Ok, Here we go. Lets compile a list of the best freeware that we know (please include links and a short description ). Also make sure it is malware free! I see some great stuff on this forum and if we put all of the great programs in the same place not only will it be easier for us but for the new people who come to this forum every day.

My favorites:

Open Office 2.0
A replacement to ms office and a money saver.
http://download.openoffice.org/680/index.html

CD burner xp pro
(this was reccomended to me buy agumon)- the name says it all
http://www.cdburnerxp.se/index.php

Picasa 2
the best photo organizer ever! with great simple photo editing(remove red eye, adjust lighting and sharpness) also with gmail you can email pictures to people within the program.
http://www.picasa.com/index.php?tid=Y2NpZD0zNzQ4

My fav's, none of them contain any adware, malware, or spyware:

burnatonce ("bao")
Data CD/DVD authoring. Audio CD authoring. In order to burn DVD's you need the ProDVD add-on.
http://www.burnatonce.com/
http://www.burnatonce.net/

CDex
Audio CD ripper, encoder frontend, decoder frontend. You can manually configure command line encoders to work with it such as LAME, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, etc.
http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

Exact Audio Copy ("EAC")
Secure audio CD ripper (if configured properly), audio CD authoring, encoder frontend, decoder frontend, wave editor, wave comparer. You can manually configure command line encoders to work with it such as LAME, Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, etc.
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

metapad
Text editor. A powerful replacement for Notepad.
http://liquidninja.com/metapad

DSOstop
Prevents the DSO Exploit security issue in all versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Google search for a download site

Inno Setup
Creates simple, or complex setup/install packages for distribution.
http://www.innosetup.com/
http://www.jrsoftware.org/

IsoBuster
CD/DVD recovery software. The free functionality version has limited features.
http://www.isobuster.com/
http://www.cdrecovery.net/
http://www.smart-projects.net/isobuster/

Memtest86+
System memory diagnostic software.
http://www.memtest.org/

Resource Hacker
Change button layouts, text, etc., in programs without necessarily breaking them. For moderate to advanced users that know what they're doing.
http://www.angusj.com/resourcehacker/

Ultimate Packer for eXecutables ("UPX")
Compress executables such as .dll, .exe, etc., to reduce their size. Can also decompress files it compressed. Warning: Always have a backup copy of any file you wish to compress hence you may have to restore the unmodified version! Do NOT compress Microsoft Windows operating system files, or Microsoft Office files, you may or will break them!
http://upx.sourceforge.net/

MP3Gain
Replaygain for MP3's. Gives your MP3's a similiar volume level without resorting to destructive normalization.
http://mp3gain.sourceforge.net/

MusePack ("MPC")
MusePack audio software, high quality lossy audio format - however not widely supported.
http://www.musepack.net/

Speek's Frontends
Frontends for audio software, such as; LAME, FLAC, MusePack, Ogg Vorbis, Tag, WaveGain, WavPack, etc.
http://members.home.nl/w.speek/

Clic
A small user friendly image to icon program. Creates 16x16, 24x24, 32x32, 48x48, 64x64, 72x72, and 96x96 icons. Can save with transparency.
http://www.blaiz.net/CLIC.HTM

CabPack
Makes Microsoft .cab compressed archives and features good compression ratios if using LZX. Rather old, however it works on Windows 9x to XP.
http://www.larshederer.homepage.t-online.de/

CDStarter
A user friendly autorun program for CD's/DVD's. Great for usage to automatically run an .exe setup file, an .m3u playlist file, etc.
http://www.wentnet.com/projects/cdstarter/

Copy&Trim
A part of ToolsPackage, however it can be separately downloaded at the bottom of the page.
Cuts spaces & tabs in the clipboard (for website use).
http://www.freewarehits.de/ToolsPackage.htm

Microsoft PowerToys for Windows XP
Add-on's for Windows XP featuring many software/utilities that can be very useful - especially ClearType Tuner and Tweak UI.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspx

Here are more of my favorites

Video MP3 extractor
Lets you seperate the audio from a video file. Creates a seperate mp3 file.
http://www.snapfiles.com/get/videomp3extractor.html

DVD Shrink
Edit the size of DVD's to make them fit on one disc, enables you to cut out things like special features and menus. Also is very good for editing home videos as well.
http://www.dvdshrink.org/what.html

Paint.net
Great simple photo editor. Has many features of the gimp or photoshop, but without the confussion.
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

zip reader 8
The easiest unzipper ever! It always places the unzipped files in a new folder right on your desktop.
http://www.download.com/ZIP-Reader/3000-22...tml?tag=lst-0-2

Maxthon (Browser)
The best IE shell ever. When you HAVE to use IE why not make it like firefox. Features tabbed browsing, skinnable interface, and mouse gestures.
http://www.maxthon.com/

Abiword
The best free word processor around. Deffinately needed by open office users.
http://www.abisource.com/

DVD decrypter
DVD ripper. Allows burning coppies of movies.
http://www.dvddecrypter.com/

Notepad++
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/

MP3Trim
It trims mp3 files with ease. you have to try it to believe it. Is great for people who use stream rippers (remove commercials) or people who just want to shorten or edit their songs.
http://www.mptrim.com/

