Favorite Free Software

Joe Medina of Colby College asked members of the FUNDSVCS listserve about their favorite free software programs. Here are mine, minus obvious ones like Gmail and Firefox (note that many are only free for home use).

Ad-Aware — Anti-spyware and malware tool for PCs: http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php

Avast! — Free anti-virus for home use: http://www.avast.com/eng/download-avast-home.html

BookmarkBridge — Keeps bookmarks in sync between multiple browsers: http://bookmarkbridge.sourceforge.net/

CCleaner — Windows registry cleaner and program uninstaller http://www.ccleaner.com/

CoreFTP — FTP client software: http://www.coreftp.com/

eFax Free — Free fax number for receiving up to 20 pages/month. Faxes arrive as email attachments: http://www.efax.com/efax-free (Be aware that they do things like periodically changing your fax number to induce you to pay. But that’s why it’s free.)

Glary Utilities — Another Windows registry cleaner: http://www.glaryutilities.com/

Google Desktop — Use Google to search your desktop files: http://desktop.google.com/

Google Talk — An alternative to Skype, but only for 1 to 1 calls: http://www.google.com/talk/

Express ClickYes — Gets around the Outlook security feature that prevents mass emailing by malware. Essential when you want to do an email merge through Word, etc. http://www.contextmagic.com/express-clickyes/

Hijack This — Restores Windows settings that have been altered or hijacked by software and malware: http://www.download.com/Trend-Micro-HijackThis/3000-8022_4-10227353.html

Paint.Net — Fantastic graphics editing tool: http://www.getpaint.net/

Process Explorer — A Windows task manager & monitoring tool, much richer than the Windows Task Manager: http://www.download.com/Process-Explorer/3000-2094_4-10223605.html

ScreenHunter Free — Screen capture program: http://wisdom-soft.com/sh/index.htm

Skype — Free VOIP calls, conference calls, and video calls: http://www.skype.com

SpamBayes — Trainable anti-spam plugin for Outlook (may work with other clients as well): http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/download.html

SpyBot Search & Destroy — Anti-spyware and malware tool for PCs. Can also provide continuous monitoring: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/download/index.html

ZoneAlarm — PC firewall software: http://www.zonealarm.com/security/en-us/zonealarm-pc-security-free-firewall.htm

Other products mentioned by participants in the discussion:

John Elbare recommended:

Wink -– Free program for creating flash movies out of screen shots: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

ColorPix –- Gives you an exact RGB or hex code for any color on your monitor screen:http://www.brothersoft.com/colorpix-63923.html

TrueCrypt –- Very well-designed and easy-to-use program for encrypting your files and folders: http://www.truecrypt.org/

Koyote Free CD — Ripper and Free Audio Converter:http://www.koyotesoft.com/indexEn.html

TopStyle Lite –- Free version of HTML/CSS editor: http://www.newsgator.com/individuals/topstyle/default.aspx

OpenOffice –- Very good emulation of MS Office: http://www.openoffice.org/

PHP and MySQL -– Really good open source code for building dynamic web sites: http://us3.php.net/ and http://www.mysql.com/

Charlie Hunsaker recommended Google Gadgets – an analog clock, local weather, an always available to-do list, current sports scores, Google Search.

John Taylor at North Carolina State University recommended PDF995 which installs as a printer driver, allowing you to print to a PDF instead of a printer: http://www.pdf995.com/download.html

Mary Kern at the University of Toledo Foundation recommended PrimoPDF and TextPad (but noteed that there is a nominal charge to get rid of the nag screen.)