Software Tools, Programs & Utilities We Use & Happen to Like!
AC3Filter - AC3Filter is a high quality free audio decoder and processor filter. It allows media players to playback movies with AC3 and DTS audio tracks. Also it can process any audio track, much of processing options allows to adjust the sound in almost any way. It is possible to upmix any audio source to 6 channels. Filter can do multi-channel and digital (SPDIF) output. It can encode any audio source to AC3 on-the-fly and send it over SPDIF to the receiver.- Download Link -
Ad-aware - Ad-aware is THE award winning, free, multicomponent spyware detection and removal utility that consistently leads the industry in safety, user satisfaction, support and reliability. -free only for home and non-commercial use
Any Video Converter
- Any Video Converter is an All-in-One video converting tool with easy-to-use graphical interface, fast converting speed and excellent video quality. -Download Link for free version-
Autoruns - Autoruns shows you what programs are configured to run during system bootup or login, and shows you the entries in the order Windows processes them. These programs include ones in your startup folder, Run, RunOnce, and other Registry keys. You can configure Autoruns to show other locations, including Explorer shell extensions, toolbars, browser helper objects, Winlogon notifications, auto-start services, and much more. Autoruns goes way beyond the MSConfig utility bundled with Windows Me and XP.
Avast! Antivirus Software - avast! antivirus software is based on the ALWIL Software Virus, Worm and Trojan horse scanning technology since 1988. This product is free for home non-commercial use after registration! If you are not a home user or you use your computer for profit, you should buy the commercial version here. - Download Link - Registration Link - VPS Update - VPS History - Skins - Support Forum free only for home and non-commercial use
Avast! Virus Cleaner - avast! Virus Cleaner is available free for every user. This tool will help you remove selected worm infections from your computer. If, despite all the security measures you take, your computer gets infected by a virus or worm, it is necessary to disinfect your system somehow. While for some viruses the only 100% reliable method of disinfection is restoring your system from backups, for many common infections this is not really necessary and the virus/worm can be removed quite easily. -Download Link- free only for home and non-commercial use
Audacity - Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. -Download Link-
- Dan Elliott's Audacity 1.2 Tutorial - During this tutorial, you will learn the VERY BASICS on how to use the Open Source sound editing program Audacity. During this tutorial, you will do some simple edits on a .WAV file and have the option of creating an MP3 from the finished product.
- Master your MP3s with Audacity - CNet how to article by By Jessica Dolcourt on 31 January 2007
- Noise Removal - How to (with dvreen shots) from podtopia.net
- Noise Removal - How to Video from podtopia.net
Audiograbber - Audiograbber is a beautiful piece of software that grabs digital audio from cd's. It copies the audio digitally-not through the soundcard-which enables you to make perfect copies of the originals. It can even perform a test to see that the copies really are perfect. Audiograbber can also automatically normalize the music, delete silence from the start and/or end of tracks, and send them to a variety or external MP3 encoders, such as Fraunhofers L3enc, or even use some MP3/WMA encoders internally for automatic creation of MP3's. Audiograbber can download and upload disc info from freedb, an Internet compact disc database. You can even record your vinyl LP's or cassette tapes with Audiograbber and make wav's or MP3's of them. There are a lot more functions in Audiograbber, but to put it simply: Audiograbber has the most features one can wish from such a program! Another great thing with this software is that it does not put a single file in your windows directories! No DLL's, OCX's, device drivers, spyware, adware or whatever else that messes up the computer. Not a single entry in the registry or win.ini. If you delete the Audiograbber directory it's all gone, that's it! -Download Link-
Belarc Advisor - The Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, including Microsoft Hotfixes, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server.
Burrrn is a little tool for creating 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 burn 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 burning.