Startup Control Pannel
A startup manager that is surprisingly easy to use. It breaks down each of your startup process into tabs so that its easier to find what your looking for. After download you will have to switch your control panel to classic view to find the program labeled "startup". Just drag the program to the location you desire then switch the control panel view back to "category view".
http://www.mlin.net/StartupCPL.shtml

AntiMalware section

CWShredder
Removes cool web search. Make sure you click on "stand alone CWShredder.
http://www.intermute.com/spysubtract/cwshr...r_download.html

Spyware Blaster
Stop spyware and adware from being downloaded in the first place. Just be shure to keep it up dated and to always click block all know issues after updating.
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

Ad-Aware
removes adaware.
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/

Spybot
Removes spyware and immunizes your pc from know threats.
http://spybot.eon.net.au/en/index.html

Microsoft AntiSpyware
A antispyware tool from microsoft, includes a realtime scanner.
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/s...re/default.mspx

CCleaner
(Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less that a second to run) and FREE! .
http://www.CCleaner.com/

HijackThis
creates logfiles of key areas of your hard drive and registry. Post log files on this forum to have them evaluated.
http://www.download.com/HijackThis/3000-80...tml?tag=lst-0-1

Shareaza
A great piece of software to download bittorent files. And yes it is malware free.
http://shareaza.sourceforge.net

Iconaholic (formerly FOOOD's Icons)
This isn't software, however it is related. Iconaholic has created a plethora of professional looking icons that can dress up Windows XP, and other software programs.
http://www.iconaholic.com

RareWares
The latest MP3, AAC, Ogg Vorbis, MPEG-4 and general media utilities compiles.
http://www.rarewares.org

AVX ScriptWall
By SoftWin (Romania) the makers of BitDefender Security Software. Blocks suspicious, and malicious scripts from running and works silently until needed. Note: If you uninstall it search for and delete the following filename it creates which may or will reside in various folders: fxavx.ini
Google Search for a download site

Starter
http://members.lycos.co.uk/codestuff
Starter is yet another startup manager, that allows you to view and manage all the programs that are starting automatically whenever Windows boots. It lists all the hidden registry entries, as well as the common Startup Folder items as well. You can choose to safely disable selected entries, edit them or delete them altogether (if you know what you re doing). Expert users can even add their own entries. Very nice interface, easy to use, no documentation though (but hardly needed).

Winamp
http://www.winamp.com
A popular, fast, flexible high-fidelity music player for Windows. Winamp support MP3 and MP2 audio with it s native Nitrane high-performance decoder as well as CD-audio, MOD, S3M, IT, XM and even SID audio formats. Winamp supports more than 10000 interface skins , 300 visualization plug-ins and CDDB for automatic CD audio title listing.

AntiVir
http://www.free-av.com/
A free (as in beer) anti virus scanner. Works on Windows, Linux, BSD, Solaris. Does not contain any big bloated interface with skins. Does not eat up all your processor power or memory. Simple and great.

7-Zip
http://www.7-zip.org/
File archiver that supports alot of format such as 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB. It is completly free software which is released under the GNU LGPL, its open-source. It has its own .7z format which offers superior compression ratio.

ABC (Yet Another Bittorrent Client)
http://pingpong-abc.sourceforge.net/
Is a free, open-source Bittorrent client, you can use it to download files from Bittorrent with is.

Miranda IM
http://www.miranda-im.org/
Free, open-source (GNU GPL), multi-protocol IM (Instant Messanging) client, that you can use to chat with people on Jabber, MSN, ICQ, IRC, etc. It is highly customizable and very easy to use. It is very simple and bloat-free. Doesnt hog your processor power or memory.

DC++ - Your files, your ways, no limits.
http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net/
Is a free, open-source DC (Direct Connect) client under the GNU GPL that connects to DC hub's for P2P (peer-to-peer) file sharing with other users. Has TTH hashes, etc.

FileZilla
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Is a free, open-source (GNU GPL) FTP client, it is easy to use, it is great, its competly spy/adware free.

Mozilla Firefox
http://www.getfirefox.com/
Great web browser, free, open-source. Secure, safe, tabbed browsing. Can disable Java, Javascript, third-party cookies, third-party loading of images, etc (to get rid of banners), it blocks popups, etc.

USEFUL FAVORITE

Error Messages
Got to have this one in your favorites . Patches link and explanations of fatal errors for All Windows OS , XP included. Spam and Malware Free...

ICON UTILITY

Iconoid
Nifty little icon manipulator.

May I ask for some one to have a list at the very top with the name, link within the name and a short description for brief viewing, it would be simplistic this way.And if possible listing in categories. Well anyway here are my votes...

Chatting

Gaim
Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.
Notes
*A little buggy, but great for people who use more then one network and doesn't seem as bloated as Trillion.

Photo Manipulation

Gimp
GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.
Notes
*I don't understand why people think gimp has a step learning curve, for a fact I find it much easier then other program I have used.Its shortcut keys are wonderful and seems to have a well thought out plan.After a tutorial or two you'll be fine!

