The Freeware and Open Source Software Thread

@ Alexander the Pretty Good

You wrote that we post our own and/or corrections to what you've posted.

Corrections are the next:

Firefox – full name is Mozilla Firefox – please change that

QuickTime Alternative 1.68 final – erase the version of program (1.68 final) as new versions always coming

Real Alternative 1.46 - erase the version of program (1.46) as new versions always coming

Mozilla Thunderbird 1.5 - erase the version of program (1.5) as new versions always coming

Please add the new classes:

Office: OpenOffice

Operating Systems: Knoppix Live-CD Operating System

E-mail and RSS: Mozilla Thunderbird

Picasa

Category: Graphics/Video
Homepage: http://picasa.google.com/
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP, Linux
Open Source: No
Description: Program made by Google for handling pictures. Picasa has also basic fixes, tuning and effects for pictures. And like every Google product program has excellent integration with internet. Should I add that search function work perfect? The best free alternative for expansive ACDSee. You can choose between 38 languages’ versions.


SketchUp Free

Category: Graphics/Video
Homepage: http://sketchup.google.com
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP, Mac OS 10.3.9
Open Source: No
Description: Google SketchUp (free) is an easy-to-learn 3D modeling program that enables you to explore the world in 3D. With just a few simple tools, you can create 3D models of houses, sheds, decks, home additions, woodworking projects - even space ships. And once you've built your models, you can place them in Google Earth, post them to the 3D Warehouse, or print hard copies. For only 20 minutes you will learn how to draw with this program.

Photoshop Album Starter Edition

Category: Graphics/Video
Homepage: http://www.adobe.com/products/photos...m/starter.html
OS: MS Windows 2000/Me/XP
Open Source: No
Description: [from site] Discover the basics of digital photography with Adobe® Photoshop® Album Starter Edition software, the free software that makes it easier than ever to view, find, fix, and share your photos. Fix common photo flaws — like red eye, color, and brightness — in a single click. Easily share your memories! Attach photos to e-mail, or send them to mobile phones. Make your own prints, or order prints, photo books, and more online. Find any photo in a snap with automatic organization that lets you view all of your digital photos in one place using a familiar calendar view.


Paint.NET

Category: Graphics/Video
Homepage: http://www.getpaint.net/index.html
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista
Open Source: Yes
Description: Completely free and open source program. Not powerful as GIMP (best free alternative for Photoshop), but drastically easier for using. Program has good support for working with layers and unlimited history. Help and support are excellent. One notice: before installation you need to download from Microsoft site DotNetFix 2 as without that program will refuse to install.

Video DVD Maker

Category: Graphics/Video
Homepage: http://videodvdmaker.com/descr.php
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP/2003
Open Source: No
Description: Video DVD Maker is DVD-authoring and DVD-mastering program. The intuitive interface leads you through a comprehensive set of logical steps to capture and output DVDs. It is easy for use and that’s the reason why there are so little options left to user.


MV2 Player

Category: Audio/Media Players
Homepage: http://mv2.virt.cz/
OS: MS Windows ? (XP sure)
Open Source: ?
Description: The best AV player on market. Read everything (including DVD’s) with proper codecs. Fast, small, simple, excellent subtitle support and is localized in 25 languages. On expert level in options you can configure everything.


dBpower AMP Music Converter

Category: Audio/Media Players
Homepage: http://www.dbpoweramp.com/
OS: MS Windows 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP
Open Source: No
Description: This program is often called the Swiss army knife of Audio dMC can: rip (take) sound from Audio CDs digitally and store on your computer, convert from one format to another, just about every audio type is supported, ID Tags are preserved, volume normalize audio files, Windows Explorer integration - popup information for the audio file, such as bitrate

DVD Shrink

Category: CD/DVD
Homepage: http://www.dvdshrink.org/
OS: MS Windows 95/98/2000/XP
Open Source: No
Description: DVD Shrink is software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc. DVD Shrink will also burn your backup DVD, if you have installed the latest version of Nero. This program also makes backup of encrypted and large 9 GB DVDs without requiring any other software. Also have function of re-authoring your DVDs. Easy for use.


