Freeware & open-source software that saved the Windows desktop
A free web browser developed by Google from the open source Chromium project with a focus on speed and minimalism. Chrome offers fast start-up and web page loading, supports a minimalist user interface, automatically updates in the background, and offers syncing of browser bookmarks, extensions, passwords, and history between multiple computers by your Google account.
Additionally, Chrome has PDF support built into the browser for better speed and security.
Chrome Web Apps and Extensions are available on Chrome Web Store .
Available in more than 50 languages.
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.
VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
Features:
Simple, fast and powerful media player. Plays everything: Files, Discs, Webcams, Devices and Streams.
Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed: MPEG-2, DivX, H.264, MKV, WebM, WMV, MP3...
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.
The qBittorrent project aims to provide a Free Software alternative to µTorrent. Additionally, qBittorrent runs and provides the same features on all major platforms (Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD).
qBittorrent is based on the Qt toolkit and libtorrent-rasterbar library.
Features:
• Polished µTorrent-like User Interface
• Well-integrated and extensible Search Engine Simultaneous search in most famous BitTorrent search sites Per-category-specific search requests (e.g. Books, Music, Movies)
• All Bittorrent extensions DHT, Peer Exchange, Full encryption, Magnet/BitComet URIs, ...
• Remote control through a Web user interface Nearly identical to the regular UI, all in Ajax
• Advanced control over trackers, peers and torrents Torrents queueing and prioritizing Torrent content selection and prioritizing
• Natively integrated: When Downloads Completes Options (no need for additional script or plug-in) Exit, Suspend, Hibernate, Shutdown
• UPnP / NAT-PMP port forwarding support
• Available in ~41 languages (Unicode support)
• Torrent creation tool
• Advanced RSS support with download filters (inc. regex)
• Bandwidth scheduler
• IP Filtering (eMule and PeerGuardian compatible)
• IPv6 compliant
• Sequential downloading (aka "Download in order")
• Available on most platforms: Linux, Mac OS X, Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD
Free community support by volunteers:
• https://forum.qbittorrent.org • https://wiki.qbittorrent.org • https://github.com/qbittorrent/qBittorrent/issues
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.
FileZilla is a powerful FTP-client. It has been designed for ease of use and with support for as many features as possible, while still being fast and reliable. The program offers support for firewalls and proxy connections as well as SSL and Kerberos GSS security.
foobar2000 is an advanced freeware audio player for the Windows platform.
Main features
Supported audio formats: MP3, MP4, AAC, CD Audio, WMA, Vorbis, Opus, FLAC, WavPack, WAV, AIFF, Musepack, Speex, AU, SND... and more with additional components. Gapless playback. Easily customizable user interface layout. Advanced tagging capabilities. Support for ripping Audio CDs as well as transcoding all supported audio formats using the Converter component. Full ReplayGain support. Customizable keyboard shortcuts. Open component architecture allowing third-party developers to extend functionality of the player.
Paint.NET is a free image and photo editing software. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins.
The app is completely free through a direct download on the website, though there is a small fee involved for access to the app through Windows Store.
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.
Sumatra PDF is a free PDF, eBook (ePub, Mobi), XPS, DjVu, CHM, Comic Book (CBZ and CBR) viewer for Windows.
Sumatra PDF is powerful, small, portable and starts up very fast.
Simplicity of the user interface has a high priority.
Fast and compact image viewer/converter trying to be simple for beginners and powerful for professionals. Many supported file formats and features. Features included: multi-language support, Thumbnail option, Painting, slideshow, toolbar skins, fast directory browsing, batch conversion/editing, multipage editing, alignment (rotation) of single pdf pages around a small corner (e.g., 2 °), scanning to pdf-Files, OCR_KADMOS plugin, file search, change color depth, scanning, cut/crop, IPTC edit, capturing, lossless JPG operations, effects, ICC support, EXE/SCR creating, many hotkeys, command line options and plugins.
ShareX is a free and open source program that lets you capture or record any area of your screen and share it with a single press of a key. It also allows uploading images, text or other types of files to many supported destinations you can choose from.
WinMerge is an Open Source differencing and merging tool for Windows. WinMerge can compare both folders and files, presenting differences in a visual text format that is easy to understand and handle. 32 languages. With the xdocdiff-Plugin you even can compare Word, Excel, PowerPoint, PDF and some more files.
Since version 2.16 it's a a mirror release of a fork WinMerge JP.
Features Visual differencing and merging of text files. Flexible editor with syntax highlighting, line numbers and word-wrap. Handles DOS, Unix and Mac text file formats. Unicode support (as of version 2.8.0, UTF-8 files are correctly read without a BOM). Difference pane shows current difference in two vertical panes. Location pane shows map of files compared. Highlights differences inside lines in file compare. Can also generate HTML report with differences highlighted. Regular expression based file filters in directory compare allow excluding and including items. Moved lines detection in file compare. Ability to ignore whitespace and letter case changes. Creates patch files. Shell integration (supports 64-bit Windows versions). Rudimentary Visual SourceSafe and Rational ClearCase integration. Archive file support using 7-Zip . Plug-ins. Language localization via plain-text PO files. Online manual and installed HTML help manual. Generates normal, context, and unified patches.
"Everything" is an administrative tool that locates files and folders by filename instantly for Windows. Unlike Windows search "Everything" initially displays every file and folder on local or removable NTFS volumes on your computer (hence the name "Everything"), and on mapped network drives with ETP server and an everything installation too. You type in a search filter to limit what files and folders are displayed. 19 languages supported.