CCleaner - CCleaner 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 is fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :) -Support Forum- / -Download Link-
CDBurnerXP is a free application 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.
dBpowerAMP Music Converter - Audio conversion perfected, effortlessly convert between formats.
dBpoweramp (CD Ripper & Music Converter) - a package of tools to RIP CDs, Burn Audio CD's & Convert audio files. By far the best CD Ripper in the world. The basic tool is free but powerful adons are available for a great price. I use dBpoweramp Reference R14 with the Family Pack option (allows to be used on 5 computers.
DVD Decrypter - The ultimate DVD ripper. Unprotect a DVD and copy it to your harddrive for playback with DVD software player. -Support Forum- -Download Link-
DVD Shrink - DVD Shrink is software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc. Shrink or reauthor your files to fit your dvd. Program has built in decryption. DVD Shrink is free! -Download Link-
FileASSASSIN - is an application that can delete any type of locked files that are on your computer. Whether the files are from a malware infection or just a particular file that will not delete - FileASSASSIN can remove it.
Firefox - My Internet browser of choice these days for many reasons. The Web is all about innovation, and Firefox sets the pace with dozens of new features to deliver a faster, more secure and customizable Web browsing experience for all.
Firefox Addons:
- Adblock Plus - Annoyed by adverts? Troubled by tracking? Bothered by banners? Install Adblock Plus now to regain control of the internet and change the way that you view the web.
- DownThemAll! - The first and only download manager/accelerator built inside Firefox!
- Easy DragToGo - Allows you to open links in new tabs, serach texts, save images and do more with drag and drop gestures easier.
- Element Hiding Helper for Adblock Plus - Fight the text ads! Element Hiding Helper is a companion extension for Adblock Plus meant to make creating element hiding rules easier.
- FEBE - FEBE (Firefox Environment Backup Extension) allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up -- It will actually rebuild your extensions individually into installable .xpi files. Now you can easily synchronize your office and home browsers.
- Google Redesigned - A complete redesign of popular Google services, Google Redesigned loads and manages several CSS stylesheets that change the appearance of popular tools.
- KeeFox - KeeFox adds free, secure and easy to use password management features to Firefox which save you time and keep your private data more secure. Think of KeeFox as a bridge or connection between Firefox and KeePass Password Safe, the most popular open source (and free) password manager.
- Read It Later - Save pages to read later with just one click. When you have time, access your reading list from any computer or phone, even without an internet connection!
- Stylish - Restyle the web with Stylish, a user styles manager. Stylish lets you easily install themes and skins for Google, Facebook, YouTube, Orkut, and many, many other sites. You can even customize Firefox and other programs themselves.
- Tab Mix Plus - Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox's tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager.
- Xmarks Sync - Xmarks is the #1 bookmarking add-on. Keep your bookmarks, passwords and open tabs backed up and synchronized across computers and browsers.
- Greasemonkey - Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript.
Greasemonkey Scripts:
- Drudge Style - Updates the lack of style on the Drudge Report (DrudgeReport.com) so it looks cleaner.
- FFixer - Enhancements for Facebook: bigger profile pictures and photos, easier viewing of albums, links to download videos, showing people's age and sign, google calendar integration, keyboard shortcuts & more. Compatible with new Facebook and fully customizable!
- Profanity Filter - Filters Out Swear Words As You Browse the Internet,
- Yousable TubeFix - Removes ads and unwanted sections (configurable), allows downloading and resizing videos, changes the default video quality, expands the description and the video size, can prevent autoplay and autobuffering, etc.
Gallery Constructor 2 - Software for creating fully customisable web galleries / albums from your digital photos. Why get stuck on fixed gallery templates when you can customize them to your needs? Customisable templates using standard XSL-transforms. Saves projects using standard XML-format. Galleries can be viewed with any available web browser. Works on Windows, Linux and Mac OS X (Requires Java 1.4.1. or newer from Sun Microsystems). Built-in FTP-client for publishing the albums / galleries. Slideshow for viewing your photos. Various plugins for image effect like watermarks, text and exif stamps, auto orientation, drop shadows, borders and you can also rotate and crop selected photos. -Support Forum- -Download Link-
Handbrake - HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded DVD to MPEG-4 converter, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows. HandBrake is not a ripper. It converts video, it does not rip it byte by byte. It does not crack the latest DVD copy protection schemes hatched by the studios. It converts video from nearly any format to a handful of modern ones—that's it.
