The Useful Freeware Thread

[Bad_Machine]

I've been using some decent freeware utilities for a while now and I thought I'd share. Most of these are available as standalone portable versions requiring no installation, and have very small memory footprints. Here they are in alphabetical order:

Autoruns for Windows v11.22
Autoruns for Windows
This utility provides a very comprehensive list of auto-starting locations, such as what programs and services start during boot, login, scheduled and so on as well as the order they are processed. It also covers shell extensions, toolbars, IE browser helper objects, auto-start services and so on. To help reveal difficult to find start-up processes, it can also hide signed Microsoft Entries. Items can be quickly disabled or re-enabled by simply toggling the checkbox against each.


CleanMem v2.3.1
CleanMem Free/Pro | PcWinTech.com
About CleanMem | PcWinTech.com
CleanMem works by calling a Windows API. It doesn't push processes to the swap file or change the working set of a process like conventional memory cleaners do. It simply asks Windows to do all the work so Windows does all the trimming/moving and manages everything. This is why there is no performance hit to the system. CleanMem doesn't work against the Windows memory manager, it works with it. It is more useful for people with not a lot of RAM installed.


Core Temp v1.0 RC2
Core Temp
Core Temp is a compact small footprint program to monitor processor temperature and other vital information. It is capable of displaying a temperature of each individual core of every processor in your system. You can see temperature fluctuations in real time with varying workloads. It relies on the Digital Thermal Sensor (DTS) implemented in most modern processors. DTS provides more accurate and higher resolution temperature readings than conventional onboard thermal sensors. Core Temp is also motherboard agnostic.


CPU-Z v1.59
CPUID - System & hardware benchmark, monitoring, reporting
OS-Wiz has already started a thread regarding this essential app.


CrystalDiskInfo v4.1.3 & CrystalDiskMark v3.0.1b
Download Center - Crystal Dew World
Nothing more to add about these two already renowned apps.


CubicExplorer v0.95.0.1424
Cubic Reality Software
A well featured file manager.


CUETools v2.1.2a
CUETools wiki
CUETools Download - CUETools wiki
CUETools is a tool for lossless audio/CUE sheet format conversion. The goal is to make sure the album image is preserved accurately. Many applications lose vital information upon conversion, and don't support all possible CUE sheet styles. Lossless disc image must be lossless not only in preserving contents of the audio tracks, but also in preserving gaps and CUE sheet contents, and that's where CUETools comes in handy.


DeskSave v8.2.1
DeskSave -* Save and restore the positions of the icons on your desktop
A simple little app that allows saving and restoring of different icon layouts for each desktop resolution.


Dummy File Creator v1.2
MyNikko.com - Dummy File Creator
A simple program which generates files of any size with ease. Very useful for disk speed test, CD/DVD/BD burning test, network speed test, or simply create files to fool your friends. This program also has a built-in random function, so users can choose to create either compressible or non-compressible files.


Eraser v6.0.9.2343
Eraser
A nice little file/folder shredder.


Explorer++ v1.3.4
Explorer++ - A small and fast file manager for Windows
Another decent file manager.


FloatLED v1.12
Stone Oakvalley Studios - One Crazy Multi Talent
An neat little program that monitors drive activity and shows them as blinking read, write and read/write icons in a small floating window to place anywhere on your workspace. Auto detects whenever a drive is removed or turned on (USB HDD's for instance). It gives a clear, real-time visual indicator of all disk activity.


FILEminimizer Pictures v3.0.0.210
Image compression JPEG, JPG, GIF, BMP, TIFF, PNG: Compress images, photos, pictures
FILEminimizer Pictures is free software to reduce the size of your images, photos and pictures by up to 98% through our native file optimization technology. After compression, your photos and images are still in your image format and are still beautiful - but a lot smaller in size!


H2testw 1.4
H2testw - Check your flash memory card or USB drive for defects
An essential tool for anyone who has bought a USB flash drive or memory card from eBay, market place or any other less known supplier to make sure it is not a fake. Also very useful to check a new or second hand memory card or USB flash drive for defects.


Hugin 2011.4.0
Hugin - Panorama Photo Stitcher
Stitches multiple overlapping photos together to give a single panoramic image, like as if the photo was taken with a wide angle or fish-eye lens as well as views impossible to capture in a single shot with any lens.


inSSIDer
Open-source Wi-Fi Scanner
Shows a visual chart showing nearby Wi-Fi access points, the spectrum they cover and the signal strength of each access point. Useful for finding the strongest public Wi-Fi access point or to find a less congested channel to change your access point channel to. It also displays a table of access points showing the signal dBm over time, MAC Address, SSID, Channel #, RSSI and Time Last Seen.


IObit Toolbox v1.2
Products - IObit
Similar to the likes of TuneUp Utilities, but freeware. Once you open the above link, ignore the paid versions at the top. Just scroll down for their freeware links. Overall I was surprised to see that they give for free tuning programs that other developers charge for.


Junction Link Magic v2.0.3.0
Junction Link Magic
Junction Link Magic automatically lists existing junction points, and it offers an easy interface to add, modify or remove junction points.



