Freeware Alternatives

[KGIII]

This is by no means complete. Nor entirely up to date.

3D:
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discre...om/products/gmax/
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias......ple/index.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.../Eng/homepage.htm
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softim.../products/exp/v3/

Anti-Virus:
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast....m/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/
Windows Live Safety Center - http://safety.live.com

Anti Spyware:
Ad-aware - http://www.lavaso...software/adaware/
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
HijackThis - http://www.downlo...2_4-10227353.html
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javaco...ywareblaster.html
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilder...spywareguard.html
XCleaner - http://www.xblock...load-freeware.php

IRCi:
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
Chatzilla - http://www.mozill...saging/chatzilla/
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
kVIRC - http://www.kvirc.net/
MIRC - http://www.mirc.com/
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.xchat.org/
Visual IRC - http://www.visualirc.net/

Anti-spam programs:
K9 - http://www.keir.net/k9.html
MailWasher- http://www.mailwasher.net/
POPFile - http://popfile.sourceforge.net/
SpamBayes - http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Audio Player:
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni...ankfurt.de/~pesch
Foobar 2000 - http://www.foobar2000.org/
iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Jet Audio Basic - http://www.jetaudio.com/
Musik - http://musik.berlios.de/
QCD Player - http://www.quinnware.com/
Sonique - http://sonique.lycos.com/
Winamp - http://www.winamp.com/

Audio Tools:
Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
dBpowerAMP Music Converter - http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
EAC - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
Encounter 2003 - http://www.waschbusch.com/
GermaniXEncoder - http://www.germanixsoft.de/
K-MP3 - http://www.katarncorp.com/
KraMixer - http://www.kramware.com/
MP3 Book Helper - http://mp3bookhel....sourceforge.net/
MP3 Tag - http://www.mp3tag.de/
mp3DirectCut - http://www.rz.uni...nkfurt.de/~pesch/
MP3Gain - http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/
mp3Trim - http://www.logiccell.com/~mp3trim/
MusicBrainz - http://musicbrainz.org/
Rarewares - http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/
SoundEngine Free - http://www.cycleo....com/en/index.htm
TagScanner - http://xdev.narod.ru/tagscan_e.htm
The GodFather - http://users.oten...gr/~jtcliper/tgf/

CD/DVD burning:
Burn4Free - http://www.burn4free.com/
Burnatonce - http://www.burnatonce.com/
CDBurnerXP - http://hem.bredband.net/cdburnerxp/
CDRDAO - http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/
CDR Tools Frontend - http://demosten.com/cdrfe/
Deepburner - http://www.deepburner.com/
DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com/
Easy Burning, DropCD & Audio CD - http://www.paehl.de/cdr

Archiver
7-zip - http://www.7-zip.org/
bzip2 - http://sources.re.../bzip2/index.html
FilZip - http://www.filzip.com/
IZArc - http://www.florida.plus.com/izarc/
QuickZip - http://www.quickzip.org/
TUGZip - http://www.tugzip.com/
UltimateZip - http://www.ultimatezip.com
UPX - http://upx.sourceforge.net/
Zip&Go - http://www.handybits.com/zipngo.htm
Zipgenius - http://www.zipgenius.it/

Defrag:
DIRMS & Buzzsaw - http://www.dirms.com/
OpenVMS - http://www.execso...ware/freeware.asp

Desktop addons:
CursorXP - http://www.stardo...rxp/download.html
Google Desktop - http://desktop.google.com
MobyDock - http://www.mobydock.com/
tclock2 - http://home.inrea...lock2/tclock2.htm

Download managers:
Fresh Download - http://www.freshd...om/freshdown.html
LeechGet - http://www.leechget.net/en/
Net Transport - http://lycos26486...om.cn/default.htm
Star Downloader - http://www.stardo...com/downloads.php
wackget - http://millweed.c...projects/wackget/
wget - http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/

Security / Encryption:
All-in-One Secretmaker - http://www.secretmaker.com
Axcrypt - http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/
Blowfish Advanced CS- http://web.bsn.ch/lasse/bfacs.htm
Eraser - http://www.heidi....raser/default.php
File Shredder - http://www.sys-sh.../fileshredder.htm
GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org/
PGP Freeware - http://www.pgp.co...cts/freeware.html
WindowsCleaner - http://www.winnow...ternet-eraser.htm

File managers:
2xExplorer - http://netez.com/2xExplorer/
A43 - http://www.shawne...nk.net/~bgmiller/
Gyula's Navigator - http://www.wanari.com/
JExplorer - http://home.megap....co.kr/~woosjung/
MeeSoft Commander - http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/