DeepBurner

Category: CD/DVD
Homepage: http://deepburner.com
OS: MS Windows ? (XP sure)
Open Source: No
Description: Excellent program for burning CD/DVDs. You don’t need any more to buy Nero. Program has unique options for creating auto-start menus and CD/DVD’s covers. DeepBurner support a lot of drives, including external USB or Firewire drives, DVD-RAM drives, has functions for overburn, creating bootable disks and etc.

ATI Tray Tools

Category: System Utilities
Homepage: http://downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=725
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP/2003 (also has support for 64-bit versions)
Open Source: No
Description: Must have program for all owners of ATI Radeon graphics cards. ATI Tray Tools is a small utility that can be found in the windows tray which then allows instant access to options and settings. Quite handy and quite a small download. This is a fantastic tweaker for ATI Radeon cards.

Anim8or

www.anim8or.com
OS: Windows NT4, Win95, Win98, WinSE, Win2K, or WinXP
Open Source: Yes
Description: Completely free 3d modelling programme that is still in development but is in its final stages. It features a very simple user interface and is fully capable of creating professional-looking 3d models for artwork, games etc. It also includes a material editor that can be used to create custom materials to resemble glass, rubber, marble, and pretty much anything you can think of. Custom textures can be imported and applied to selected objects. Various modes allow the user to create individual objects, construct figures with bones, create a scene similar to a film with their custom objects, and create animations. The website includes plenty of tutorials and links to fan made articles.

Sorry about the above post, I didn't appreciate how big size 7 font is and it wont let me edit my post.:oops:

Edit: Ok I managed to change it.

Fresh Diagnose

Category: System Utilities
Homepage: http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdiag.htm
OS: MS Windows
Open Source: No
Description: Fresh Diagnose is program for diagnostic and benchmark your hardware. It is free alternative to the most popular SiSoft Sandra. It doesn’t have options like full version of Sandra but it’s better than the free version of Sandra.


GreatNews

Category: E-mail and RSS
Homepage: http://www.curiostudio.com
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP/2003
Open Source: No
Description: GreatNews is RSS aggregator. It’s free, has fast download and search for news, full Unicode support, advanced functions for automatic sorting and is stable program. User interface is similar to Outlook/Thunderbird.

Nettalk

Category: Instant Messaging Clients (not exactly, it’s IRC client)
Homepage: http://www.ntalk.de
OS: MS Windows
Open Source: No
Description: Easy to use, good and free alternative for the most popular IRC (Internet Relay Chat) program mIRC. Nettalk has most options as his competition and it’s free.


Google Talk

Category: Instant Messaging Clients
Homepage: http://www.google.com/talk
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP/2003
Open Source: No
Description: As every Google product Google Talk is simple, fast and effective IM client. It doesn’t have all those fancy options like competition and that’s why I love Google Talk. VoIP integration is far away better than what have competition. Installation is clear and transparent (no spy and/or advertising programs).

PSPad

Category: Text Editors
Homepage: http://www.pspad.com
OS: MS Windows
Open Source: No
Description: If Notepad is not good for you and you don’t want to pay for UltraEDIT then it’s the right program for you. PSPad is advanced, one windowed Unicode text editor (not text processor) specified to both programmers and ordinary users.


AbiWord

Category: Office
Homepage: http://www.abisource.com
OS: MS Windows, Linux, Mac OS X, QNX, FreeBSD, Solaris
Open Source: No
Description: The best free alternative for MS Word. AbiWord is much better than its counterpart from OpenOffice (Writer). Program is small, super fast, a lot of available fonts and plug-ins, full compatibility with MS Word and etc.