Browsers

Firefox
The wait is over. Firefox empowers you to browse faster, more safely and more efficiently than with any other browser. Join more than 50 million others and make the switch today — Firefox imports your Favorites, settings and other information, so you have nothing to lose.
Notes
*The best browser in my opinion out there, It seems to be so awesome so cool and just so so great!The themes are easy to edit, and there are so many extensions out there its amazing; pluss they openly say all of the great customizable options; way better then IE in many ways!

Email Clients

Thunderbird

Thunderbird makes emailing safer, faster, and easier than ever before with the industry's best implementations of features such as intelligent spam filters, built-in RSS reader, quick search, and much more.
Notes
*An absolute must; its amazing it has all the of the secuirty features I want for instance OpenPGP encryption and alot of other extensions I love for instance the other one I can't go without Menu Editor And the default junk control is pretty awsome!

Foxit PDF Reader
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
A replacement for the bloated and slow loading Adobe Acrobat Reader (free edition). It doesn't require the usage of any of Acrobat's .dll files, therefore Acrobat can be uninstalled. It can be configured to be the default system PDF Document viewer, it works with web-browsers, has a save function. You can select parts of a document and copy them to the clipboard, etc. Note: The program does contain bitmap ad's to promote commercial Foxit Software -- however they are very small, not in-your-face, and can be disabled via right-clicking during the session of the program usage.

Disc Management and Security programs

· Ad-Aware SE Personal
http://www.lavasoft.de/

· AVG Anti-Virus
http://www.grisoft.com

· Belarc Advisor
http://www.belarc.com/

· CCleaner
http://www.CCleaner.com/ (obviously)

· EasyCleaner
http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/

· HijackThis
http://www.spywareinfo.com/%7Emerijn/index.html

· Microsoft AntiSpyware
http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/s...re/default.mspx

· MRU-Blaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/

· Pop-up Stopper Free Edition (used this before Win XP SP2 became available)
http://www.panicware.com/

· Spybot Search & Destroy
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/news/index.html

· SpywareBlaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/

· SpywareGuard
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/

· Tweak All
http://www.codeforge.co.uk/tweakall.php

· Tweak UI
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloa...ppowertoys.mspx

· WinPatrol
http://www.winpatrol.com/

· XPAntiSpy
http://xp-antispy.org/index.php?option=com...=sellang&iso=en

· ZoneAlarm
http://www.zonelabs.com

Audio programs

· All2Wav Recorder (maybe this should not have been listed, latest version contains adware, I use an earlier version)
http://www.naturpic.com/all2wav/

· Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

· Cheetah Audio Converter
http://www.cheetahburner.com/

Internet Related programs

· FileZilla
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

· Firefox
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

· Mozilla Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

· NVU
http://www.nvu.com/

Image Creation & Manipulation programs

· Bworks
http://www.mediachance.com/digicam/bworks.htm

· ImageForge
http://www.cursorarts.com/ca_imffw.html

· IrfanView
http://www.irfanview.com/

· KoolMoves Lite
http://www.koolmoves.com/

· Paint.NET
http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

· PhotoFiltre
http://www.photofiltre.com/

· Pixia (website not very good for anyone with colour vision problems)
http://park18.wakwak.com/~pixia/

· Powerbullet Presenter
http://powerbullet.com/

· Ultimate Paint
http://www.ultimatepaint.com/

· VCW Vicman’s Photo Editor
http://www.vicman.net/vcwphoto/[

Office suite

· OpenOffice
http://www.openoffice.org/

Conversion program

· Versaverter
http://www.pawprint.net/vv/

GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/windows/
http://gimp-win.sourceforge.net/

Free, open-source, is a image program for create, edit, etc images. It is similiar to Photoshop and Paint Shop Pro, but free and exists for many platforms, Windows, Linux, Mac OS X.

How about a cool toy for making weird fractal images? Fractal Forge http://www.fractovia.org/uberto/

This is a harmless, simple but efficient mail notifier that sits in and notifys you via your system tray. Have been using it for about eight months. works great!

http://www.poptray.org/index.php

I use alot of the ones mentioned.
Didn't see:

http://www.crystalfibers.com/ Matrix my fav web editor

http://www.atmaxsoft.com/trayplayer.html fav audio media player

real or quicktime alternative with Media Player Classic fav video media player

http://www.equi4.com/ Catfish Disk catalog for disk online or offline.

http://www.magicaljellybean.com/ Jelly Bean extracts Windows CD-Key from your computer.

http://www.avast.com/ anti-virus I use

http://www.mp3tag.de/en/ MP3 tab editor

http://www.httrack.com/?pat download a entire website

AIDA 32

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html
[AIDA 32 is a professional system information, diagnostics and benchmarking program running on Win32 platforms. It extracts details of all components of the PC. It can display information on the screen, print it, or save it to file in various formats like HTML, CSV or XML.]

