sbisson | Essential Free Windows Tools.

Gawker's Lifehacker blog is putting together a list of essential free tools for Windows users. I'm amused to see that I'm already using all of them...

Firefox Tabbed, pop-up-blocking web browser with an ever-expanding base of functionality-enhancing extensions.

Thunderbird Email client with spam filters, saved search folders, RSS-reading and multi-account support.

Trillian Instant messenger that supports multiple protocols (AOL/ICQ/MSN/Yahoo!), being logged onto multiple AOL accounts at one time, instant Wikipedia lookup, spellcheck, and conversation logging.

Picasa Photo manager tracks digital images and albums with keywords and ratings, exports web galleries, resizes images, removes red-eye and offers effects and edits.

iTunes Music player organizes thousands of tunes into saved search "smart" playlists, records play counts and last played timestamps, de-duplicates your collection, auto-arranges songs into folders by artist and album.

Ad-aware Spyware detector and cleanser can save even the slowest, most advertising-pummelled Windows installation.

AVG Anti-Virus Monitors your computer and email for viruses, auto-updates and schedules regular scanning.

OpenOffice Office suite package opens, edits and saves to Microsoft Office formats, minus the licensing costs.

Skype Long-distance computer calls over the 'net minus the bill.

I think I'd want to add a few more of my own...

SmartFTP Fast, well designed FTP client. A real Ronseal application...

BitLord Probably the best BitTorrent client around.

jBidWatcher A Free eBay auction watcher

VLC Watch and listen to pretty much every media format out there...

Flickr Uploadr Share those photos with the world on Flickr

CDex Best (and fastest) MP3 ripper around, by far

RealVNC Direct access to all your PCs and servers

Spy-bot S&D You can never have too many adware defenders running

Daemon Tools Mount your CD and DVD images, without burning the disks.

Sipphone Lite Free 1-800 number calls in the US from the UK using the Internet

Windows Services for Unix Run and compile UNIX apps on Windows - with better integration than CygWin

IrfanView Quick Windows image viewer and editor

I'm sure there are many more, but that's just a few off the top of my head...

Or rather, off my Start Bar...

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Why RealVNC rather than TightVNC? (http://www.tightvnc.com/) ()

Because it's from the original VNC dev team and AT&T Cambridge Labs, and is much more closely linked to the commercial VNC versions, so can work better with tools like Apple Remote Acccess...

The free version looks very feature light to me...

It's small, fast and stable.

I have to admit, if you're adminning the box, do you really need all the extra functions TightVNC gives you? I'd rather stick with the basic functionality!

What adamn useful post - I am very grateful :@)

...where's the list for Mac users, eh? :D

it looks very similar, but with a few things missed out where there is no MacOSX version.

# Firefox Tabbed, installed.
# Thunderbird, no got round to installing yet as I use squirrelmail through firefox.

# Trillian Instant messenger. Not on MacOSX. E

# Picasa Photo manager. Dunno what is best, but presumably someone will say iPhoto?

# iTunes Music player. Nuff said.

# Ad-aware Spyware. Not sure you need one do you?

# AVG Anti-Virus Not sure you need one do you?

# OpenOffice Office suite - installed.

# Skype Long-distance computer I have never used Skype.

I also have VLC installed on the MacOSX box, a VNC client,

Funnily enough I have never needed Windows services for Unix on MacOSX.

To this I add putty for an ssh terminal and that pretty much matches what I put on every machine I own.

Someone was talking about games for the Mac (tongue in cheek), pointing out that you go into the store and there's 5 titles to choose from, and you know they're great because you played them on the PC three years ago...

OpenOffice Office suite - installed.

You are using OpenOffice on a Mac? Are you a masocist or something?

# Trillian Instant messenger. Not on MacOSX. E
Try http://www.adiumx.com/

I hate Trillian (so bloaty and slow) and use Gaim in Windows...

Picasa Photo manager. Dunno what is best, but presumably someone will say iPhoto?
iPhoto isn't free though - it is part of iLife...

Ad-aware Spyware. Not sure you need one do you?
Not so much.

AVG Anti-Virus Not sure you need one do you?
I *hate* AVG - I'm sure it is better now - but when I last tried it it sucked up every bit of resource the machine had :/

ClamAV is great at picking up Windows nasties - and is available for all Unix platforms and there is a Windows port (http://www.clamwin.com/) which I ought to try some time.

I generally prefer Mplayer to VLC - I haven't found anything that it can't play...

I had a lot of problems with earlier versions of AVG antivirus, but that was nothing compared to the nightmares with version 7. I'm now using a free antivirus program called Avast. It's terrible, a nightmare to use, but at least (unlike AVG) it doesn't actually stop my computer from running.

I use Avast - don't have any problems with it at all, just install it and forget about it. It performed most admirably when there was a storm of email bourne virii (Klez IIRC). I ended up getting fed up with all the crap coming in to the home network and set up anti-virus filtering on the mail server...

I tried Avast on my mother's machine, and it got hung up on one particular virus it couldn't erase. Then, after I'd deep-sixed that one, it did it again.

A shame. I suspect it would be helpful in a less toxic environment, though even so, there's no way she'd be able to cope.

(With one thing and another, I took more than 200 nasties off her machine, and I know there were some left, but I just didn't have time. She's got a couple of virus/adware protectors on there now, so at least the rate of infection should have slowed.)

When something is that fucked over it is easier to rip off the data and re-install. I tend to run AV and antispyware stuff in safe mode - means anything that starts itself as a service can be got rid of.

I'm actually finding the Microsoft Antispyware Beta one of the most effective tools for sorting out bug ridden Windows machines.

Interesting - thanks!

Yes, given the shape her machine was in, an electromagnet probably would have been a more efficient approach.

*weak grin*

I've never had any of these problems with AVG. Very odd.

I use Adium for instant messaging. It's very nice indeed.

Very similar. I'll put one together soon - however most of my recommended Mac tools are shareware...

i haven't been using MacOSX long enough to actually use shareware worth paying for :-)

Good list. A few things I haven't tried yet, so will investigate further.

I notice you've no Firewall listed. I suggest the free version of ZoneAlarm, though I know some people don't like it (probably because it tries so hard to convince you that you need the "Professional" version.

Recommend anything better?

I'd be lost without PuTTY so I can ssh into remote network hardware.

I'd definitely vote for GAIM over Trillian.

Other than that, I'd agree all the way.

This is a nifty useful post! Thanks. I am adding it to my memories.

Essential Free Windows Tools.

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