How can "Everything" index a mapped network drive? To search a networked computer you will need to run Everything on both computers. One computer will need to Start an ETP server. The other computer will need to connect to that ETP server.
To start an ETP server:
- In Everything, On the Tools menu, click Start ETP server.
To connect to an ETP server:
- In Everything, On the Tools menu, click Connect to ETP Server....
- Type in the ETP server name.
- Type in the ETP server port.
- Type in the ETP server user.
- Type in the ETP server password.
- Click OK.
HexChat is an IRC client based on XChat for Linux , but unlike XChat it’s completely free for both Windows and Unix-like systems. HexChat was originally called XChat-WDK which in turn was a successor of freakschat.
Features
Easy to use and customizable interface Cross-platform on Windows, OS X, and Unix-like OSes Highly scriptable with Python and Perl Translated in multiple languages Fully open source and actively developed Multi-network with auto-connect, join, and identify Spellcheck, Proxies, SASL, DCC support and more
KiTTY is an opensource terminal emulator, forked from PuTTY , that adds many extra features to the original software.
The very first requested features:
Sessions filter Portability Shortcuts for pre-defined command The session launcher Automatic logon script Automatic logon script with the RuTTY patch URL hyperlinks
Technical features:
Automatic password Automatic command Running a locally saved script on a remote session ZModem integration
Graphical features:
An icon for each session Send to tray Transparency Protection against unfortunate keyboard input Roll-up Always visible Quick start of a duplicate session Config Box
Other features:
Automatic saving SSH Handler: Internet Explorer integration pscp.exe and WinSCP integration Binary compression Clipboard printing The PuTTYCyg patch Background image File association Other settings New command-line options
Bonus:
A light chat server is hidden in KiTTY A hidden text editor is integrated into KiTTY
AutoHotkey (AHK) is a free, open-source macro-creation and automation software for Windows that allows users to automate repetitive tasks. It is driven by a scripting language that was initially aimed at providing keyboard shortcuts, otherwise known as hotkeys, that over time evolved into a full-fledged scripting language.
You can use AutoHotkey to:
- Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes or mouse clicks, or via COM.
- You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or a recorder.
- Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
- Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
- Expand abbreviations as you type them.
- Retrieve and change the Clipboard's contents.
You can also:
- Convert any AHK script into an executable file that can be run on computers where AutoHotkey is not installed.
- Create custom data-entry forms, user interfaces and menu bars.
- Automate data entry jobs by reading data from text files, XML, CSV, Excel and various database formats.
- Read signals from hand-held remote controls via the WinLIRC client script.
- Use the Component Object Model (COM).
- Use arrays, structures, matrices, and objects.
- Use variadic functions.
- Use DLL calls and Windows Messages.
- Use Perl Compatible Regular Expressions (PCRE).
- Use interactive debugging features.
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.
The Sysinternals Troubleshooting Utilities have been rolled up into a single Suite of tools. This file contains the individual troubleshooting tools and help files. It does not contain non-troubleshooting tools like the BSOD Screen Saver or NotMyFault.
The Suite is a bundling of the following selected Sysinternals Utilities:
AccessChk AccessEnum AdExplorer AdRestore Autologon Autoruns BgInfo CacheSet ClockRes Contig Coreinfo Ctrl2Cap DebugView Desktops Disk2vhd DiskExt DiskMon DiskView Disk Usage (DU) EFSDump Handle Hex2dec Junction LDMDump ListDLLs LiveKd LoadOrder LogonSessions NTFSInfo PageDefrag PendMoves PipeList PortMon ProcDump Process Explorer Process Monitor ProcFeatures PsExec PsFile PsGetSid PsInfo PsKill PsList PsLoggedOn PsLogList PsPasswd PsService PsShutdown PsSuspend RegDelNull RegJump RootkitRevealer SDelete ShareEnum ShellRunas SigCheck Streams Strings Sync TCPView VMMap VolumeID WhoIs WinObj ZoomIt
- NirLauncher can be used from USB flash drive without need of any installation.
- NirLauncher and all the utilities in the package are completely freeware, without any Spyware/Adware/Malware.
- NirLauncher package includes variety of tools that you may need for your daily computer use, including utilities to recover lost passwords, to monitor your network, to view and extract cookies, cache, and other information stored by your Web browser, to search files in your system, and more...
- For every utility in the package, you can easily run it, view the help file, or jump to the Web page of the utility.
- When using it from USB flash drive, the configuration of every utility is saved into .cfg file on the flash drive.
- On x64 systems, NirLauncher automatically run the x64 version of the utility, when there is a separated x64 version.
- NirLauncher also allows to add more software packages in additional to the main NirSoft package.
WARNING. Some tools in this package might pose a security risk if used without the consents of the PC owner. They can be used to read system passwords (e.g. dialup password) that are usually not easily accessible and hidden from the user. Many Anti-Virus vendors classify them as Riskware (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riskware) or 'HackTools'. And while downloading and running these tools does NOT cause any harm to your PC, the tools might be used for malicious activity by other users of the PC or during remote attacks to your PC. If you are unsure, we recommend to delete the tools listed in the section 'Password Recovery Utilities' from your file system - if you are using an Anti-Virus program with On-Access scanner it will most likely report and quarantine those tools upon installation anyway.
- NirLauncher can be used from USB flash drive without need of any installation.
Photoshop is the only Adobe product that is available from the web?