Freeware Replacements for Common Commercial Apps

Windows Desktop Customization

QZoom http://mira96.com/2009/07/19/107/#more-107

This is an amazing desktop zoom tool, smooth resizing using CTRL+Mousewheel.

Even Youtube videos will zoom in while you scroll.

http://www.youtube.com/v/f-3lyr9YGlw&hl=en&fs=1.swf

this is a nice freebie


WinX DVD Ripper
WinX DVD Ripper is a free software program that facilitates ripping the content of a DVD to computer hard disk drive and converting to popular video formats. It supports all types of DVDs including normal DVDs, CSS protected DVDs, commercial DVDs, Sony ArccOS DVDs, all region 1-6 DVDs and most of popular video formats such as FLV, AVI, MP4, WMV, MOV, MPEG1/2 as output video formats.

Edited by pete@21, 15 October 2009 - 03:00 PM.

Mhhm, I was under the impression that this would be listed already, but cant find it: http://www.alldup.de/ (currently not resolving for me), but he s got another site: http://www.thummerer-software-design.de/en_download.htm#alldup.

AllDup 2.0.10 is a program that removes duplicate files from your hard disk drives. This program searches into your drives for duplicate files using algorithms. AllDup allows you to specify the searching criteria by file content, name, extension, date or attirbutes. You will be able to find duplicates between text, pictures, music, movies or other files. Once AllDup has finished scanning your selected drive, it displays an expandable list with the name, number of found files, size, last modification date, creation date, attributes and location of every duplicated file that the program found....

http://www.giveawayoftheday.com/soft/206984/

Saved myself a few hundred MBs after making quick backups of the old pc when setting up this one and now sorting out accidental double savings asf.

InstantStorm
InstantStorm is a Windows freeware tool for creating Flash based screensavers with many advanced features. All you have to do is to choose an SWF file, set screensaver parameters and compile an executable installer. All 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Microsoft Windows are fully supported, including Windows 95 and Windows Vista. A

Edited by pete@21, 29 October 2009 - 03:42 PM.

How about Incredimail? According to download.com it has been tested spyware free, IncredimailI've used it before and I'm using it again since it works with Windows 7 64 bit.

edit to fix link.

Edited by Wildabeast, 04 November 2009 - 12:10 AM.

Aviary is a web-based graphics and audio application (SaaS / Cloud). It's fabulous and surprisingly powerful.

http://aviary.com

Hey tg1911 -

With so many of us dual-booting,

I'd suggest we add:

Neosmart's EasyBCD Editor to the list.

Or some other free Bootloader editor, if enough recommend it?


I'm using EasyBCD Editor on my desktop and notebook, both dual-booting Vista and W7, and find it works easily and as advertised.

I'm also seeing WinPatrol showing under the "Malware Removal" section.

Maybe it should also be under the "System Information" Section, since it provides a "startup" inspector and can enable/disable the programs running at startup, too?

Windows Desktop Customization

DeskDuster http://www.fewbyte.com/deskduster.html

DeskDuster 2010 is a program specifically designed to clean desktop from icons, allowing the user to look at the wallpaper images while the PC is inactive.

The program will load automatically with Windows, monitoring PC inactivity: if inactivity time ( default = 5 min ) will be reached, the program will make all of the icons on the desktop disappear. To see the icons again, simply move the mouse or press a key on the keyboard.

Graphics Design & Editing

FotoSketcher http://www.fotosketcher.com/

FotoSketcher is a 100% free program which can help you convert your digital photos into art, automatically. If you want to turn a portrait, the photograph of your house or a beautiful landscape into a painting, a sketch or a drawing then look no further, FotoSketcher will do the job in just a few seconds.

Gallery http://www.fotosketcher.com/gallery.htm

HI, guys.

there is a freeware called iWisoft Free Video Converter which can input and output all the video, audio, image formats that you can imagine. it also can merge, trim, crop videos. very useful tool and definitely Free.

It's official site: http://www.easy-video-converter.com

Tutorial: http://www.easy-video-converter.com/tutorial.html

Edited by jgweed, 18 November 2009 - 04:22 PM.

Free M4a to MP3 Converter - http://maniactools.com/soft/m4a-to-mp3-converter/index.shtml

Movienizer - http://movienizer.com/

Movienizer is a movie catalog that can find and collect information about movies. This programm can find information about a particular movie, an actor, actress, director, screenplay writer, download photos and DVD cover.Movienizer supports a number of different online movie databases.

File Compression and Archiving

FreeArc http://freearc.org/Default.aspx

# Free, open-source, with console and GUI versions for both Windows and Linux
# Includes LZMA, PPMD, TrueAudio and generic Multimedia compression algorithms with automatic switching by file type
# Filters that further improve compression: REP (finds repetitions at the distances up to 1gb), DICT (dictionary replacements for texts), DELTA (improves compression of tables in binary data), BCJ (executables preproccesor) and LZP (removes repetitions in texts)
# Special compression algorithms are used in fast compression modes (GRZIP for texts and Tornado for binary data)
# Overall, 11 compression algorithms and filters are included (compared to 3 in 7-zip and 7 in RAR) and this number still grows
# Smart file sorting that groups similar files together and fully customizable sorting order (see below) further improve compression
# Typically, FreeArc works 1.5-3 times faster than best programs in each compression class (ccm, 7-zip, rar, uharc -mz, pkzip) while retaining the same compression ratio; from technical grounds, it’s superior to any existing practical compressor

SUMATRA PDF
LESS RESOURCES USED THAN ADOBE WHICH ALWAYS HAS SECURITY ISSUES

Programming Languages & IDE/Editors

Program Name: JCreator LITE Edition (PRO Edition is the shareware).
Website: http://www.jcreator.org/ (Download link is under Product).
Compatibility: Windows 7, XP, Vista.
Description: A Java IDE for beginners. Quick code writing, easy debugging, and easy to use.

Screeny: