TOP PICK - OPEN SOURCE AND FREE APPLICATIONS
1. OpenOffice - is a multi platform and multi lingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute
2. Thunderbird- will help you better manage your unruly inbox, scales to the most sophisticated organizational needs while making it easy to find what you need.
3. Paint.Net - is free image editing and photo manipulation software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools
4.Audacity- is a free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems.
5.Pidgin- is the ultimate, free instant messaging tool. It provides you with one window through which you can simultaneously interact with different people, whichever instant messaging platform they’re using.
6.Gimp - Just like sound editors, industry standard image editing software is prohibitively expensive for a lot of people, but GIMP provides a free alternative. It performs every major function you could desire, except for, vitally, CMYK separation functionality necessary for prepress work.
7.VLC - At last count, VLC media player had been downloaded 300 million times. Unlike some paid-for alternatives, VLC supports practically every audio/video codec and file format. The most recent VLC release also offers live recording of streaming video, frame-by-frame advancement and superb speed controls.
8.Handbrake- rips/converts DVDs to MPEG-4 for playing back on your iPod or archiving. It doesn’t have the ability to decode DVDs, but can do so if you have VLC, which includes a DVD encoder, installed on your computer.
9.Freemind- is a terrific mind-mapping tool, which lets you get all your thoughts down as quickly as possible with the use of icons, shapes and colors. Besides the ordinary nodes and links, you can add hyperlinks and even documents to your maps.
10.7-Zip is an extremely popular file archiver for Windows, which, although free, outperforms Winzip. It can unpack the vast majority of archive formats and can create TAR and GZ archives, commonly used on Unix and Linux systems, as well as its own 7z format, which easily outshrinks ZIP files.
11.PDFCreator- Windows users can consider PDFCreator a credible rival to Adobe Acrobat. Creating PDFs is as easy as printing, literally, as once installed, you can select PDFCreator as your printer, letting you create PDFs from practically any application.
12.PDFCrowd - Online service Pdfcrowd turns any web site into PDF format easily with a variety of options, including the ability to set margins, encrypt files, or disable copying and printing.
13.Blue Tooth Radar - The Bluetooth interface built into Windows is spartan compared to the feature rich Bluetooth Radar, an open-source application that displays all Bluetooth devices within reach of your computer's radio on a radar-style display.
14.Calibre-Ebook - According to Calibre, it’s the “one stop solution to all your e-book needs”. I’m inclined to agree. Besides letting you catalogue and manage your e-book collection, sorting, tagging and commenting on them as you please, you can download content from the internet and convert it into e-book form.
15.TrueCrypt- really is the best free encryption program around for anyone worried about their security. It offers 11 algorithms for encrypting your files, as well as a comprehensive help manual, which gives advice on complex password creation, hidden volumes and erasing encryption giveaways.
16. FamilySearch - the online arm of the Family History Library, has a new beta search service that lets the public dig around to find documents and facts on their relatives and ancestors. It's a pretty huge index of data, and it's free.
17.CDBurnerXP- is a freeapplication to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.
18.Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware- is considered to be the next step in the detection and removal of malware. This product compiles a number of new technologies that are designed to quickly detect, destroy, and prevent malware. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware can detect and remove malware that even the most well known anti-virus and anti-malware applications fail to detect. Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware monitors every process and stops malicious processes before they even start.
19.CCleaner- is the number-one tool for cleaning your Windows PC. It protects your privacy online and make your computer faster and more secure. Easy to use and a small, fast download.
20.DVD Flick- aims to be a simple but at the same time powerful DVD Authoring tool. It can take a number of video files stored on your computer and turn them into a DVD that will play back on your DVD player, Media Center or Home Cinema Set. You can add additional custom audio tracks, subtitles as well as a menu for easier navigation.
21.Easy Thumbnails- is a popular free Windows utility for creating accurate thumbnail images and scaled-down/up copies from a wide range of popular picture formats.
22.EphPod- is a full-featured, easy-to-use Windows application that connects with Apple's iPod. With a FireWire card and EphPod on a PC, it takes under 30 minutes to transfer 1,000 songs to an iPod. In addition, EphPod supports standard WinAmp (.M3U) playlists, includes powerful playlist creation features, and will synchronize an entire music collection with one click.
23.CopyTrans- (formerly CopyPod) is the ultimate backup & recovery tool for your iPod & iPhone songs and videos. Retrieve iPod music, videos, ratings, playlists, play count & more from iPod to PC. Backup iPod music from iPod to computer when sending iPod in repair, in case of computer/hard drive crash.Transfer, import, download iPod to iTunes. Rebuild library from iPod, iPod Touch, iPad & iPhone.
24.Hotspot-Shield - Ensure you are private, secure, and anonymous online!Works on the PC and the MAC, including new operating systems.Works on wireless and wired connections alike!
