What free software do you consider essential?

Question

Please share - what software do you use on a daily basis? Does it make your life easier, or provide some recreation after some work? Is it a creative program, or a game?

Here's a list of some essential software I think everybody should have:

1. Fraps - simply amazing tool for all games, the free version of this shows the FPS of any game in the corner, telling you the performance of your GPU. The paid version allows for full game capture (although the files are large!)
2. GimpShop - the best free Photoshop alternative, this version of Gimp includes a very Photoshop-like interface. Coming out of your Photoshop trial and don't want to pay for the full program? Jump right into GimpShop feeling just as comfortable as you were!
3. MSI Afterburner - provided you have a discrete graphics card, this enables you to overclock your GPU, manually change fan speeds, view the temperature of it, and more - all for free!
4. LogMeIn - when paired with an iOS-enabled device, LogMeIn enables you to remotely use your computer from anywhere in the world, provided it's on and not in sleep mode.
5. Steam - the only real place to purchase and download any game in the entire world! Well, not really. But it's close! It's free, and from there you can download some awesome free-to-play titles and buy basically every other big title out there.
6. Google Chrome - simply the fastest browser there is for slow and speedy PC's alike. You may prefer other browsers, but you can't argue with this browser's speed and simplicity.
7. Razer Game Booster - downloaded directly from Razer's site, this software lets you squeeze out a few extra FPS in your favorite games if your computer isn't the best.

Now share your own favorites! I hope you can find a use for these programs in your life - and they're all free!

Answer 1

Firefox + NoScript + AdBlock Plus + All-In-One Gestures

Have never caught a virus from browsing ever since using this combo. Not a fan of ads, but I permit them where reasonable. I honestly struggle with browsers that don't have gestures, so AiO gets installed wherever it can. I'm certain a similar setup could be found for Chrome, but for now I'm comfortably entrenched.



Microsoft Security Essentials

Again, not a fan of ads. Of all the free AVs, this is *the* most polite.



WinKey

A discontinued program that lets you make shortcuts using the Windows key. I use it for everything from Calculator to admin consoles.



Media Player Classic + CCCP

Plays media files, politely.



Winamp

Not quite as polite, but does quite well for management and devices.



Bulk Rename Utility

More fun than trying to do the job with batchfiles.



Other tools:

SpyBot Search & Destroy

HijackThis

HDTune

CCleaner

PhotoRec

ffmpeg

Answer 2

Here are mine.



1. GIMP 2.8.2 it has the best Photoshop-like interface (new single window mode), and newer features than the hacked GIMPshop which is based on an old out dated version of GIMP.

2. Inkscape, a vector image editor, which I like better than Adobe Illustrator

3. LibreOffice, a suite of office programs

4. Thunderbird, email client

5. Firefox, I use it as my default browser, because it has Fire FTP, and oodles of extensions including Adblock Plus

6. I also use Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Safari and Opera, because I design websites and need to check what they look like in lots of browsers.

7. Dropbox for sharing large files

8. Mikogo - better than logmein

9. AVG free, antivirus

10. VLC media Player

11. XAMPP - An easy to install Apache webserver distribution, for web development.

12. 7-zip, for extracting archived files

13. Pspad, a text editor for coding HTML and CSS

14. MyPaint - a raser drawing application

15. Photivo - free RAW processing software, with GIMP plug-in

16. Google Picasa for archiving my photo collection

17. Scribus - desktop publishing software

18. Microsoft ICE - panorama stitching software

19. Microsoft Movie Maker

20. Audacity - audio editing software

22. Blender - 3D modelling and animation software

21. I also use Ubuntu on a few computers, usually via a bootable USB



I don't play games, but as you can see I'm really into free and especially Open Source software.



I also use paid for software which includes Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, and Adobe InDesign, and obviously Windows 7.

Answer 3

Hey there,

I downloaded Razer Game Booster for free here: http://bit.ly/1m5WK4f



it's a perfectly working link!

Razer Game Booster is a powerful software which you can use to get a better performance of your system and games by changing the settings.

It's a really nice game.

Answer 4

Malwarebytes -- a great anti-malware / spyware program

VLC Media Player -- plays all video and music types with no problems.. I use this instead of WinAmp or other player programs

Winrar -- compression/decompression program (it's like Winzip but i like it better)

AVG -- Anti-Virus program

Notepad ++

Kompozer -- great website builder

Flash Renamer -- a great programer to rename files and folders in a hurry...

Adobe Reader

iTunes

Mozilla (Firefox) & Google Chrome -- both are good to have sometimes one works better than the other

Picasa -- a great picture editor/viewer program -- simple to use and free

File Hippo -- It checks all your programs (or most of them) and lets you know if there's an update for it, you can download all the updates for free from their website with no worries at all.. FileHippo.com



That's all I can think of right now... :0

Answer 5

1. f.lux - makes the screen look SOOO much better at night time it's SO amazing

A nice warm golden color, so relaxing

http://stereopsis.com/flux/

Can't stress f.lux enough GET THIS PROGRAM!!!

It works on (jailbroken) iOS, Linux, Mac, Windows



2. Ubuntu 12.x One of the greatest operating systems ever made



3. Firefox Web browser / chrome both great but I lean on firefox



4. Steam - listed because it's now available natively on Linux



5. Libre Office - one of my favorites, Calligra is also nice



6. Teamviewer - great remote desktop app, ios, android support linux mac windows



7. Compiz Fusion - have to put this one om here it's what drew me to Linux in the first place and without it, well I probably would have never used it so yeah



8. Wine / PlayonLinux - easily run most Windows programs on Linux and Mac



9. KDE K desktop environment - I like Ubuntu's Unity but I like to know all the upcoming holidays and with the KDE anolog clock on the desktopn I click it and it gives me a calendar full of holidays which can be very useful



10. Ubuntu Tweak - my main use is to clean up the backups or downloads saved from installation of all programs, old kernels, and unneeded config files



I don't list virus scanners because Ubuntu doesn't need them

I also don,t have to defrag my sata hard drive to keep it fast, and don't need to run tuneup utilities to keep it fast, btw how does that make your life easier, scanning for viruses?

I hate Windows it's a time waster

Answer 6

Here i got free and use on daily basis also make me easier,

1.Avast antivirus-working good as antivirus.

2.SUPerantispyware-search a hidden spyware/Malware in every files.

3.Glary Utilities-Better than Ccleaner.

4.Firefox/Safari/Chrome.

5.Quicktime/Itunes.

6.Catalsyt control Center-Driver-This is the thing should have cause it makes your pc perfomance and game stable(3D option).

7.Movie maker.

8.Open Office org.

9.Shark007 codecs.

10.Iobit unsinstaller.

11.Iobit Game booster.

12.Fraps-For your info its Not free.

13.IDM-not free.

Answer 7

Irfanview, Trillian.



I didn't list Malwarebytes because the resident version is worth way more than the price.

Answer 8

Skype and if you don't have an antivirus get AVG. they are both free. Also Winrar and Wavosaur