Recovery:
PC Inspector File Recovery - http://www.pcinsp...ry/UK/welcome.htm

Firewalls:
Kerio (Kerio Personal Firewall is FREE for home and personal use) - http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
Outpost Firewall (version 1 is free) - http://www.agnitu...oad/outpost1.html
Sygate (FREE for personal use) - http://smb.sygate.../spf_standard.htm

FTP clients:
ACE FTP - http://software.v...s/aceftpfreeware/
Filezilla! - http://sourceforg...rojects/filezilla
PuTTY (SSH) - http://www.chiark...k/~sgtatham/putty
SmartFTP - http://www.smartftp.com/

FTP Servers:
FileZilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
GuildFTPD - http://www.totals.....pplication=8334
Quick 'n Easy FTP Server - http://www.pablov...l/ftp_server.html
SlimFTPd - http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd
WarFTPD - http://www.jgaa.com/

HTML Editors:
1st page 2000 - http://www.evrsof...om/download.shtml
AceHTML - http://freeware.a...com/download.html
Aracnophilia - http://www.arachn...om/arachnophilia/
HTML-Kit - http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
nVu - www.nvu.com
Selida - http://www.amaryllis.8m.com/
Trellian webPAGE - http://webpage.vendercom.com/
TSW WebCoder - http://www.tsware.net/

Picture viewers:
Ahaview - http://www.aha-so...w/ahaviewfree.exe
Irfanview - http://www.irfanview.com/
SlowView - http://www.slowview.at/
XNView - http://www.xnview.com/
FastSTone - http://www.fastst...SViewerDetail.htm

Instant Messenger:
Gaim - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/ - Oldiesmann's favorite IM client
Miranda IM - http://www.miranda-im.org/
MSN Messenger - http://messenger.msn.com
Pandion - http://www.pandion.be/ - HIGHLY RECOMENDED (by Trekkie)
Rhymbox - http://www.rhymbox.com/
PSI - http://psi.affinix.com/
Spark IM - http://www.jivesoftware.org/spark/
Trillian Basic - http://trillian.cc/downloads

Internet Explorer shells:
Avantbrowser - http://www.avantbrowser.com/
Crazy Browser - http://www.crazybrowser.com/
Maxthon Browser (Formely MyIE2) - http://www.maxthon.com/
SlimBrowser - http://www.flashp...wser/sbrowser.htm

Mail:
i.Scribe - http://www.memecode.com/
Mahogany Mail - http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/
Pegasus Mail - http://www.pmail.com/
Thunderbird - http://www.getthunderbird.com

Maintenance & Tools
CCleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com/

Network Tools
CMDTime NTP Utility - http://www.softshape.com/download/
Ethereal Protocol Analyzer - http://www.ethereal.com/
NMap - http://www.insecure.org/nmap/
Ntop - http://www.ntop.org
PingPlotter - http://www.pingplotter.com
RAS Graph & Stats - http://forum.flas...amp;threadid=2400
RealVNC - http://www.realvnc.com/
TightVNC - http://www.tightvnc.org/
UltraVNC - http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/
WinSCP - http://www.winscp.com/

Office:
602PC Suite free edition - http://www.softwa...pcs/download.html
AbiWord - http://www.abiword.com/
Open Office - http://www.openoffice.org/

Partition:
Partition Resizer - http://zeleps.com/
Ranish Partition Manager - http://www.ranish.com/part/
TestDisk - http://www.cgsecu...tml?testdisk.html

PDF Programs:
Free PDF - http://www.webxd....ipguy/frpdfdl.htm
Ghostscript/GSView - http://www.ghostscript.com/
PDF 995 - http://www.pdf995.com/
PDFCreator - http://sourceforg...jects/pdfcreator/
Open Office - http://www.openoffice.org/

PHP editors:
PHP designer 2007 (Personal Edition) - http://www.mpsoft...k/phpdesigner.php

Picture editing:
ColorPic - http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/
Pixia - http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/
Sodiodi - http://www.sodipodi.com/
The Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/
Tuxpaint - http://www.newbre...ware.com/tuxpaint

