Ten excellent FREE PC apps to brighten your Windows No matter if you're reinstalling Windows for the 47th time this fortnight or attempting to rid a new machine of bloatware in favour of something that's actually useful, the question remains: what alternative apps exist that don’t involve coughing up for obscene licensing fees? RH Numbers Fortunately there's plenty of …
In case of modern PRML disks, these MFM- or RLL-specific passes do nothing special and are completely unnecessary.
Yes. And even back when most folks had MFM or RLL drives, how many of you had data so sensitive that an attacker was likely to crack the case and examine the platters with magnetic-force microscopy?
Most of the "secure erase" modes are just sops for the paranoid. For conventional drives, overwriting sectors once covers all the reasonable branches of the attack tree for nearly everyone. (Obviously that needs to include any sectors that might contain stale copies of sensitive data, if your threat model includes attackers with any real ambition.) You almost certainly don't have any secrets worth the cost of disassembling the drive and scanning the platters, and if you do, there will nearly always be a cheaper way to get them.
All the software listed has replacements in the Linux world, but available as distro packages. I think that the best advice for a computer literate person is to install and use Linux for everything. If you have some Windows app you can't avoid, get that Windows license and install it in a VirtualBox VM where you install these Windows only programs. Spare the Windows license if you don't need any.
Works very well for me, but I'm not into games in general. In that case (son, I'm looking at you) you'll end up installing Windows anyway.
Seconded!
I found a long time ago that running our stores 286 DOS+Geoworks environment ran much better on a slightly less obsolete 200 Mhz Mac running 7.6 in a virtual PC software emulation.
Plus, they could print on our shiny new (used) Apple Laserwriter.
The entire stores multi partition hard drive now sits comfortably on a single Zip disk as a single file. The store is no longer; so yes, fitting it on a Zip would no longer applie.
With the advent of Windows instead of reinstalling once or twice a year, you simply save the users data, derez the now slow as molasses and malware ridden virtual hard drive, substitute the old backup you made when you first installed AND updated your original windows machine, update it again (a partial, much faster), create a new backup, and go about restoring the users data and applications.
I now use a Macbook Pro and Parallels which has checkpointing for the file system, so I can even try out something risky, by checkpointing the file system (I do have to shut down Windows here) which takes seconds, install the dodgy software and revert back to checkpoint if things don't work out.
I realize Windows has a checkpoint function, but it is lengthy and does not really work if you are installing drivers or other system level components.
Plus, the checkpointing (or archiving) in a virtual environment works for any OS you might be running, not just Windows.
It makes ones life so much more stress free.
I've been a UNIX developer since '87, and a Linux once since sometime in the mid-1990s. I work on Linux and UNIX systems pretty much every week. I have Linux VMs ready to be spun up on all of my machines, corporate and personal.
But I can't see taking the time to replace the pre-installed Windows host OS with a Linux host OS, just to run Windows in a VM. I have to run Windows for work, and once in a while I need it for my personal machine, so it's a hell of a lot easier to just keep pre-installed Windows, throw Cygwin on so I can use bash and the SUS toolset, and when I want Linux run that in a VM.
I used to run Linux natively on my laptops, back in the late 90s / early 2000s; for a few years I carried around both Linux and Windows drives, and I'd swap the appropriate one into the laptop depending on what I needed to do. But when VM technology got good enough to reliably run Linux in a VM, I simply no longer found it cost-effective to run it as the host OS on my laptops.
One of the things which I think should also be in the list is an image viewer. I'm actually surprised that none was included because well, surely we still like to look at a few pictures every once in a while? I'm very happy with IrfanView. It's an image viewer which provides tons of extra features as well, including features such as editing your pictures a bit (scaling / resizing, cropping or cutting out a selection and obviously plenty of filters and effects to apply).
When it comes to editing then it's not always perfect (trying to cut a transparent PNG file can sometimes be a little awkward, I usually resort to The Gimp for that), but it goes a very long way for "merely" an imageviewer.
Second; although you mentioned a program which can make it easier to copy things onto cloud environments, what about copying files to local storage media or even regular network shares / drives? I've become quite fond of TeraCopy. Its a free copy program which also has a paid counterpart. The reason why I like this program is because despite the commercial alternative it doesn't get in your face. You can use it to its full potential, even though the authors obviously hope that you'll get the commercial version too.
And clicking "test" while copying a large(r) file only to discover that the copy action did not go as expected and that the copy checksum failed can really be a priceless experience.
Finally... Sure, Winzip and Peazip are excellent programs. I'd still would like to mention WinRAR too. An archiver which has been with us for decades already; I licensed this product during the BBS era (last century) and I still have and use a license today (to be honest; I got new licenses too; one for my company and a new one for personal use, simply because it makes little sense to advertise for your BBS these days ;)).
It's a brilliant piece of software IMO, I especially like the integrated checksum parts where it can add a so called "recovery record" (both embedded or detached) which allows you to repair an archive in case it should get damaged. Invaluable option... It heavily leans upon the so called PAR checksum options; a format which allows you to create a checksum block which can also be used to recreate parts of the original file.
This feature alone makes WinRAR a very powerful archiver for me; especially when we're talking about making backups which are meant to be kept around for an X amount of time.
+1 from me for TeraCopy.
Not only is it a million times faster (give or take) copying large amounts of files especially over a network but one can skip copying files that already exist.
When I am setting up a new machine and am copying folders by the ton from another machine it's the first thing that I install to make my life that much easier.
Then there's one application which is great at doing folder back ups to NAS files. Again, this is a free version of a paid product, but SyncBackFree is simply a super little back-up app for files and folders.
