilities Found In Firefox
Besides from the above mentioned link with a shitload of problems, imo after testing Firefox myself it's lacking features aswell. Surely this can be boosted by plugins and what-not, but that's resulting in probably more defects and vulnerabilities. Not to mention the increase in the already big memory-usage.

For the people who are interested in an alternative to IE and/or Firefox, give Opera a decent and fair chance.
 
When you change your resolution Windows reorganize the desktop icons. If you've many Icons that can be annoying.
That's why LuckyDips is such a handy program.
It saves all iconpositions on your desktop.

(just found the german version)
 
In Windows 9x/NT4/2000/ME/XP/2003 you can lock down the position of your Desktop icons using a couple of files from the MS Windows NT 4.0 Resource Kit (RK) [5 KB, free]

Place Layout.dll in %windir%\System (Win95/98/ME) or %windir%\System32 (WinNT/2000/XP/2003) and then double-click on Layout.reg.

From now on, whenever you right-click on the "Recycle Bin" or "My Computer" icons, you can see a new option: "Save [or Restore] Desktop Icon Layout".

http://www.pcnineoneone.com/tweaks/layout.zip
 
Some nice free products here

http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?lang=1



ViPlay3


http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?cat=vp3&lang=1

ViPlay3 is the new version of ViPlay. Up to now it has been closed source, but we have decided to release it's source code so as to achieve the greatness that only an Open Source Community can give to it!

Project Page...


Features:
Support for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP
Enhanced Subtitles engine supporting 61 formats
Freeware!
Current supported subtitles:
Advanced SubStation Alpha (*.ass)
AQTitle (*.aqt)
Captions 32 (*.txt)
Captions DAT (*.dat)
Captions DAT Text (*.dat)
Captions Inc. (*.txt)
Cheetah (*.asc)
CPC-600 (*.txt)
DKS Subtitle Format (*.dks)
DVD Junior (*.txt)
DVD Subtitle System (*.txt)
DVDSubtitle (*.sub)
FAB Subtitler (*.txt)
IAuthor Script (*.txt)
Inscriber CG (*.txt)
JACOSub 2.7+ (*.jss; *.js)
Karaoke Lyrics LRC (*.lrc)
Karaoke Lyrics VKT (*.vkt)
KoalaPlayer (*.txt) (equal to one of the variations of TMPlayer)
MAC DVD Studio Pro (*.txt)
MacSUB (*.scr)
MicroDVD (*.sub)
MPlayer (*.mpl)
MPlayer2 (*.mpl)
MPSub (*.sub)
OVR Script (*.ovr)
Panimator (*.pan)
Philips SVCD Designer (*.sub)
Phoenix Japanimation Society (*.pjs)
Pinnacle Impression (*.txt)
PowerDivX (*.psb)
PowerPixel (*.txt)
QuickTime Text (*.txt)
RealTime (*.rt)
SAMI Captioning (*.smi)
Sasami Script (*.s2k)
SBT (*.sbt)
Scantitle (*.890)
Sofni (*.sub)
Softitler RTF (*.rtf)
SonicDVD Creator (*.sub)
Sonic Scenarist (*.sst)
Spruce DVDMaestro (*.son)
Spruce Subtitle File (*.stl)
Stream SubText Player (*.sst)
Stream SubText Script (*.ssts)
SubCreator 1.x (*.txt)
SubRip (*.srt)
SubSonic (*.sub)
SubStation Alpha (*.ssa)
SubViewer 1.0 (*.sub)
SubViewer 2.0 (*.sub)
TMPlayer (*.txt) (five different variations)
Turbo Titler (*.txt)
Ulead DVD Workshop 2.0 (*.txt)
ViPlay Subtitle File (*.vsf)
ZeroG (*.zeg)

Subtitle Workshop

http://www.urusoft.net/products.php?cat=sw&lang=1

Subtitle Workshop is the most complete, efficient and convenient freeware subtitle editing tool. It supports all the subtitle formats you need and has all the features you would want from a subtitle editing program. Subtitle Workshop makes subtitle creating/editing/converting tasks almost a pleasure, the amicable and intuitive interface mixes easy to access menus & must have features with advanced functions and a remarkable speed and stability, drastically reducing subtitle editing time. It includes spell check function and an advanced video preview feature which will ease the task even more. The best choice for the beginner, expert or the fansubber. Have a try, and you'll forget the rest!
 
Paint.NET is free image editing and photo manipulation software designed to be used on computers that run Windows. It supports layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
It started development as an undergraduate college senior design project mentored by Microsoft, and is currently being maintained by some of the alumni that originally worked on it. Originally intended as a free replacement for the MS Paint software that comes with Windows, it has grown into a powerful yet simple tool for photo and image editing.
The programming language used to create Paint.NET is C#, with a small amount of C++ for installation and shell-integration related functionality.



http://getpaint.net/index2.html

pdn30_camaro.jpg


Plugins here

http://paintdotnet.12.forumer.com/viewforum.php?f=16
 
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