Programming:
ActivePerl - http://www.active...oducts/ActivePerl
ConTEXT - www.context.cx
Crimson Editor - http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
Dev C++ - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Dev Pascal - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/
Freepascal - http://www.freepascal.org/
jEdit - http://www.jedit.org/
PHP Designer 2006 - http://www.mpsoftware.dk
PHP Hypertext Parser - http://www.php.net/
Python - http://www.python.org/
Ruby - http://www.ruby-lang.org
Ruby on Rails - http://www.rubyonrails.org
SharpDevelop - http://www.icshar...et/opensource/sd/

Popup Blocker
Google Toolbar - http://www.google.com/
NoAds - http://www.southbaypc.com/NoAds/
PopUp Stopper - http://www.panicw...oduct_psfree.html
Privoxy - http://www.privoxy.org/
Proxomitron - http://www.proxomitron.info/

Sysinfo:
AIDA32 - http://www.aida32.hu/
CPU-Z - http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Everest - http://www.lavalys.com/
Gkrellm - http://bill.nalens.com/
Motherboard monitor - http://www.majorg...nload.php?det=311
WCPUID - http://hp.vector....src/download.html

Video codecs :
DivX Codec - http://www.divx.c...x_from_/index.php
FFDSHOW - http://sourceforg.../projects/ffdshow
Kazaa Lite Codec Pack - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Nimo Codec Pack - http://www.divx-d...re/nimo_pack.html
Quicktime Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Real Player Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/

Video players:
BsPlayer - http://www.bsplayer.org/
Cygwin MPlayer - http://armory.nic...g/projects/cygmp/
MaximusDVD - http://www.maximusdvd.com/
Media Player Classic - http://sourceforg...hp?group_id=82303
VideoLan - http://www.videolan.org/

Video tools:
DVD Shrink - http://www.dvdshrink.org/
DScaler - http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/
FlasKMPEG - http://www.flaskmpeg.net
GSpot - http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
VirtualDub - http://www.virtualdub.org/
VirtualDubMod - http://sourceforg...hp?group_id=65889
xviD - http://www.roeder...~koepi/xvid.shtml
Zwei-Stein Video Editor - http://www.thugsa...ftware/index.html

Web browsers:
Firefox - http://www.getfirefox.com
Flock - http://www.flock.com/
K-Meleon - http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
Mozilla - http://www.mozilla.org/
Netscape - http://channels.n...wsers/default.jsp

Web servers:
Abyss - http://abyss.sourceforge.net/
Apache - http://httpd.apache.org/
Sambar - http://www.sambar.com/
Savant - http://savant.sourceforge.net/
TinyWeb - http://www.ritlab...inyweb/index.html
ZWMS http://www.xgarre...miniwebserver/en/

Webcam programs:
booruWebCam - http://www.booru.net/
Pryme - http://www.hilo.dk/pryme/

Checksum Utilities:
fsum - http://www.slavasoft.com/fsum/
hksfv - http://www.big-o-...m/products/hksfv/
md5sum - http://www.etree.org/md5com.html
md5summer - http://www.md5summer.org/

Misc:
AnalogX - http://www.analogx.com/
AppRocket - http://www.candylabs.com/approcket/
Celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia
Cygwin - http://www.cygwin.com
Dirkey - http://www.protonfx.com/dirkey/
EditPad Lite - http://www.editpa.../editpadlite.html
Inno Setup - http://www.jrsoft...re.org/isinfo.php
Memtest-86 - http://www.memtest86.com
MWSnap - http://www.mirekw...eware/mwsnap.html
NetTime - http://nettime.sourceforge.net
Nullsoft Installer - http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nsis
Peerguardian - http://xs.tech.nu/
QuickSFV - http://www.geocit...alley/Mouse/4668/
png2ico - http://winterdrac.../freeware/png2ico
Stickies - http://finiteloop...oftware/stickies/
Sysinternals - http://www.sysinternals.com/
Vim - http://vim.sourceforge.net

Add you stuff to it? I'll sticky it and leave it open.

[Element]

AVG and VNC are ALWAYS up to date. NEVER direct someone in the direction of an imcomplete (beta) or not up to date antivirus.
Oh, and nothing on Lavalys.com is free.

[KGIII]

AVG and VNC are ALWAYS up to date. NEVER direct someone in the direction of an imcomplete (beta) or not up to date antivirus.
Oh, and nothing on Lavalys.com is free.

The list - the list itself is not up to date.

Things to edit:

Everest needs to be edited out.
I think 1st Page is no longer worth downloading, nag screen.
CCleaner is /not/ a good product.
Beta software's not always bad - nary a problem with Microsoft's AntiSpyware beta the whole time.
PopPeeper needs to be in the list somewhere. Hmm... Lots of stuff to edit/add/change but it's just a giant copy/paste so nothing has been done to it.