HijackThis - HijackThis is a tool, that lists all installed browser add-on, buttons, startup items and allows you to inspect, and optionally remove selected items. The program can create a backup of your original settings and also ignore selected items. Additional features include a simple list of all startup items, default start page, online updates and more. Intended for advanced users.
ImgBurn - ImgBurn is a lightweight CD / DVD / HD DVD / Blu-ray burning application that everyone should have in their toolkit!
IrfanView - IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista. -Download Link-
JPG Cleaner - JPG Cleaner is simple but powerful utility for cleaning JPG files from anything that is not picture data. Commonly used programs such as Adobe Photoshop are writing additional information into JPG file that isn't needed for correctly displaying the picture.
K9 Web Protection - K9 is a free Internet filtering and control solution for the home. K9 puts YOU in control of the Internet so you can protect your kids.
KeePass Password Safe - KeePass is a free open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file.
Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware is considered to be the next step in the detection and removal of malware. We compiled 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 on the market today cannot.
MetaPad - Metapad is a small, fast (and completely free) text editor for Windows 9x/NT/XP with similar features to Microsoft Notepad but with many extra (and rather useful) features. It was designed to completely replace Notepad since it includes all of Notepad's features and much, much more. "Metapad is a great choice for those who like their text editors small, fast, and free" - ZDNet Downloads.
MP3TAG - is a powerful and yet easy-to-use tool to edit metadata of common audio formats where it supports ID3v1, ID3v2.3, ID3v2.4, iTunes MP4, WMA, Vorbis Comments and APE Tags. It can rename files based on the tag information, replace characters or words in tags and filenames, import/export tag information, create playlists and more. Mp3tag supports online database lookups from, e.g., Amazon, discogs, or freedb, allowing you to automatically gather proper tags and cover art for your music library. -Download Link-
Maxthon Browser - A powerful multi-tabbed browser based on the IE core (IE5.x and above). It can open multiple web pages in just one window, with each page in a separate tab. Maxthon uses little system resources when surfing, has a highly customizable user interface and supports special plugins & IE extensions. Maxthon is freeware with no bound ads & needs no registration. -Support Forum-
MaxthonSkins is the site where you can download skins for Maxthon Browser.
My MP4Box GUI - My MP4Box GUI is a Graphical User Interface for the well-known command line tool mp4box. My MP4Box GUI, like mp4box, is freeware. This tool is used to split MP4 videos to set time length, join MP4 video clips or to extract sections of MP4 videos.
Notepad++ - is a free (as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer") source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages. Running in the MS Windows environment, its use is governed by GPL License. -Download Link-
Photoscape - Photoscape is the fun and easy photo editing software that enables you to fix and enhance photos. Photoscape is provided free-of-charge.
We are always upgrading Photoscape.
- Viewer: View your folders photos, slideshow
- Editor: resizing, brightness and color adjustment, white balance, backlight correction, frames, balloons, mosaic mode, adding text, drawing pictures, cropping, filters, red eye removal, blooming
- Batch editor: Batch editing multiple photos
- Page: Make one photo by merging multiple photos at the page frame
- Combine: Make one photo by attaching multiple photos vertically or horizontally
- Animated GIF: Make one animation photo with multiple photos
- Print: Print portrait shot, carte de visite, passport photo
- Screen Capture: Capture your screenshot and save it
- Color Picker: Zoom in screen on images, search and pick the color
- Rename: Change photo file names in batch mode
- Raw Converter: Convert RAW to JPG
Picasa -
Picasa is free photo editing software from Google that makes your pictures look great.