I'll add this stuff when I get my password situation fixed, when I'll have more time. Sorry I haven't done anything for a while. :oops:

Penumbra

Category: Gaming
Homepage: http://frictionalgames.com/?q=penumbra
OS: MS Windows 2K/XP
Open Source: No (However there is plenty of support for modification)
Description: A completely free first person adventure/horror game. The game is created by Frictional Studios and is intended as a demonstration of their new physics technology. The physics really are suberb and puts the likes of Valve's source engine and the Havok physics system to shame. The game is set in a haunted underground base in Greenland. The main character discovers the base whilst looking for clues about the wherabouts of their father. Penumbra involves plenty of puzzles that put the physics system to full use, as well as action-packed moments involving advanced AI and lots of dynamite. Plenty of parallels can be drawn between this and Doom 3, Thief, and any other remotely scary game involving lots of dark claustrophic interiors. The puzzles are excellent and the graphics are good enough to rival the latest next-gen titles.

Phew! Updated! :sweatdrop: Sorry I took so long getting around to it.

Thanks for the contributions and corrections.

DukeofSerbia, I've added the categories you specified except for OS. I want there to be at least 2 items per category, and I don't think we'll have another candidate for OS. I don't want to just put more Linux distros on the list, either. I think Knoppix will be enough.

Also, you guys are killing me - so much great stuff but you format it just a little bit off from what I put it into, making this into a lot of work. Thanks to those who post in my format and save me time and effort, and please please please just copy my format if you aren't doing so.

Out of curiousity, is there a way to create a link that will scroll down to a specific part of a post? IE, a link that says "Gaming" that when you click on it you jump down to the gaming part of the post.

----

I've been thinking. Would it be feasible for people to "vote" for software they've used? IE, you'd post:

Mozilla Firefox +1
GIMP -1

If you've used both, liked firefox, and disliked GIMP? I would then add the totals and put them in the entries. Votes would not count if they were for a program you submitted, and it would be honor system. What do you guys think?

GParted
Homepage
Open Source: Yes
OS: runs under Linux, handles filesystems ext2/3, FAT16/32, hfs, jfs, NTFS, reiserfs, ufs, xfs
Description:

Quote:

---

GParted is the Gnome Partition Editor application.

A hard disk is usually subdivided into one or more partitions. These partitions are normally not re-sizable (making one larger and the adjacent one smaller) The purpose of GParted is to allow the individual to take a hard disk and change the partition organization therein, while preserving the partition contents.

GParted is an industrial-strength package for creating, destroying, resizing, moving, checking and copying partitions, and the filesystems on them. This is useful for creating space for new operating systems, reorganizing disk usage, copying data residing on hard disks and mirroring one partition with another (disk imaging).

---

This tool can be downloaded as an ISO image and burned onto a bootable Linux CD for partition management. It's essentially a open source clone of Partition Magic, with a myriad of filesystems supported. Haven't tried it yet, so I'm not quite ready to sing it's praises, but I've got a shortage on my C: drive right now, and giving $70 to Symantec just to move over 5 GB from my D: drive does not sit very well with me. Anyone else use this tool yet?

I just want to give a little shout-out to this thread. I hosed my Windows install, and thanks to the links on the first page, I was able to get all of my apps back in record time. God bless us all, and Tiny Tim, too!

GParted is add'd.

Thanks Lemur. Glad to hear you got your PC back up and running quick-like. :medievalcheers:

Does anyone know how I can get my hands on the Creative MediaSource program?

Hey, how do you turn images into JPG images?

Use Irfanview, and then select batch conversion. Then simply read the pop up messages, it's very simple and straightforward.

:balloon2:

Name: Comodo Firewall
Open Source: No

Description: (From Author's Website)
PC Magazine Online's Editor's Choice
Secures against internal and external attacks
Blocks internet access to malicious Trojan programs
Safeguards your Personal data against theft
Delivers total end-point security for Personal Computers and Networks

Note: I just installed it, it needs a restart but I haven't yet. Eager to see what a professional-looking totally free firewall is capable of.

VLC media player
Homepage http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
OS: Windows, Mac, Linux
Open Source: Unsure but think no
Description: It plays everything I want it to and it’s very good and everyone i know uses it.

