
Surviving Windows
Process Hacker is a feature-packed tool for manipulating processes and services on your computer. A free and open source process viewer with powerful process termination and memory searching/editing capabilities.
Key features of Process Hacker:
• A simple, customizable tree view with highlighting showing you the processes running on your computer. • Detailed system statistics with graphs. • Advanced features not found in other programs, such as detaching from debuggers, viewing GDI handles, viewing heaps, injecting and unloading DLLs, and more. • Powerful process termination that bypasses security software and rootkits. • View, edit and control services, including those not shown by the Services console. • View and close network connections. • Starts up almost instantly, unlike other programs.
Background : One of the few features I missed from Mac OS X is Quick Look. It allows user peek into a file content in a lightening speed by just pressing the Space key. Windows, on the other hand, does not has this handy feature ... until now.
I am aware that several alternatives are already available on the Internet (e.g. WinQuickLook and Seer). Despite these options, I still decide to craft another one by myself, because they are either not being actively developed, lacks of variety, or asks for a amount of $$$.
Highlights : Tons of supported file types Built-in list: https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook/wiki/Supported-File-Types) Plug-ins : https://github.com/QL-Win/QuickLook/wiki/Available-Plugins Fluent design (new in version 0.3) Touchscreen friendly HiDPI support Preview from Open and Save File Dialog Preview from 3rd-party file managers (see a list here) Easy extended by plugins Strict GPL license to keep it free forever
Light enough to use as my go-to (non-IDE) editor, has python extensions. What more can you ask for?
QTTabBar is an extension for Windows Explorer that brings tabbed browsing to Microsoft's file browser. It comes with a number of nifty features including a favorites function for launching folders and applications, groupings of folders that can be opened together, tooltip preview functions for a number of file types, and others. It is also highly customizable and hotkey-enabled.
QTTabBar was written by a Japanese developer known as “Quizo” (hence the name QTTabBar) but because of lack of time, he gave the project over to Paul Accisano. Actually "Quizo" was resumed development. Open source branch of QTTabBar: http://qttabbar.sourceforge.net/
A free and open source web browser descended from the Mozilla Application Suite. Firefox is highly extensible, with thousands of third-party add-ons available.
Firefox version 60+ (Quantum) is presently faster than Google Chrome and use less memory than Chrome. Compare to previous versions of Firefox, the Quantum version is twice as fast, promote parallelism, and has more intuitive user interface.
Qalculate! is a multi-purpose cross-platform desktop calculator. It is simple to use but provides power and versatility normally reserved for complicated math packages, as well as useful tools for everyday needs (such as currency conversion and percent calculation). Features include a large library of customizable functions, unit calculations and conversion, physical constants, symbolic calculations (including integrals and equations), arbitrary precision, uncertainty propagation, interval arithmetic, plotting, and a user-friendly interface (GTK+ and CLI).
The indicator popup/overlay for CapsLock changing is invaluable and is a feature missing in the apps claiming to replace this one. Being able to disable the Insert key is a bonus.
Bash is the shell, or command language interpreter, that will appear in the GNU operating system. Bash is an sh-compatible shell that incorporates useful features from the Korn shell (ksh) and C shell (csh). It is intended to conform to the IEEE POSIX P1003.2/ISO 9945.2 Shell and Tools standard. It offers functional improvements over sh for both programming and interactive use. In addition, most sh scripts can be run by Bash without modification.
The improvements offered by BASH include:
- Command line editing
- Unlimited size command history
- Job Control
- Shell Functions and Aliases
- Indexed arrays of unlimited size
- Integer arithmetic in any base from two to sixty-four
The USB Device Tree Viewer, short UsbTreeView is based upon the Microsoft "USBView" sample application found in the Windows Driver Development Kits. USBView works on all versions of Windows.
USBView can enumerate USB host controllers, USB hubs, and attached USB devices. It can also query information about the devices from the registry and through USB requests to the devices.
The main USBView window contains two panes. The left pane displays a connection-oriented tree view, enabling you to select any USB device.
The right pane displays the USB data structures that pertain to the selected USB device. These structures include Device, Configuration, Interface, and Endpoint Descriptors, as well as the current device configuration.
Sends scroll events to the window currently under the cursor regardless of the currently selected window, just like MacOS. Does not suffer from WizMouse's bug of closing a reply in MS Outlook when the DEL key is pressed.
Many other git clients want you to log-in, use lots of RAM, or other annoyances this clean and lightweight app avoids.
Time-Sync is a freeware software to synchronize the time of your system. The features of the software are:
- Simple self-explanatory software
- Configuration in a few steps
- Runs as a windows service in the background without any tray-icons
- Server & Client version according to RFC standards
- Usable in LAN and/or in Internet
- Uses system resources economically
- Redundant time servers are available
- Quick and clean install/uninstall
Allows you to view the 3 different clipboards of Windows, including the HTML one!
dnGrep allows you to search across files with easy-to-read results. Search through text files, Word documents, PDFs, and archives using text, regular expression, XPath, and phonetic queries. dnGrep includes search-and-replace, whole-file preview, right-click search in File Explorer, and much more.
Features:
- Search across text files, Word documents, PDFs, and archives
- Search using text, regular expressions (regex), XPath, and phonetics
- Search-and-replace, including undo
- Whole-file preview
- Right-click to search in File Explorer
- Move/copy/delete result files
- Open line results in a custom editor, like Notepad++
- Bookmark search patterns for later use
- Try out complex searches in the Test window
- Run from USB drive using the stand-alone distribution
- Much more!
Dual Monitor Tools is a software package for Windows users with dual or multiple monitor setups.
All the tools are open source and free, and each tool is independent so you only need to install or run what you want.
Fills the void of Mac's Hex Fiend
Great for being able to clean up the registry mess left by a program
This thing can open PDFs that would crash the likes of Acrobat like a champ!
Good for finding and removing bloatware
WinSCP is a popular free SFTP and FTP client for Windows. Moreover, WinSCP is a powerful multi-functional tool that will improve your productivity.
WinSCP can copy files between a local and remote computer using multiple protocols: FTP, FTPS, SCP, SFTP or WebDAV. On the one hand, WinSCP offers an easy to use graphical user interface; you can choose between Windows Explorer look and tabbed twin-panel interface like Norton commander. On the other hand, advanced users can automate WinSCP functionality using .NET assembly or simple batch file scripting.
You will use WinSCP for all common operations with files. You can start editing a file directly from WinSCP, either using WinSCP internal text editor or using integration with your favorite external text editor. WinSCP operations are not limited to individual files; WinSCP offers several ways to synchronize your remote and local directories.
After connecting to a site you can choose to store site information for repeated access, WinSCP can even share site settings with another popular open source tool PuTTY. WinSCP integrates also with Pageant (PuTTY authentication agent) for full support of public key authentication with SSH.
Admins love WinSCP support for portable operation using a configuration file instead of registry entries, suitable for operation from removable media.
A comprehensive WinSCP documentation is freely accessible at http://winscp.net. This site hosts also a very active user forum for support and feature requests.
WinSCP is available in English and many other languages.
WinSCP is an open source software distributed free of charge under the terms of the GNU General Public License.
Properly stores RTF unlike CopyQ
Icecream PDF Editor is a PDF editing software with an impressive range of features to proceed with all sort of documents edit. Edit text of opened PDF files and add new custom text (select font, size color, etc.). Strikeout, underline text and highlight parts of PDF documents. Annotated PDF, add graphic objects (circles, rectangles, lines, arrows, freehand) and customize their options (color, size, fill, opacity). Add stamps (set the default ones offered by program or upload your own custom ones). Protect PDF and change files' permissions. Manage pages, add new pages, rotate pages and change their size. Thanks to the clear GUI using this program is extremely simple.
“Types” is a free and lightweight utility for Windows that allows you to edit program associations, icons, context menus and other properties of various file types displayed in Explorer.
The software licensed under the GNU General Public License version 2. source code avaliable by link: https://github.com/ystr/ystr.github.io/blob/master/types/Types.7z
FileTypesMan is an alternative to the File Types tab in the Folder Options of Windows. It displays the list of all file extensions and types registered on your computer.
Sometimes you just have to view it in Chrome because web developers don't design with any other browser in mind.
The PyPA recommended tool for installing Python packages.
WindowGrid is a modern window management program that allows the user to quickly and easily layout their windows on a dynamic grid. WindowGrid gives functionality to the normally useless right mouse button when moving a window. Doing this will enable the grid snap mode.
FEATURES
- Simple to control
- Portable and Installable
- Works with aerosnap
- Unintrusive
- Grid overlay can be customised (dimensions, opacity and color)
- Can auto update
- Supports Windows Vista/7/8/8.1/10
- Supports x86 and x64
- Written in C# and C++
- Low memory usage
Ever notice how people texting at night have that eerie blue glow?
Or wake up ready to write down the Next Great Idea, and get blinded by your computer screen?
During the day, computer screens look good—they're designed to look like the sun. But, at 9PM, 10PM, or 3AM, you probably shouldn't be looking at the sun.
f.lux fixes this: it makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day, warm at night and like sunlight during the day.
It's even possible that you're staying up too late because of your computer. You could use f.lux because it makes you sleep better, or you could just use it just because it makes your computer look better.
f.lux makes your computer screen look like the room you're in, all the time. When the sun sets, it makes your computer look like your indoor lights. In the morning, it makes things look like sunlight again.
Tell f.lux what kind of lighting you have, and where you live. Then forget about it. f.lux will do the rest, automatically.
f.lux also supports Philips Hue smart lighting system. Lightbulbs can be synced to your f.lux settings to create a surrounding environment that's more friendly to sleep.
Keyboard Notifier sits in the system tray and notifies the user as to the state of the Caps, Scroll and Num lock keys. Designed for systems with ill-placed or non-existent hardware notification lights.
Zeal is a simple offline API documentation browser inspired by Dash (OS X app), available for Linux and Windows.
- Quickly search documentation using Alt+Space (or customised) hotkey to display Zeal from any place in your workspace.
- Search in multiple sets of documentation at once.
- Don't be dependent on your internet connection.