MKVMerge v5.0.1
mkvtoolnix -- Matroska tools for Linux/Unix and Windows
Nice little tool that allows changing the container of many different video files to Matroska (mkv). It makes it very easy to integrate subtitles, chapters, and additional audio/video streams into a single .mkv file.


Monkey's Audio v4.10
Monkey's Audio - a fast and powerful lossless audio compressor
Very good lossless audio compression. Does the same thing as FLAC, but its compression is better. A good little app to make your WAV files as small as possible without losing quality.


mp3DirectCut v2.13
mp3DirectCut - editor to cut, fade, split and record compressed mpeg audio
Fast and extensive audio editor and recorder for compressed mp3. You can directly cut, copy, paste or change the volume with no need to decompress your files for audio editing. This saves encoding time and preserves the original quality, because nothing will be re-encoded. The built in recorder creates mp3 on the fly from your audio input. Using Cue sheets, pause detection or Auto cue you can easily divide long MP3 files into their individual tracks.


MP3Gain v1.2.5
MP3Gain
MP3Gain analyzes and adjusts mp3 files so that they have the same volume. It does not just do peak normalization, as many normalizers do. Instead, it does some statistical analysis to determine how loud the file actually sounds to the human ear. Also, the changes MP3Gain makes are completely lossless. There is no quality lost in the change because the program adjusts the mp3 file directly, without decoding and re-encoding. MP3Gain determines the Replaygain values for the MP3 file, then writes to the global gain header of every block, adjusting them all up or down by the same amount in order to achieve those Replaygain values. MP3Gain also writes a Replaygain header which applies to the whole MP3 file. Since MP3Gain has adjusted the global gain field for each block to give the right volume, the volume adjustments in that Replaygain header will be small. This MP3 file will then play at the right volume in all players, regardless if they are Replaygain-aware or not.


Nero DiscSpeed v6.2.3.100
Nero - Tools & Utilities
Nero DiscSpeed is an excellent easy-to-use benchmarking tool for testing the operational capabilities of a recorder. As a multi-functional tool, Nero DiscSpeed also works for testing the speed of your CD/DVD disc drive as well as testing and benchmarking blanks and burned discs. It can be configured to run according to your desired results. Results can be viewed either as a graph or as a test log.


PeerBlock v1.1.0.518
PeerBlock
PeerBlock lets you control who your computer "talks to" on the Internet. By selecting appropriate lists of "known bad" computers, you can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been "hacked", even entire countries. They can't get into your computer, and your computer won't try to send them anything either.


PhotoRec 6.13
PhotoRec, Digital Picture and File Recovery
A low level lost file recovery that bypasses the file system to recover files even after a reformat. It can recover data from severely damaged file systems that regular undeletion software cannot recover. As the name suggests, it's useful for photo recovery such as a memory card where the file table is corrupt or undredable due to a bad block. As PhotoRec is quite tedious and is designed to recover data bypassing the file system, try Recuva below first.


Pismo File Mount Audit Package build 162
Pismo File Mount Audit Package
Mounts a ZIP file or disc image (ISO, CFS, etc.) as a read-only folder or drive letter. Unlike a Windows ZIP folder, the contents can be directly accessed as if the files were in an actual folder or drive letter. It also has its own password protected private folder file format, which is similar to TrueCrypt file, but with compression.


Process Explorer v15.05
Process Explorer
Everyone knows what this is...


Recuva 1.42.544
File undeletion/recovery
Excellent file recovery utility that can recover files after emptying the recycle bin or which were deleted from a memory card or USB flash drive. It takes just a few seconds to scan and can recover files from various file systems such as FAT12/16/32, exFAT and NTFS. See also PhotoRec above.


Subtitle Edit v3.2.2
Subtitle Edit
Hands down this is the best tool to create/modify subtitles of many different formats.


Simple Socket File Tranfer v1.0
Simple Socket File Transfer 1.0 - WhitSoft Development
This utility will transfer a file between two computers using a TCP port of your choosing. One computer uses Passive mode and listens on a port for a connection from the other computer, which will use Active mode to connect to the first computer via its IP address. Regardless of the selection of which computer will use Passive mode and which will use Active mode, files can be sent in either direction. Partially completed transfers can be resumed, and files are automatically checked with MD5 to ensure they were received error-free. This utility is available in both ANSI and Unicode builds, and has no dependencies on any libraries beyond those included with Windows.


TagScanner v5.1.602
The Ultimate TagScanner: News
This is a great little tool to create/modify tags for all sorts of audio files. You can integrate any kind of possible info into the tag including lyrics, artwork, and a lot more.


TechPowerUp GPU-Z v0.5.5
GPU-Z Video card GPU Information Utility
Again, no desription necessary...


The Onion Router (ToR) anonymous browsing standalone bundle v2.2.35-7.1
https://www.torproject.org/download/...d-easy.html.en
A nice little anonymous browsing bundle. Includes standalone Firefox browser.


Toolwiz Care & other very useful Toolwiz freeware
Toolwiz Care & Software
Various software covering anti-spyware, privacy protection, registry cleaning/defrag, hard disk defragmentation, file recovery, diagnostics and various other PC Tune-ups. Does many of the tasks those heavily promoted pay tools do.


Tsoft MD5 Checker v2.31
http://download.freewarefiles.com/files/mwmd5.zip
A very simple but effective standalone MD5 Checker very useful to create and verify file checksums. This looks like an abandoned freeware project but it still does the job it was made for, and it does it well.


Turbo Service Manager v1.5
Turbo Services Manager
Superb little tool to configure Windows services. It allows users to save and restore different Windows Services setups for different uses. For example you create a gaming services setup where all services not essential to gaming will be disabled, then and save it as a loadable profile. Obviously this is not for novice users, so if you don't know what you're doing just leave it well alone.


TweakPrefetch v5.1.2.1
SoftHardware: TweakPrefetch
An tiny little program that allows you to easily configure Prefetch and Superfetch on your system without having to go through regedit.


XMedia Recode v3.0.8.1
XMedia Recode - Download
Probably the best and most well-featured freeware all-format video converter IMO. Once you try it you will most probably stick with it and won't bother to use anything else for your video conversions - it is that good!

These are the ones I have used the most. If you have any recommendations regarding your favorite freeware, please post here!

[OS-Wiz]

Microsoft Security Essentials
Microsoft Security Essentials - Free Antivirus for Windows
A light-weight, non-intrusive anti-virus/malware app.

[Hameister]

Be advised...

This thread... The Best Freeware Thread was started back in April, 2011.

It contains several of the same software titles listed here. I didn't merge the threads, because they both contained considerable quality software suggestions, with a considerable time lapse in between.

---------- Post added at 09:09 AM ---------- Previous post was at 09:00 AM ----------

I noticed that OS-Wiz forgot to list Avast Anti-Virus Software, so I'll add it here...

Avast Free Antivirus - Reviews and free Avast Free Antivirus downloads at CNET Download.com

It's more manageable than M$ Essentials, and doesn't interfere with game trainers.

It's better than the M$ offering, and isn't owned by a massive greedy corporate structure. It's a small company with a great product, that makes you feel patriotic when you support them. But, perhaps I digress.

[Bad_Machine]

I wasn't aware of the previous thread Hammer. I'm currently using Avast myself but on my aging Athlon X2 system I found it slowed down things a bit. However I have to say that it features stuff on its free version that other companies only feature on paid versions and of course I can't take its performance on my old system as indicative.

[Hameister]

I wasn't aware of the previous thread Hammer. I'm currently using Avast myself but on my aging Athlon X2 system I found it slowed down things a bit. However I have to say that it features stuff on its free version that other companies only feature on paid versions and of course I can't take its performance on my old system as indicative.

No problem on the threads. Easy to overlook. If we were a huge site where 2 similar threads would cause confusion, I'd merge them. I don't see a need for it here. If Les wishes to merge them he will.

As for Avast, give it a try on your new monster machine. I find it completely unobtrusive. I don't even know it's there, and it doesn't slow down anything, or cause any conflicts with anything. Of course that's just my machine, based on my software.

I'm always kidding Wizzer about M$ Essentials because I've compared it to Avast on several occasions over the past year or so, and always go back to Avast. I'm aware that Essentials is rated higher in most reviews, but like I tell Wiz, that's only because Microsoft thugs are threatening the reviewers, and there families, ha!

[Bad_Machine]

Found these freeware utils recently:

Time Freeze is especially useful, it's a light virtualization app similar to Shadow Defender (but with less options) but totally free. I've tried it and it works well, very useful to undo system changes between reboots.

Toolwiz Care is another decent one, it's a free and very well-featured system optimizer with the kind of functionality and options that other software developers charge a fee for.

Liks here:

Downloads | Toolwiz Software

[stratosrally]

Wow, 4.5 stars from 70 reviewers on CNET! Sounds like it's worth a try. I'll check it out later, thanks!

I always Google new freeware titles just in case there are issues with spyware, etc - unsafe to just depend on their promises - Nothing personal, Bad_Machine!

[Darcy]

Ham, is it possible for you copy this thread into the thread that we have that lists good downloads so it all stays together?
i can't seem to locate the thread @ the moment; i thought it was made into a "Sticky",,,

[Bad_Machine]

No prob Stratos, I do the same. I'm a member at Wilders and that's a pretty good place to discuss the safety of apps - that's where I found out about these programs. It's a relatively new company and they are listening to our comments and suggestions. There's an open line of communication at Wilders between users and James (one of the Toolwiz developers). He reads the comments and takes into account users' suggestions. I see this as a great way to build an app the way people want.

[Sean]

Ham, is it possible for you copy this thread into the thread that we have that lists good downloads so it all stays together?
i can't seem to locate the thread @ the moment; i thought it was made into a "Sticky",,,

I came across the thread, made it sticky and merged these posts into it.

I added Toolwiz to the first post. Feel free to change or improve description.