This is my list of must-have, totally free Windows software:
- Audacity - open source - A superb program for doing any audio editing. I like to use it to make ringtones for my phone.
- CDex - open source - Used to rip audio CDs into MP3s on my computer. Sure, I could use Windows Media Player to rip tracks into WMAs, but I prefer the MP3 format ’cause I’m old skool.
- FastStone Image Viewer - freeware - Simply the best for viewing pictures, bulk image renaming/converting, and removing red-eye from photos.
- FileZilla - open source - The best FTP program I’ve ever used. Stable, easy, and fast.
- Firefox - open source - What can I say - I love open source, so of course I use Firefox. IE7 may have finally started to catch up with tabs and RSS now, but they’re still way behind when compared to the plethora of extensions that Firefox has available.
- Foxit Reader - freeware - Do you get annoyed by how long it takes Adobe Reader to open, just to read a PDF? I know I do, and that’s why I use Foxit - it’s like the Adobe program except way faster, and it lets you do things like type on forms, copy text, and more.
- jZip - freeware - Forget Winzip, 7zip, WinRAR, or whatever else you’re using for ZIP files; jZip is fast, easy, and free.
- Media Player Classic - open source - Sometimes, I just wanna listen to one song, or watch one video. I don’t need the bulkiness of Windows Media Player for something so simple; instead, I use Media Player Classic. With the QuickTime Alternative and Real Alternative codecs installed, I can use Media Player Classic to view and listen to virtually any type of media without installing any other programs.
- Paint.NET - freeware - For a while I had used Photofiltre (below) for all of my image editing. Lately, though, I’ve been using Paint.NET. I really like the clean and slick user interface, and it has full support for layers.
- Photofiltre - freeware - I still do a lot of my photo editing with Photofiltre. Photofiltre’s great for cropping, resizing, tinting, coloring, and using effects to distort/change images, but it’s similar enough to MS Paint for beginners and pros alike.
- Programmer’s Notepad - open source - Useful for programmers, obviously, but also a good all-around alternative to Notepad because of it’s tabbed browsing. Programmer’s Notepad features many syntax highlighting methods for tons of languages including C, VB, XML, CSS, Python, SQL, and others.
- Windows Media Player 11 - for Windows - I never really liked Windows Media Player until Windows Media Player 11 came out. Since the release of WMP11, it’s now the only music player I use. I love the ID3 tag look-up functionality, the ease of navigating through the sleek black interface, and the overall layout between the content and the playlist. My biggest gripe probably lies with the equalizer, which is kinda hard to find; other than that, WMP11 is teh r0×0r and I use it for all of my jukebox needs.
- Yahoo! Messenger - freeware - It does everything I’d expect an IM program to do and more. Y! Messenger lets you share pictures, swap files, listen to internet radio, and (of course) IM your friends. Plus, Yahoo! has the best smileys, as you see here on my site.