Under System Utilities:

SequoiaView
Homepage
OS: Win
Open Source: Yes
Description: Ever wondered why your hard disk is full? Or what directory is taking up most of the space? When using conventional disk browsing tools, such as Windows Explorer, these questions may be hard to answer. With SequoiaView however, they can be answered almost immediately. SequoiaView uses a visualization technique called cushion treemaps to provide you with a single picture of the entire contents of your hard drive. You can use it to locate those large files that you haven't accessed in one year, or to quickly locate the largest picture files on your drive.

I'll get to updating this soonish. School is almost over...

IsoBuster

Category: CD/DVD
Homepage: http://www.isobuster.com
OS: MS Win 9x/Me/NT/2000/XP/Vista
Open Source: ?
Description: If you have damaged CD or/and DVD this is program for you. IsoBuster is probably the best program for saving your data from damaged DVDs and CDs. It read almost every standard of writing and types of CDs and DVDs.

Windows Live Messenger

Category: Instant Messaging Clients
Homepage: http://get.live.com/messenger/overview
OS: MS Windows
Open Source: No
Description: New version of Windows’ integrated Windows Messenger. Live has new look (maybe too fancy) and many new options like off line sending of messages and much better handling with contacts. What really annoy is high level of advertise provided by MS.

CPU-Z

Category: System Utilities
Homepage: http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
OS: MS Windows
Open Source: No
Description: CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system: CPU (Name and number, Core stepping and process, Package, Core voltage, Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier, Supported instructions sets, Cache information), Mainboard (Vendor, model and revision, BIOS model and date, Chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and sensor, Graphic interface), Memory (Frequency and timings, Module(s) specification using SPD (Serial Presence Detect) : vendor, serial number, timings table) and System (Windows and DirectX version). Must have program for identification.

Riva Tuner

Category: System Utilities
Homepage: http://www.guru3d.com/index.php?page=rivatuner&menu=8
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP/XP x64
Open Source: No
Description: Rivatuner is one of the (if not the) best Tweak Utilities available for NVIDIA GeForce and ATI Radeon based videocards. RivaTuner is a complete powerful tweaking environment, providing you everything you may need to tune NVIDIA GPU based display adapters. The widest driver-level Direct3D / OpenGL and system tuning options, flexible profiling system allowing to make custom settings on per-application basis, both driver-level and low-level hardware access modes, unique diagnostic and realtime hardware monitoring features and exclusive power user oriented tools like built-in registry editor and patch script engine make RivaTuner's feature set absolutely unmatched. RivaTuner supports all NVIDIA display adapters starting from Riva TNT family up to the latest GeForce 8 series and widest range of NVIDIA drivers starting from the oldest Detonator 2.08 up to the newest ForceWare drivers family.

Updated! Even though I hate to add a Windows product, DukeOfSerbia...

Fixed: a few of broken/inefficient links, some of the opening text
Added: the latest entries, as well as an entry counter - we're almost at 100!

TED Notepad

Category: Text Editors
Homepage: http://jsimlo.sk/notepad
OS: MS Windows
Open Source: No
Description: Simple, fast and functional program which easily replace Windows Notepad and partly for WordPad. Clipboard function works perfect (up to nine). There is useful option called Complete Word. Tools menu has a lot of options which easing typing.

World Wind

Category: ?
Homepage: http://worldwind.arc.nasa.gov
OS: MS Windows 2000/XP/2003
Open Source: yes
Description: Awesome (I can’t describe with my words) program made by NASA Learning Technologies (NLT). You can watch the whole world from your home. Just few warnings: program requires fast broadband internet connection and strong hardware resources (like 2 GB on hard disk) but it worth that. You need before installation installed Microsoft .NET 1.1 and Directx 9.0c.

@ Alexander the Pretty Good

I find some mistakes in your first thread.

- Goggle Tool Bar: spell is wrong – it is Google Tool Bar!
- Video DVD Maker: Look at last sentence – you left my nick.
- GreatNews: You forgot to erase category (E-mail and RSS) under name of program.

Create new category called Text Editors and put there PSPad and TED Notepad.

Thanks for keeping me honest, DoS. It's been fixed. :medievalcheers: