Great Free Software
Posted: June 30th, 2008, 8:45 am
I wanted to start this thread as a way of keeping up-to-date on great FREE software that everyone should take a look at. We use all of this software here at Basilisk Games. Please note while these are all free, many of these authors rely on donations. Also note that these are mostly cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh & Linux) unless noted otherwise. Even more great software links are in the posts following this one, so be sure to take a look at the other recommendations. (thanks Saxon1974 for the original post that led to this post.)
CODES:
W - Windows compatible
M - Macintosh compatible
L - Linux compatible
64 - 64-bit version available
[UPDATED 02/11/2010]
Office Software
OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/ [ W / M / L ]
Nearly everyone knows of this, but not everyone uses it which is a shame. Awesome, full featured MS Office compatible suite of applications.
Internet [ W / M / L ]
Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/ - Perhaps the best internet browser ever.
Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome/ - This browser is quickly gaining in popularity. Still in beta, but it is very nice.
FileZilla: http://filezilla-project.org/ - FileZilla is an outstanding FTP client.
Email [ W / M / L ]
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Lightning: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/
Sunbird: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/
Thunderbird is a great cross-platform email client. Lighting is the calender plug-in for it. If you need a stand-alone calender, Mozilla Sunbird is fantastic.
System Utilities [ W ]
MyDefrag Disk Defrager: http://www.mydefrag.com/ - Formally called JkDefrag, still the best defragger.
Auslogics Disk Defrager: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag
CCleaner (Registry cleaner): http://www.ccleaner.com/
Disk Duplication: [ W ]
CDBurnerXP: http://cdburnerxp.se/ - Currently my favorite CD/DVD creator for Windows. Better than any commercial software out there.
ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ - After burning 3 coasters in-a-row with NERO, I found this free image burning software- it worked perfectly the very first time. It will burn pretty much any CD/DVD disc image you come across.
File Compression
7-Zip: http://www.7-zip.org/ [ W / 64 ]
PeaZip: http://peazip.sourceforge.net/ [ W / L / 64 ]
Graphics [ W / M / L ]
GIMP: http://gimp.org/ - Great photo editing program.
Blender: http://www.blender.org/ [ 64 ] - Outstanding 3D renderer.
XnView: http://www.xnview.com/ - Great image viewer/browser.
Audio [ W / M / L ]
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - Audacity is a competent little audio sample editor, and getting more powerful all the time. Be sure to check out all the plug-ins for it.
Multimedia
Handbrake: http://handbrake.fr/ [ W / M / L ] - Video transcoder for converting video sources.
Combined Community Codec Pack: http://www.cccp-project.net/ [ W ] - This is the ultimate collection of audio and video codecs for playing back various media formats.
Operating System
Ubuntu: http://ubuntu.com [ 64 ]
Tired of Microsoft's shenanigans? Can't afford to be part of the Mac crowd? Stick it to them by going with Linux! Ubuntu is the easiest version of Linux I have ever used, although Linux purests might suggest a different distro. This is the perfect OS if you just need an internet/email/movie watching computer, but it can also play a good number of games. Most of the software listed above works fine on Ubuntu as well!
CODES:
W - Windows compatible
M - Macintosh compatible
L - Linux compatible
64 - 64-bit version available
[UPDATED 02/11/2010]
Office Software
OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/ [ W / M / L ]
Nearly everyone knows of this, but not everyone uses it which is a shame. Awesome, full featured MS Office compatible suite of applications.
Internet [ W / M / L ]
Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/ - Perhaps the best internet browser ever.
Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome/ - This browser is quickly gaining in popularity. Still in beta, but it is very nice.
FileZilla: http://filezilla-project.org/ - FileZilla is an outstanding FTP client.
Email [ W / M / L ]
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Lightning: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/
Sunbird: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/
Thunderbird is a great cross-platform email client. Lighting is the calender plug-in for it. If you need a stand-alone calender, Mozilla Sunbird is fantastic.
System Utilities [ W ]
MyDefrag Disk Defrager: http://www.mydefrag.com/ - Formally called JkDefrag, still the best defragger.
Auslogics Disk Defrager: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag
CCleaner (Registry cleaner): http://www.ccleaner.com/
Disk Duplication: [ W ]
CDBurnerXP: http://cdburnerxp.se/ - Currently my favorite CD/DVD creator for Windows. Better than any commercial software out there.
ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ - After burning 3 coasters in-a-row with NERO, I found this free image burning software- it worked perfectly the very first time. It will burn pretty much any CD/DVD disc image you come across.
File Compression
7-Zip: http://www.7-zip.org/ [ W / 64 ]
PeaZip: http://peazip.sourceforge.net/ [ W / L / 64 ]
Graphics [ W / M / L ]
GIMP: http://gimp.org/ - Great photo editing program.
Blender: http://www.blender.org/ [ 64 ] - Outstanding 3D renderer.
XnView: http://www.xnview.com/ - Great image viewer/browser.
Audio [ W / M / L ]
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - Audacity is a competent little audio sample editor, and getting more powerful all the time. Be sure to check out all the plug-ins for it.
Multimedia
Handbrake: http://handbrake.fr/ [ W / M / L ] - Video transcoder for converting video sources.
Combined Community Codec Pack: http://www.cccp-project.net/ [ W ] - This is the ultimate collection of audio and video codecs for playing back various media formats.
Operating System
Ubuntu: http://ubuntu.com [ 64 ]
Tired of Microsoft's shenanigans? Can't afford to be part of the Mac crowd? Stick it to them by going with Linux! Ubuntu is the easiest version of Linux I have ever used, although Linux purests might suggest a different distro. This is the perfect OS if you just need an internet/email/movie watching computer, but it can also play a good number of games. Most of the software listed above works fine on Ubuntu as well!
)