X Setup

http://www.majorgeeks.com/download4083.html
[X-Setup Pro is the ultimate in system configuration or tweaking as some people would say. It covers all types of options and has many useful features - for more information please read the rest of this section or browse to http://www.x-setup.net/ ]

System Tracker

http://www.hotscripts.com/Detailed/44874.html
[Description: System Tracker is a small yet powerful utility that gives complete control over all active processes on your computer. Detailed information about processes you may find is available from our online database and is conveniently accessed with a right click on any process. Basically it describes the files you may have found and explains what they do, therefore enabling the user to make an informed decision when determining if the process is desirable. Not only does it audit your machine and present all active processes, System Tracker shows all registry activity in real-time, shows what programs are set to automatically start by location, and also enables users to set programs to not start. You will find the tabs resourceful and intuitively simple to use. Whether using it to track down system resource traps that create performance anomalies, or just to learn more about what is happening behind the scenes on your computer, we think you will enjoy System Tracker. All free.]

AM-Deadlink

http://aignes.com/deadlink.htm
[AM-DeadLink detects dead links and duplicates in your Browser Bookmarks. If a Bookmark has become unavailable you can verify it in the internal preview and delete it from your Browser. Additionally you can download FavIcons for all your Favorites and Bookmarks. AM-Deadlink works with Internet Explorer, Opera, Mozilla and Firefox.]

Free & Easy Font Viewer

http://www.styopkin.com/details_free_and_e...nts_viewer.html
[Comfortable and free way to preview the fonts installed on your system.]

The Font Thing

http://www.download.com/The-Font-Thing/300..._4-1519711.html
[Software Publisher's Description Browse installed and uninstalled TrueType fonts, viewing sample text, individual characters, and detailed font information. Easy font-management functions let you install, uninstall, print, copy, or delete any number of fonts at once. You can even store your own notes with them, filter them according to type (serif, sans serif, and so on), and group them into collections for convenience. This version lets you choose your font colors, set up drop-down lists of standard text samples, rename font files to avoid conflicts, and load fonts temporarily for use without installing them. ]


Hope I did not duplicate any from previous suggestions.

Avant Browser
http://www.avantbrowser.com
Avant Browser, an upgrade to Internet Explorer. Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser. Now, Avant Browser is available in 39 languages.

NSIS
http://nsis.sourceforge.net/
NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a tool that allows programmers to create such installers for Windows. It is released under an open source license and is completely free for any use.

Driver Cleaner Pro
http://www.drivercleaner.net/
Driver Cleaner Professional Editon is a program which helps you to remove parts of drivers that are left after uninstalling the old drivers. The program is for ATI, nVidia, Creative, Realtek, SIS, 3Dfx, S3 and more drivers. First you need to uninstall the drivers from the control panel, then reboot. After rebooting, run the program. If you really want a good description of what steps you should take, then you really need to read the readme file included in the zip file and installation as it contains a detailed step by step description. The program also fully supports windows themes and other kind of themes.

Messenger Plus!
http://www.msgplus.net/
Messenger Plus! is an add-on for MSN Messenger and Windows Messenger, the two popular Instant Messaging softwares from Microsoft. Messenger Plus! adds different features to Messenger to make it more enjoyable, day after day.

Safe XP
http://www.theorica.net/safexp.htm
Safe XP allows users to quickly tweak various security and privacy related settings in XP. The options include Media Player settings, Services settings (error reporting, time synch, remote registry etc.), as well as and option to remove items from the Start menu, network security settings and more.

CPU-Z
http://www.cpuid.org/cpuz.php
CPU-Z is a freeware detection program that will detect your motherboard, ram, and cpu brand, type, and much more information.

I wouldn't use Avant Browser. Based off IE and literally uses parts of it (Read their FAQ).

Inno Setup
Inno Setup is a free installer for Windows programs. First introduced in 1997, Inno Setup today rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability. Even used by NASA and Microsoft. The best free installer out there. (And WAY better than the Nullsoft Installer)

ISTool
ISTool helps you create scripts for Jordan Russell's Inno Setup compiler. Inno Setup is a great compiler for very professional looking setups, and the only disadvantage is that you have to create fairly complex scripts by hand.

This is where ISTool comes in. With this application you can edit these scripts in a visual environment, and creating these setup scripts becomes much easier.

The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm

In an earlier post, I suggested a program that I might should withdraw. I recommended The Font Thing, but after checking the program closer, I found a lot of fonts are not entered correctly. Some download sites say that this program includes XP, but it does not. I have emailed to the site to ask about any plans to include XP, which hopefully the writer does plan to do. It may be that the fonts not being shown correctly are due to their format and not the program's OS requirements. Whatever the reason, I do want to point out that XP is not listed. I found another site that has several font viewers listed, described, and linked. Perhaps one or more of these will work for those interested in fonts.

http://www.freesoftware4all.co.uk/font_tools.htm

YPOPs!
http://sourceforge.net/projects/yahoopops
YPOPs! is an application which emulates a POP3/SMTP mail server and provides free POP3 and SMTP access to Yahoo! Mail. It does not depend on Yahoo's POP3/SMTP mail server. You can use a mail client of your choice!

Mozilla Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/
Thunderbird makes emailing safer, faster, and easier than ever before with the industry's best implementations of features such as intelligent spam filters, built-in RSS reader, quick search, and much more.