Not so much a free app; but a really easy way to setup a PC (and keep it up to date) with a lot of free apps (including several mentioned on this list).
Select the apps you want, download a 200kb installer. Run and it installs them all silently. Run again and it updates them all for you.
"When out of 10 "excellent PC apps", only 2 (Notepad++ & VLC) are actually helping you to DO something, while the remaining 80% are only improving your OS in some ways, it says a lot about wasted time."
With Windows, you work on your computer.. With Mac, you work *with* your computer.
" only 2 (Notepad++ & VLC) are actually helping you to DO something"
True dat. Does 7zip count as doing something? I like that one - Fast efficient lightweight ,no nagging.
Free apps that I've found that really do stuff , easily and without fuss are : A bulk filename renamer ( good for mp3s) , a picture resizer (also does bulk) , a measurement converter (converts anything). Unfortunately cant remember their names and sites. oh that winamp things pretty good for music.
I'm struggling to find any apps for my Smartphone that actually DO anything. 95% of "apps" just seem to be interfaces for a company website or other billboard type sales gizmos. Doubly hard if you dont have unlimited data too.
Downvotes ahoy here, but does nobody else think Microsoft Security Essentials does a damn good job compared to pretty much every other similar piece of software out there? I know it's built into Windows 8 and perhaps slightly unnecessary for newer PCs, but it's one of the best I've ever come across.
"does nobody else think Microsoft Security Essentials does a damn good job "
It certainly behaves itself - light on resources, quick, invisible, doesn't nag, and (as far as I know) it hasn't let me down. But most lab test results for MSE are less good against free alternatives, and even "real world testing" scenarios show it lags dedicated free products by sizeable margins. Do a search on dottech real life detection rates (or read other tests) and see what you conclude. I'd not put too much store by pure lab tests as there's too much gaming by different vested interests, but the various real world scenarios still tend to suggest that MSE isn't technically quite as good as third party products.
From the MS Security Intelligence Report for 1H14, around 2.4% of WIndows 8.1 machines with no active AV protection (ie MSE turned off and no third party AV active and up to date) had reported problems. For machines with any form of active and unexpired AV the WIn8 infection rate was around 0.6%. In reality the 10% difference in performance between best AV and MSE is not very significant - the most common problems of AV infection are down to expired or inactivated AV products, plus user behaviour.
On balance I'm sticking with MSE - I know its not the best, on the other hand I'll take the risk because I've found third party products unduly intrusive and resource heavy, and because I avoid using attack vectors like IE, Acrobat and Java, and to keep reluctantly tolerated rubbish like Flash under control with Flashblock.
The reason why MSE scores low on Virus tests nowadays is because as MS rightly states...it's the baseline for protection. As it's the widest used AV out there it's therefore, the one to beat by the bad guys.
I still use it with no ill effects along with EMET5.1 switched to maximum.
In addition to many excellent suggestions (thanks) in the article and the preceding comments, perhaps I could just mention Emacs; the UnxUtils collection of native (not cygwin) core utils; the whole of the rest of the suite that ProcessExplorer belongs to (Autoruns, Handles, Sysmon, PSservice etc). Also something for mounting ISOs is nice (I use VirtualCloneDrive), and on the subject of disks, I love WinDirStat and its graphical representation of how storage is used (roughly equivalent to Linux's Baobab). And is it just me that loves Q-Dir as a Windows Explorer replacement?
I also like to have a few extra command-line binaries like sha256sum, base64 etc.
(Probably just me, but I always have GnuPlot, GeoGebra and a free Smalltalk development environment - such as Squeak or Pharo - as well)
And - not an application, but any windows system I use, first thing I do (ok, after installing a Dvorak keyboard YMMV) is to put the task bar up the left hand side, with small icons, so you can actually read what the windows are! And what else are you going to do with all that horizontal space when the vertical resolution doesn't allow 2 A4 sheets side by side?
Any time I set up a Windows PC, or do any of that post-cleaning stuff, I have a list of software that I shove on almost automatically.
I put MSE on my own non-professional Windows box, but I put Comodo on my partner's web dev box.
Then goes on MalwareBytes and SpyBot S&D. Haven't used AdAware for about ten years myself, but I'll have to give it another look. :)
Also, Total Commander for filing stuff. Git and git bash are great too, I've started using it even for ordinary backups. XAMPP, Notepad++, FF/Chrome, 7-zip, GIMP, Inkscape etc. are all available as portable apps too.
I used to use these things called Little from Sourceforge. There was Little Registry Cleaner, and Little Defrag. They were great, but then they went all bad with dodgy malware. Maybe they've learned their lessons, but I'm still mad at them.
Go here first: AV-Test.org
I resorted the results (Protection, Performance, Usability) and turned up 360 Internet Security as a really good free option. What I also like is that they list the default Windows AV option as 'the baseline'.
VLC - don't get the Windows 8 version (it's still too crappy) - go for the classic.
I'd also recommend WinDirStat for finding what's taking up all the room on your disk. And Auslogics DiskDefrag (but none of their other stuff).
The other tool I always have is XVI32 - best freaking hex editor out there.
After all these years have the owners of The Register lost the plot?
Do you not know anything about email marketing?
Your emails are often opened because of the Subject line, but then you fail to follow through because the thing you promise in the subject line (this page) is buried down below. At the very least it needs to be "above the fold" meaning either the first item or at least visible without scrolling.
Your whole job is to distract busy people and make them visit your site, so this failure to follow through is huge. It make you look as if you are promising something that is either not delivered because it is hidden.
Hopefully you will do better in future.
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