25.Portable Apps - Now you can carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind.
26.Hugin-will allow you to assemble a mosaic of photographs into a complete immersive panorama, stitch any series of overlapping pictures and much more.
27.MediaPortal- turns your PC and TV into a very advanced home media center. Our software allows you to listen to your favorite music and radio stations; watch and store your videos and DVDs; view, schedule and record live TV as a digital video recorder; and much, much more.
28. My Lockbox-is security software that enables you to password protect any folder on your computer. The program is extremely easy to use. You can set the lockbox location and the password during the setup procedure. After the setup is done, lockbox will be hidden and locked until you enter the valid password.
29.KompoZer- is a complete web authoring system that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing.Easy Web Authoring!
30.Network Stumbler- is a neat little program that allows you to see all the available Wi-Fi access points and networks that are in range of you and your active Wi-Fi computer. Network Stumbler is for desktop and laptop machines, and Mini Stumbler is the equivalent for the Wi-Fi enabled PDA.
31.Rainlendar- is a feature rich calendar application that is easy to use and doesn't take much space on your desktop.
32.Samurize- is an advanced system monitoring and desktop enhancement engine for Windows XP/2003/Vista/7. IT professionals, overclockers, gamers and desktop modders alike use Samurize for system information, weather reports, news headlines and much much more.
33.SphereXP is a 3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows. Taking the known concept of three-dimensional desktops to its own level. It offers a new way to organize objects on the desktop such as icons and applications.
34.SphereXPlorer- is a three-dimensionals web browser. Enables you to browse the web like you had neverbefore. The interface is based on experience and technology gained from the SphereXP project.
35.Stickies - the design goal behind Stickies is that the program is small and simple. Stickies will not mess with your system files, or write to the registry. Stickies stores information in a single text-based ini file.
36.VMware Player- is the easiest way to run multiple operating systems at the same time on your PC. With its user-friendly interface, VMware Player makes it effortless for anyone to try out Windows 7 or run the latest Linux release.
37.Wavosaur- is a free sound editor, audio editor, wav editor software for editing, processing and recording sounds, wav and mp3 files. Wavosaur has all the features to edit audio (cut, copy, paste, etc.)
38.ZScreen- is an open-source screen capture program for Microsoft Windows. It can upload screenshots, pictures, text & files and put the URL in your clipboard in a single keystroke.
39.RocketDock is a smoothly animated, alpha blended application launcher. It provides a nice clean interface to drop shortcuts on for easy access and organization. With each item completely customizable there is no end to what you can add and launch from the dock.
40.Dolphin - Open-source, independent, downloadable, scalable, customizable, full-featured, free software for building social networks, dating sites and web-communities.
41.LimeSurvey- (formerly PHPSurveyor) is an Open Source PHP web application to develop, publish and collect responses to online & offline surveys.
42.CamStudio - is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)
43.Speccy-is an advanced System Information tool for your PC.Speccy will give you detailed statistics on every piece of hardware in your computer. Including CPU, Motherboard, RAM, Graphics Cards, Hard Disks, Optical Drives, Audio support.
44.XnView - a software to view and convert graphic files, really simple to use ! Support of more than 400 graphics formats !
45.Recuva- Accidentally deleted an important file? Lost something important when your computer crashed? No problem! Recuva recovers files deleted from your Windows computer, Recycle Bin, digital camera card, or MP3 player. And it's free!
46.SyncBack- is an excellent backup and synchronization tool. Backup to external devices, network drives or FTP sites. Integrates with the Windows Task Scheduler to create automated backup procedures.
47.Scribus- is an Open Source program that brings award-winning professional page layout to Linux/UNIX, MacOSX, OS/2 Warp 4/eComStation and Windows desktops with a combination of "press-ready" output and new approaches to page layout.
48.Clam AntiVirus- is an open source (GPL) anti-virus toolkit for UNIX, designed especially for e-mail scanning on mail gateways. It provides a number of utilities including a flexible and scalable multi-threaded daemon, a command line scanner and advanced tool for automatic database updates.
49.BleachBit quickly frees disk space, removes hidden junk, and easily guards your privacy. Erase cache, delete cookies, clear Internet history, remove unused localizations, shred logs, and delete temporary files. Designed for Linux and Windows systems, it wipes clean 70 applications including Firefox, Internet Explorer, Flash, Google Chrome, Opera, Safari, Adobe Reader, APT, and more.
50.Ubuntu - Named after an African philosophy of community, sharing and generosity, Ubuntu is a free operating system for Linux that’s quick and easy to use. Recent figures suggest that around 50% of Linux users have Ubuntu installed. With its focus on usability, Ubuntu comes with OpenOffice, Firefox Empathy, Pidgin, GIMP and other tools pre-installed.
NOTES:______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
______
Page | 1