Since allot of us post images in many forums I've began to notice that allot of bandwidth can be saved if some images were saved as .png image files instead of .jpg and then optimized.

advpng
http://advancemame.sourceforge.net/comp-readme.html
Recompression utility for .png files. Comes with the advancecomp package.

see also http://pmt.sourceforge.net/pngcrush/

ZSoft Uninstaller 2.2 BETA
http://www.freewarefiles.com/program_9_104_12702.html
ZSoft Uninstaller is the better and easier way to uninstall programs on your computer. Location and uninstalling a program with ZSoft Uninstaller 2.2 is as easy as clicking a button.

TUGZip
http://www.tugzip.com/
TUGZip is a powerful award-winning freeware archiving utility for Windows® that provides support for a wide range of compressed, encoded and disc-image files, as well as very powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

MY FAVORITE
FREEWARE
http://aumha.org/freeware/freeware.htm

OTHER FREEWARE
RECOMMENDATIONS
http://aumha.org/freeware/morefree.htm

___________________________________
GT Ripple
Make your desktop come alive!
http://www.gtdesktop.com/?page=gtde...ebsite/gtripple

___________________________________
Desktop Sidebar
http://www.desktopsidebar.com/screenshots.html

___________________________________
Download Background Wizard
Small app to put background bitmaps inside Windows folders. Supports templates
http://www.geocities.com/phtm77/

TweakFX
http://tweakfx.net/
TweakFX is a powerful, plugin-based configuration tool for Windows...

I recently went on a software hunt to replace all of my software with free alternatives preferably open source software. The hunt took me months and i found a lot of dodgy software but by enlarge the software alternatives i found are better then the pay for apps i had before. Also i hated the fact i would install a app a app that does not need to operate on-line but yet it would still ask to get on-line(wtf is that all about) now that does not happen also i can now use my pc as soon as my pc starts rather then go and get a drink and wait 5 minutes for all the apps to start. Now thanks to faster more efficient apps and the fact i have found a app which allows me so remove start up apps. These are the results .

The following apps are all free contain no spyware and or adware, but(there is always a but) avast anti virus does require you to register which is free and they email a code which you put in the app, mainly because if you are a company you have to pay for it.

First is i found and now use a app called nLite(http://www.nliteos.com/) which allows you to remove windows applications which you do not use i.e. windows movie maker, windows messenger, system restore, outlook express, disability option, xp games(pinball etc) etc and create a bookable iso. Put it this way before tweaking my xp it weight in around 590Mb now it is 248Mb.(yes those number are correct)

Adware & Spyware protection:

Before=Ad-Aware SE Professional Edition*****After=Ad-aware SE Personal http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Adawa...nal/965718306/1
Scans your pc for adware & spyware and clears certain mru lists(i use CCleaner for that tho :-)i also was not aware there was a free version which does all i want but not the other stuff which i did not want.

Before=Msconfig*****After=AutoRuns http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Autoruns/1092024321/1
A lot more freedom and allows you to google the entries before deleting them. I also found the following site which allows you to type in the name of a .exe or .dll file and gives you advice whether to remove it or not. http://www.processlibrary.com/

Before=None*****After=Spyware Blaster http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Spywa...er/1056258294/1
Stops dangerous Active X from installing as well as other protection.

Before=Just Ad-Aware SE Personal*****After=Spybot Search and Destroy http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Spybo...oy/1043809773/1
Allows you to manual scan your pc for adware & spyware and adds a windows start up entry called a tea time which allows you to stop apps from adding them selves to you start up and SDhelper which stops you from download bad things from the net(Internet explorer only)

Anti Virus & Firewall protection:

Before=Panda one week norton the next etc etc*****After=Avast Anti Virus Home edition http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/avast_Home/1034566665/1
Brilliant anti virus app which does all the usual also it automatically updates the actual program as well as the anti virus definitions, allows skins and my fav it allows you to schedule a boot time time scan which is more efficient and faster.

Before=ZoneAlarm Security Suite*****After=ZoneAlarm http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/ZoneA...ee/1023831973/1
As strong as the security suite in terms of the firewall(which is all want) but without the spam, Instant messenger, Privacy etc protection.

Compression:

Before=PowerArchiver*****After=TugZip http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/TUGZip/1061582000/1
Looks and feels like PowerArchiver but its compltety free.

Pdf Reader:

Before=Adobe Acrobat Reader*****After=Foxit PDF Reader http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Foxit...er/1102316680/1
Smaller and a lot faster then acrobat and does not even need installing.

Media Player:

Before=Realone*****After=Real Alternative http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Real_...ve/1054136293/1
Allows me to still stream real content which is all i wanted it for but does not include the actual bulky player which i never used and can still play real media files thru windows media player.

Before Quicktime*****After=QuickTime Alternative http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Quick...ve/1049831315/1
Same as Real Alternative but for quicktime files.

Internet Browser:

Before=Opera*****After=Firefox http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Mozil...ws/1032985422/1
Brilliant, fast, secure, easy and highly customizable with themes and extensions.

File & folder backup:

Before=manual copy *****After=SyncBack http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/SyncBack/1070420627/1
WOW this is one brilliant app basically you configure it to copy any number of files, file types and or folders to another location(Cd-rw, flash drive, server etc) in my case a compressed file to my internal backup hd. It also uses Windows Scheduler to Schedule your backups.