More thoughts?

[Element]

ALL beta anitiviruses should never be used as your primary anti virus. 

And CCleaner is a really nice program.

[Element]

Zone alarm has no url, and really shouldnt be up there. =\

Once I find the time, Ill edit that whole list if ya want. Ill only take out whats unavailable though.

[KGIII]

Sounds like a plan to me. And no, no ZA... *shivers*

Additionally - depends (in my opinion) who made it and who's using the PC. I have comfortably used beta AV apps from Kaspersky and *shivers again* Symantec as primary apps. Someone's gotta test 'em and - depending on the tester - should be okay to do the testing.

What SHOULDN'T happen, in my opinion, is people who shouldn't be using BETA applications at all downloading and installing BETAs without understanding the consequences. (Though this list doesn't contain any non-production AV applications in it.)

[Element]

Yeah Ive beta tested Kasperskys 6.0 I think it was. I just left AVG as my primary.

[KGIII]

One of the reasons to potentially use a beta as your primary is that running more than a single AV application at the same time can create conflicts. Thoughts:

Scenario One
App1: Scanning
App2: Attempting to scan it finds it locked - false positive results

Scenario Two
App1: Scanning
App2: Attempts to scan
CPU cycles spike
App1: Sees it as "okay"
App2: Sees it as "okay"
Malware makes it into the system in a self-inflicted buffer overflow

I feel pretty strongly about "average" end-users testing non-production software. I disagree with some of the recent CTP and public betas that Microsoft has had for example. I see their point... "How better to get good feedback on what the problems will be when the software goes public? After all, our usual pool of testers is far more advanced and far more likely to not see things or do things that a typical end user may do." (Not a verbatim quote.)

However... The problems caused on an end-user's system are major. The vast majority of people click "okay" to anything (which is actually the greatest exploit on a system and why even with UAC Vista is still vulnerable - they WILL type in their passwords) and don't know what beta, RC*, or non-production means. The resulting mess is quite entertaining but, really, shouldn't be a problem because it's just plain silly.

I think... Hmm...

This isn't going to sound right... My response would be:

Ah - would you have your average person, say a retired school teacher or perhaps someone who flips burgers, test the next version of the Space Shuttle for NASA? After all, we should see how easy it is to control and how well a person will react to problems.

I admit that's a rather extreme example and people don't think of it as a life or death situation. It is... Let's paint some scary BUT realistic situations...

Bob decides to download a "free" (read: beta) AV application.
Bob also has a tendency to look for other "free" things.
New version of badware gets installed.
Bob is on 8 MB/sec cable.
Bob propagates (sends out) malware at insane speeds using a 0-day IIS exploit.
Bob works for EMS (backup driver) for a local EMS in Small Town USA.
EMS service provides a site for emergency help for the Small Town community.
EMS is also using same cable provider.
Thus same C block, exploit worms via checking IP addresses - checks local first.
EMS's site is still up, still running, but in the background now propagating malware.
EMS is Small Town with 0 budget dollars and 0 on-site tech staff.

Jen works at EMS full time.
Jen's computer (that routes people to the address when they call 911) goes slow.
Jen's computer stops.
People die.

Jen works at EMS full time.
Jen's computer has mis-information due to database corruption.
Jen tells someone it's okay to give a shot to Mrs. Binklie the diabetic.
EMT gives said shot.
Said shot conflicts with her insulin.
Ol' Mrs. Binklie goes into diabetic coma and dies.
Restored database, after malware removed, shows Mrs. Binklie had let them know she was diabetic.

While I'm here...

Why not showing that free is not always better?

A relative of Bob's (YourUncle) works nights at the EMS station.
He likes Firefox.
He uses Firefox.
Site looks normal - never had a problem, never had to test it.
Vendor said it REQUIRED IE but YourUncle's a zealot.
Application for viewing database uses CSS which is rendered funky sometimes with FF.
YourUncle sees the history for prior patients - listed two down with the first being compressed using fly-outs and JavaScript.
Bob's uncle (YourUncle) tells 'em, "It's alright, says here give 'em that shot."
Mrs. Binklie dies yet again.
Darn that Mrs. Binklie for having been in the shower when she collapsed and not wearing her bracelet.

So, well, those are some examples.

[Element]

Im still ganna use FF. LOL
Anyway, no of course I didnt use AVG while testing kaspersky. You think Im that stupid? I only said it was my primary.

[KGIII]

If one is resident and you load the other...

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