Sharing your best photos with friends and family is as easy as pressing a button! -FileHippo.com Download Link-
Proxomitron - For those who have not yet been introduced, meet the Proxomitron: a free,highly flexible, user-configurable, small but very powerful, local HTTP web-filtering proxy. -Download Link-
RegSeeker - RegSeeker is a perfect companion for your Windows registry! RegSeeker includes a powerful registry cleaner and can display various informations like your startup entries, several histories (even index.dat files), installed applications and much more! With RegSeeker you can search for any item inside your registry, export/delete the results, open them in the registry. RegSeeker also includes a tweaks panel to optimize your OS! Now RegSeeker includes a file tool to search for duplicate files, bad shortcuts and more! RegSeeker is FREE for personal use only. -Direct Download Link-
RogueRemover FREE - is an application that can remove rogue anti spyware, antivirus, and hard drive cleaning applications with ease. Rogue applications provide false information about the safety of your computer as well as, give erroneous scan results or put their own malware on your computer. It has the ability to completely remove WinAntiSpyware/WinAntiVirus, SpyAxe, VirusBlast, VirusBursters, as well as a number of other rogue applications. In addition, we have implemented a threats center which will allow you to keep up to date with the latest rogue threats.
Speccy - 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. Additionally Speccy adds the temperatures of your different components, so you can easily see if there's a problem.
SpyBot Search & Destroy - Spybot Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware, malware, hijackers of different kinds from your computer. Spybot-S&D can also clean usage tracks, an interesting function if you share your computer with other users and don't want them to see what you worked on. -Support Forum-
SpywareBlaster - SpywareBlaster can help keep your system spyware-free and secure, without interfering with the "good side" of the web. And unlike other programs, SpywareBlaster does not have to remain running in the background. SpywareBlaster is freeware for personal and educational use. -Support Forum-
StartUpLite - Malwarebytes has created a safe, easy, and efficient way to eliminate these unnecessary applications that start when you turn on your computer - StartUpLite. StartUpLite is a lightweight and simple to use application that allows you to speed up your system startup, safely and efficiently. The program allows you to disable or remove unnecessary startup entries from your computer. By using StartUpLite, you can dramatically help shorten your startup time with only a few clicks of the mouse.
SUPER v2010 - SUPER is an easy-to-use Multimedia Encoder and Player, requiring only one simple click. -Download Link-
Total Commander - $32.00 - An excellent Norton Commander style file manager for Windows® 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP. Tons of features -Two file windows side by side, Enhanced search function, Compare files / synchronize directories,Quick View panel with bitmap display, ZIP, ARJ, LZH, RAR, UC2, TAR, GZ, CAB, ACE archive handling + plugins, Built-in FTP client with FXP (server to server) and HTTP proxy support, Parallel port link, multi-rename tool and much more. Ton's of third party addons. Author's own -Support Forum-
- Club Total - Club Total is an online archive with information, tools, plugins and other utilities that can be used with Total Commander (TC), the great file manager made by Christian Ghisler.
- TotalCMD.net - Unofficial Total Commander file support.
Unlocker - Helps to delete locked files
VidCoder - Is a DVD/Blu-ray ripping and video transcoding application for Windows. It uses HandBrake as its encoding engine.
Calling directly into the HandBrake library gives it a more rich UI than the official HandBrake Windows GUI.
VLC Media Player - VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols without external codec or program.
WhatInStartup - by Nir Soft - An excellent freeware program for viewing, disabling and removing startup entries & browser helper objects.
WinSCP - WinSCP is an open source freeware SFTP client for Windows using SSH. Legacy SCP protocol is also supported. Its main function is safe copying of files between a local and a remote computer. -Download Link- -Support Forum-
XBMC Media Center - XBMC is an award winning media center application for Linux, Mac OS X, Windows and XBox. The ultimate hub for all your media, XBMC is easy to use, looks slick, and has a large helpful community. -Download Link-
****** Excellent Freeware List from bleeping computer forums
****** Excellent site for Various tools downloades www.filehippo.com
Last Updated -
January 19, 2011 |