JPEGView is a lean, fast and highly configurable viewer/editor for JPEG, BMP, PNG, WEBP, TGA, GIF, TIFF, HEIC, JXL, and AVIF images with a minimal GUI. Basic on-the-fly image processing is provided - allowing adjusting typical parameters as sharpness, color balance, rotation, perspective, contrast and local under-/overexposure.
As of 2022, development at SourceForge ceased in 2018. Another developer has taken over development on GitHub.
Features
- Small and fast, uses SSE2 and up to 4 CPU cores
- High quality resampling filter, preserving sharpness of images
- Basic image processing tools can be applied real-time during viewing
- Re-size and lossless-cut, color correction
- Slide show
- Movie mode to play folder of JPEGs as movie
- Multi-language (24 languages in 2023)
Notepad++ is a free source code editor and Notepad replacement that supports several languages.
Based on the powerful editing component Scintilla, Notepad++ is written in C++ and uses pure Win32 API and STL which ensures a higher execution speed and smaller program size. By optimizing as many routines as possible without losing user friendliness, Notepad++ is trying to reduce the world carbon dioxide emissions. When using less CPU power, the PC can throttle down and reduce power consumption, resulting in a greener environment.
Lightshot - easy screenshot tool, is screen capture tool for Windows and Mac platforms, with the added advantage of automatically uploading it online for sharing or editing. Available also as Firefox addon, Chrome extension and besides Desktop application. The program has short domain https://prnt.sc/g5g1s5 (or long one http://prntscr.com/g5g1s5 inspite, here they're soft options on this screenshot) where you can see all screenshots you've uploaded before.
Cygwin is a Unix-like environment and command-line interface for Microsoft Windows. Cygwin provides native integration of Windows-based applications, data, and other system resources with applications, software tools, and data of the Unix-like environment.
WinDirStat is a disk usage statistics viewer and cleanup tool, inspired by KDirStat .
You can also examine Network Drives very fast.
Language for application AND help files can be set to Czech, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, German, English, Spanish, French, Hungarian, Italian, Polish and Russian.
Resource Hacker™ is a resource editor for 32bit and 64bit Windows® applications.
It's both a resource compiler (for .rc files), and a decompiler - enabling viewing and editing of resources in executables (.exe; *.dll; .scr; etc) and compiled resource libraries (.res, *.mui).
While Resource Hacker™ is primarily a GUI application, it also provides many options for compiling and decompiling resources from the command-line.
7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio.
The main features of 7-Zip
High compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression Supported formats: Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM Unpacking only: AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS, IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI, VDI, VHD, VMDK, WIM, XAR and Z. For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats Self-extracting capability for 7z format Integration with Windows Shell Powerful File Manager Powerful command line version Plugin for FAR Manager Localizations for 87 languages
7-Zip works in Windows 10 / 8 / 7 / Vista / XP / 2012 / 2008 / 2003 / 2000 / NT. There is a port of the command line version to Linux/Unix and macOS.
PeaZip is free file archiver utility, based on Open Source technologies of 7-Zip, p7zip, FreeArc, PAQ, and PEA projects, for Linux, macOS and Windows.
Cross-platform, full-featured but user-friendly alternative to WinRar, WinZip and similar general purpose archive manager applications, open and extract 200+ archive formats: 001, 7Z, ARC, ARJ, BZ2, CAB, DMG, GZ, ISO, LHA, PAQ, PEA, RAR, TAR, UDF, WIM, XZ, ZIP, ZIPX...
PeaZip is released under Open Source LGPLv3 license, free for any use (private and professional), all PeaZip packages are secure downloads and do not contain advertising or harmful software. Moreover portable packages does not need installation: simply extract and use the application.
PeaZip provides fast, high compression ratio multi-format archiving, and a complete, powerful file manager for viewing, browsing and searching archive files, featuring a wide set of data security functions: strong encryption (AES, Twofish, Serpent), encrypted password manager, optional two-factor authentication (encryption with password and keyfile), secure delete, and file hashing tools.
Written in Lazarus
DB Browser for SQLite is a high quality, visual, open source tool to create, design, and edit database files compatible with SQLite.
It is for users and developers wanting to create databases, search, and edit data. It uses a familiar spreadsheet-like interface, and you don't need to learn complicated SQL commands.
Adds that "Print to PDF" ability that even handles files big enough to crash MS Word's PDF exporter!
Haroopad is a markdown enabled document processor for creating web-friendly documents. You can author various formats of documents such as blog article, slide, presentation, report, and e-mail as if experts did. Haroopad gives you same experiences in editing regardless of the platform you are working on. It runs on all three major operating systems—Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux.
Cyberduck is an open source FTP client.
With an easy to use interface, connect to FTP (File Transfer Protocol), SFTP (SSH Secure File Transfer), WebDAV (Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning), Amazon S3, Google Storage, Windows Azure, Rackspace Cloud Files and even Google Docs.
Cyberduck includes a bookmark manager and supports the Mac OS X Keychain and Bonjour networking.
Good Spotlight-esque tool. Utilizes python, so it may be as extensible as Flashlight (the Spotlight mod platform).