Office App:

Before=Microsoft Office*****After=OpenOffice http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/OpenO...ws/1009574294/1
Another WoW program think of something Microsoft Office can do and for me OpenOffice will do the same.

Maintenance:

Before=A load of rubbish apps*****After=CCleaner
Do i need to say anything.

Before=Nothing*****After=NTREGOPT http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/NTREGOPT/1075895356/1
Backs up and defrags your registry.

Before=Nothing*****After=PageDefrag http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/PageDefrag.html
Defrags(at system restart) files that are open for exclusive access.

Before=Windows recycling bin*****After=Eraser http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Eraser/1010751436/1
Can empty the recycling bin by erasing the contents with special erasing algorithms and allows you to overwrite the free space on a hd so files will not be recoverable. It also alows you to right click a file and erase it in the same way.

Before=Nothing*****After=Driver Cleaner Professional http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Drive...al/1056384838/2
Removes files left over after uninstalling a driver which can conflict with a new driver.

Email:

Before=Hotmail*****After=Gmail http://gmail.google.com/
Fast, Free, HUGE storage(2290 MB and growing) and for me easier to use.(I have invites if you want one just pm me)

The following 3 entries are my fav because i have completely got rid of apps on my pc, taking up close to 6Gb of Hd space. Also if you see the below screenshot and look at the question mark on the right side of my dock that is a link to Wikipedia's search page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Search which acts like a shorcut to a app by when i click it it will launch firefox and directley take me to the search page.

Rss & Blog Reader:

Before=FeedDemon*****After=Bloglines http://www.bloglines.com/
Same again why have app with loads of feeds taking space up on your pc when you can someone else to store them for nothing.

Maps & Route Planner:

Before=Microsoft Autoroute*****After=Google Maps http://maps.google.com/ Again why pay for something you can get for free plus i live on a very small road that is no even in Autoroute(It does not have that much detail in it) yet low and behold i can find my road on google maps plus i love the interface, local search & directions features.

Encylopedia:

Before=Microsoft Encarta*****After=Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
It has everything encarta has yet it costs nothing anyone can make there own page about a subject they now about and as it is web based it does not take up 4.5Gb as encarta does. It also has a lot of things that encarta does not such as type a game in and 99% of the time there will be a page about and it is always up to date.

Visual:

Before=Nothing*****After=RK Launcher http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/RK_La...er/1110214441/1
A docking app see the bottom of the below screenshot.

Before=Nothing always forgot *****After=Rainlendar http://fileforum.betanews.com/detail/Rainlendar/970572945/1
Customizable calendar which can remind you off important events which you set. see bottom right corner of screenshot.

My current desktop:


Hope they help, there are some apps which i could not find suitable alternatives to which are list below if you guys know any please post a link thanks.

Current=Easy CD-DA Extractor i use it for converting my music from one format to another.

Current=Paint Shop pro, photo editing.

Current=Nero, dvd-rw burning i found a couple alternatives but the discs were coaster fired straight after burning.

Araneae
Plain-text processing program. Unfornatually not open-source, and only for Windows. But it's freeware, and its okay. Includes some syntax highlightning. Numbered lines, good for coding.
http://www.ornj.net/software/araneae/

Last Freeware Version

http://www.321download.com/LastFreeware/

I just downloaded a CD/DVD writer that's a MajorGeeks "pick", seems to work just fine. http://www.majorgeeks.com/CDBurnerXP_d4242.html
CDBurnerXP It's supposed to do data, video and audio, but all I've used it for so far is to burn some photos onto CD, it did a great job on that.

hi ,

I use most of those (especially the same than CapMan...)

this is another list (freeware , sharewares...)

http://lists.gpick.com/

http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32_freeware.html

http://www.singerscreations.com/Software.asp

(wheather watcher)

http://www.sysinternals.com/


http://www.sniff-em.com/realindex.shtml

(secure it and harden it)

http://the7thlab.mybesthost.com/

(regshot)

http://windirstat.sourceforge.net/

Customize Folder Shell Extension
Customize Folder is an operating system shell extension that adds an additional page to the properties of a folder or drive. This additional page provides some additional customizations above those provided by Microsoft.

Ability to alter appearance of folder contents including background and text colors..
Ability to use image as folder background pattern
Ability to associate descriptive text with a folder
Ability to alter the icon associated with a folder or removable drive
Over 330 icon images included
Translated to French, Spanish and German
Online Help Available

http://www.clonesoft.com/shellicons/index.htm

I almost forgot, to help you download all this stuff, there's Free Download Manager:

http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

And, if you use Firefox, you need the FlashGot extension to integrate it with the browser:

http://www.extensionsmirror.nl/index.php?s...798&hl=flashgot

InstallSpy v2.0 [1.23 MB]
This is not spyware, but a program to help you discover spyware! Track any and all changes to the registry and file system, and also record all shell notification events (e.g. media inserted), when a program is installed, uninstalled, or run. This can warn you of programs trying to install new services, programs that are set to run on reboot, changes to your home page, etc. It's a highly configurable program that allows you to catch any change to your system. Filtering lets you zoom down to the details that are most important to you.

FingerPrint v2.1.3 [1.46 MB]
A utility to see if any files in one or more directories have been created, deleted, or changed since the last scan. It's useful for checking if a program, e.g. viruses and trojans, has changed your all-important Windows files (this is similar to such security software as Tripwire). The use of MD5 checksums guarantee detection of file changes. FingerPrint can also be used to find duplicate files, search for files with a specific MD5 value, and save MD5 values to file (and compare with). A command line version is also included.

FireLogXP v1.3 [513 KB]
This is a simple program for people using the Internet Connection Firewall (ICF) in Windows XP. It will read the log file and show you who is trying to get into your computer, and through which ports. The data can be filtered to include/exclude protocols, connection types, and TCP flags. It includes connections to on-line resources to give you more information on what a specific port is for and how it may be being exploited.

http://www.2brightsparks.com/freeware/freeware-hub.html

I just found & love FastStone Image Viewer, it is free, and does a great job for my small needs. I can be found here:

FastStone Viewer

Have a great day,
Normandie

Rainlendar
is a customizable calendar that displays the current month. It is a very lightweight application that doesn't use much system resources or take much space on your desktop.
http://www.ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=proj...ject=rainlendar


DeepBurner Free
Powerful CD and DVD Burning Package
http://www.deepburner.com/?r=download


A Software to Rename [Start] button
http://www.geocities.com/startbtn/

Mr QuestionMan
http://www.burrrn.net

This is a very useful and impressive program that is freeware. A small download that doesn't install any adware, malware, spyware, or viruses. If you don't know which package to download get the installer version.

Information below was taken from the Readme.txt file:

Description:
Mr QuestionMan is an audio inspector. You can browse through your audio collection and it will show you useful information, like average bitrate, used encoder and settings, etc.

It supports many audio formats:
MPEG Audio (mp3), Musepack (mpc), WAV (wav), TwinVQ (vqf), Ogg Vorbis (ogg), Windows Media Audio (wma), AAC (aac), Speex (spx), Monkey's Audio (ape), WavPack (wv), FLAC (flac), TrueAudio (tta), OptimFROG (ofr), AC3 (ac3) and DTS (dts).

Burrrn
http://www.burrrn.net
Audio CD authoring software that's very easy to use.

Yet another impressive freeware program from Gambit. A small download that doesn't install any adware, malware, spyware, or viruses. If you don't know which package to download get the installer version.

Taken from the Readme.txt file:
Burrrn is a little tool for burrrning audio CDs with CD-Text from various audio files. Supported formats are: wav, mp3, mpc, ogg, aac, mp4, ape, flac, ofr, wv, tta, m3u, pls and fpl playlists and cue sheets. You can also burrrn EAC's noncompliant image + cue sheets! Burrrn can read all types of tags from all these formats (including ape tags in mp3). Burrrn uses cdrdao.exe for burrrning.

---

Other features I found:

* Burn-Proof:
Buffer underrun protection for drives that have that feature.

* Intelligent Write Speed Selection:
If the Window has the write speed set at 16x and you insert a 4x CD-RW disc it will intelligently and properly adjust the write speed accordingly.

* Quick Erase, and Full Erase support for CD-RW discs. You can use Burrrn to fully erase CD-RW discs which is something some commercial CD authoring software doesn't include. What this means is you can be sure with a full erase that the disc is put back in a "like new state." This greatly reduces the chance of corrupted files when you wish to create data CD's containing critical backups with a data CD authoring program.

* Doesn't write 2 second gaps in-between tracks. Meaning if you burrrn a live performance it will playback gapless without pauses in-between the various tracks.

Contig & Power Defragmenter
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Contig.html

Its a windows command line windows defragmenter but if you download Power Defragmenter it will add a nice and easy Gui to it which makes it a lot easier to use. You can defrag a specific file(s), folder(s), Disk Drive or there is a power mode which defrags the hard rives twice once after the other which I do anyway so its brilliant it does it automatically. As a result of it defraging files that windows would not defrag and being much faster I no longer have windows defragmenter on my pc . Another windows application bytes the dust

Download both contig & Power defragmenter and place them in the same folder then double click Power defragmenter to run and defrag away.

Tau Analyzer
http://www.true-audio.com

Information taken from the setup info window:
True Audio Analyzer - is a next generation of a popular AuCDtect, the program for determining the authenticity of musical CD records, and predicting is it an original studio record or a reconstruction from a lossy encoded data (for example MP3). Tau Analyzer works directly with CD and has a some of additional functions such as a Spectrum and Frequency analizers, ATIP and ISRC data readers, etc.

Please note: Tau Analyzer does not provide an absolutely warranty in results of detection. Sometimes the program can show a wrong result for single track (please see Testing Results and algorithm details at our site). Thus, to make sure you should check all of the CD contents for more trustable CD conclusion, except some special cases.

----------

False Statement:
The help documentation states that in the unregistered version you can only analyse the first 2 tracks of the disc instead of all of them. I've found this to be completely false, it analyses all tracks.

Analysis Process:
The analysis process takes some time as each track is scanned.

Guessing:
The software can be fooled into guessing an audio CD as an original (CDDA) if you've used high quality and high bitrate source files such as high bitrate mp3's, mpc's, ogg's, etc. However, tracks derived from low quality and low bitrate files are more easily detected.

Status Column (Meanings):
CDDA = The software thinks the audio CD is an original (see Guessing listed above)
MPEG = The software thinks the audio CD is a fake (derived from mp3's, mpc's, ogg's, etc.)
UNKN = The software doesn't know if the audio CD is an original or a fake.

Hostsman
http://hostsman.abelhadigital.com/

check this little app out its called Hostsman and allows you to manage a host file. From with in the program you can download 4 hosts files and update them separately then merge them together it will then block adverts known bad sites, some adware, spyware, torjans etc. It works so good at blocking adverts i have got rid of adblock plus for firefox and still no adverts, Sweet. The best thing is that no program actual runs while the adverts etc are being blocked hostsman is just a manger for the hosts file. It also blocks the above mentioned stuff system wide i.e. all adverts etc blocked from all web browsers .

Maxthon Browser......new build out today!

http://www.maxthon.com/

MD5 Fingerprint

MD5 Fingerprint will compare a MD5-Checksum of a app that you can just drag and drop into the app and a MD5-Checksum of which you paste into a box(I've emailed the developer to suggest a "Paste from Clipboard" box :-). Very easy to use, open source and a little extra security to insure you get the file you intended to get.

Firenotes

Firenotes places a icon in the task bar and through the program allows you to create a new note by just clicking on the icon. Very nice little app if you create a load of notes but as i don't i got rid of it, tho if i did create a load of note i would use this app.

AIMLite
IT's the regular AIM except with no ads, smaller and sleeker GUI, and 100% buddylist viewing .

Azureus
Azureus is a BitTorrent Client which is very good at what it does. it is written in Java so it is available in any OS that supports Java. it is also in the top 10 downloads list on sourceforge.net

BZFlag
BZFlag is an Open Source First-Shooter Multiplayer Game. it's very fun. you play by moving, getting flags that give you really good bonuses, and shooting the others. really fun.

DeadAIM
This program integrates itself into AIM giving it sweet featues such as logging, tabbed conversations, no ads, and a lot more. the last build was made in 2004 but still works on new version although it's kinda unstable. NOT FREE

eMule
The original eDonkey client really sucked ass. so what happened is someone put a team of programmers and thus the eMule project was born. it has more features than eDonkey2000, and it's top rated on the sf.net website. also has waaaaaaay too many features that make it popular

Ethereal
Ethereal is a network analyzer which analyzes packets or data that go in or out of the computer. really nice when you're making something to connect to a network. or game hacking in some cases. it uses the free WinPcap library

Filezilla and Filezilla Server
Filezilla is a very good and very popular FTP and SFTP client. works really great.
Filezilla Server is a program that lets you make your own FTP server. you can connect to it using Filezilla

Free Download Manager
a download manager unlike the rest. this little freeware tool can let you pause and resume downloads, open files without browsing for them, and much much more

KeePass Password Safe
This program is a must have if you have plenty of passwords. this program generates a passwords that you can copy and use. it's really simple too. it also saves the passwords in a highly encrypted database.

Google Earth
Google Earth is yet another program by google that allows you to basically view the entire earth at the click of a button. what's neat about it is the fact that you can make it so that it looks like you are really there. really nice program

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
This program has each and every codec that any player can play. it also has quicktime and real player codecs meaning that you can uninstall quicktime player and real player and still be able to play their type of media using Media Player classic or any other player.

Konfabulator
Konfabulator is a program that can let you put little windows on your desktop called widgets that can do many things such as control winamp, tell the weather, retrieve news, and much more

Microsoft Visual C++ Toolkit 2003
This program installs everything that a C++ programer needs to make programs. it has the compiler, the librarier, the header files, and everything.

Miranda IM
Miranda IM is the most lightweight All-In-One messenger out there. it has everything you need to chat online by the use of every IM network and with plugins, it makes Miranda IM better than most all-in-one clients

PDF Redirect v2
PDF reDirect v2 is a program that can let you create PDF files by adding itself as a printer on your computer. so basically all you do is print something and use PDF reDirect to save it. also has an option to encrypt the PDF and thats about all it ca do. the paid version can do much much more

PeerGuardian
This program is a safety tool that is basically a firewall that blocks all IPs that it has on its bad IPs list. it's really nice because you get protection from worms, bad p2p users, and you can even make your own lists. really nice

Shareaza
This program is the only program that anyone needs for p2p. it connects to the top 3 p2p networks(Gnutella(2), eDonkey2000) and let's you download and upload. really nice although would be better if it had support for the DC network . also has support for BitTorrent.

WinLyrics
WinLyrics is a plugin for Winamp that can let you search for the lyrics of the current song that you are currently listening to. it also highlights where the song is on on some songs. really nice but only free to try for 60 days

i got more but that's all for now .

Agent Ransack. 10 times faster than XPs file search engine. Get it here
Link

Adobe Reader For Win 2000