Useful Software for Microsoft Windows
This list aims to provide you with links to Useful Software for Microsoft Windows. It also aims to provide links to useful Windows related websites.
Web Browsers
Internet Explorer -- Windows' default browser. Comes bundled with Windows.
Mozilla Firefox -- Cross-Platform goodness.
Opera -- More Cross-Platform goodness
Apple Safari -- Even More Cross-Platform goodness.
Google Chrome -- Still more cross-platform goodness.
Mail Clients
Outlook Express -- Windows' default mail client. Comes with Windows and IE.
Microsoft Outlook -- Microsoft's more robust mail client. Supports Exchange Server.
Mozilla Thunderbird -- Cross-Platform goodness.
Instant Messaging, VOIP, Chat and IRC
Pidgin -- free, opensource multi protocol IM.
Trillian -- multi-protocol IM. Free and Pro versions.
Skype -- VoIP software
Xchat -- IRC client
SilvereX -- Shareware-free XChat build
Miranda IM -- Tiny multi-protocol IM
Google Talk -- IM using the Jabber protocol, with voice chat.
mIRC
Josh Dick's Irssi 0.8.11 Standalone for Windows
RSS Readers
Please let us know if you know any good RSS Aggregators / Readers!!
Peer to Peer
Azureus -- Powerful, Java based BitTorrent client
BitTorrent -- Official (and original) BitTorrent client.
FrostWire -- Free Gnutella client. Cross-platform
uTorrent
PuTTY
FTP Clients
FileZilla -- open-source FTP
CuteFTP -- easy to use FTP client
WS_FTP -- FTP Client
Core FTP Lite
SmartFTP
WinSCP
Video and Audio
iTunes -- Music and media for OS X and Windows. May support the iTunes Music Store if it's available in your country. Part of the iLife suite of products.
VLC -- Media Player which supports most audio and video, DVD's, VCD's and streaming
WinAmp -- Versatile, skinnable media player for Windows
Extract Audio Copy -- A freeware CD ripper that exports to WAV, instead of MP3 or Ogg Vorbis like most other rippers.
CDex -- rip CDs using the LAME codec.
Audacity -- great for recording and editing sounds
BS Player
FooBar2000
Daemon Tools
Codecs
Combined Community Codec Pack
QuickTime Alternative
Real Alternative
K-Lite Codec Pack
DivX Plus Codec Pack
Photo Editing / Graphics
the GIMP -- funny name, powerful open-source image editing.
Paint.net -- because Photoshop's not free. "Advanced" version of Paint.
Irfanview
Cosmigo ProMotion
Office / Productivity Software
Microsoft Office -- Microsoft's Office Suite.
OpenOffice.org -- open-source alternative to Office.
Mozilla Sunbird -- Calendaring, based on the Mozilla framework
Text / HTML / etc Editors
TextPad -- powerful shareware text editor
Metapad -- Unlike the other "notepad clones" this is probably one of the very few that can actually claim that title
UltraEdit-32 -- The ideal text, HTML and HEX editor, and an advanced php, Perl, Java and JavaScript editor for programmers!
Notepad++
EditPlus
Notepad 2
Finale Notepad - The free version of Finale. Useful for music composition and fun to play around with.
Antivirus / Anti-spyware Solutions
AVG Free Edition -- Free Antivirus for your PC
Avast Antivirus -- More Free Antivirus for your PC
Spybot Search and Destroy -- Spyware Detection and Removal
Windows Defender -- AKA Microsoft AntiSpyware Beta, AKA Giant AntiSpyware
Hijack This! -- Great for finding out what your computer is up to
Autorun Manager - This is a program that allows you to turn off certain processes and functions. Useful for disabling virus/trojans you can't delete and possibly some other uses.
CCleaner
Developer Tools
WAMP -- Simple installation of Apache, MySQL, and php" on Windows.
Dev-php -- A php IDE
JCreator
Utilities (ie, Zip Tools, VNC.. etc.. etc)
Diskeeper -- an alternative to Windows' built in defrag
7-Zip -- Free Zip utility. Excellent compression with native 7z format.
WinRAR -- opens and creates RAR files, also supports Zip, etc.
NirSoft -- handy free windows utilities
Memtest86 -- Extensive memory testing
Portable Application Suite -- Take your stuff with you on a thumb drive!
SysInternals Process Explorer
PowerISO -- A disk image utility that can open, create, edit, compress, encrypt, mount and extract ISO files. Very useful for torrents.
TeraCopy
DropBox
Fun Stuff
Google Earth -- See the world!
Microsoft/Windows Related Websites
Microsoft -- Microsoft's Web Site
Windows Update -- cause sometimes you should update Windows.
Paul Thurrot's SuperSite for Windows -- Lots of Windows Info
M-Dollar -- ArsTechica's Microsoft Blog
Slashdot: Microsoft -- Slashdot's Microsoft articles...
Useful Software for Apple Macintosh
This list aims to provide you with links to Useful Software for Apple Macintosh. It also aims to provide links to useful Apple related websites.
Web Browsers
Safari -- Mac's default browser. Comes with Mac OS X.
Mozilla Camino -- Mozilla's browser designed specifically for the Mac.
Mozilla Firefox -- Cross-Platform goodness.
Opera -- More Cross-Platform goodness
OmniWeb -- shiny Mac browser. 30 day free trial.
Mail Clients
Mail -- Mac's default Mail Client. Comes with Mac OS X.
Microsoft Entourage -- Mac equivalent to Outlook and part of Office 2004 Supports use in an Exchange Server 2000 (or later) environment.
Mozilla Thunderbird -- Cross-Platform goodness.
Bare Bones Mailsmith -- simple mail incorporating BBedit's text functions
Gyazmail -- mmmm Cocoa
Instant Messaging, VOIP, Chat and IRC
iChat -- Comes with Mac OS X. Supports AIM.
Adium X -- Open-source, multi-protocol Instant Messaging. Powered by libgaim.
Fire -- Open-source multi-protocol IM client for OS X
Colloquy -- IRC & SILC Client for OS X.
XChat -- Cross-Platform IRC Client
Skype -- free VoIP tool for OS X
Gizmo Project -- free VoIP tool for OS X
Unsanity Chat Transcript Manager -- allows you to search chat logs from Adium and iChat.
Microsoft Messenger. It's built like older versions of MSN Messenger for windows, and works pretty well, in my opinion.
AIM for Mac. -- Well, it's AIM. For Mac.
RSS Readers
PulpFiction -- RSS for OS X
Peer to Peer
Azureus -- Powerful, Java based BitTorrent client
BitTorrent -- Official (and original) BitTorrent client.
FrostWire -- Free Gnutella client. Cross-platform
FTP Clients
Transmit -- FTP client for OS X.
Cyberduck. It's a really nice open-source FTP, and I quite like it.
Video and Audio
QuickTime -- Apple's Media Player.
iTunes -- Music and media for OS X. May support the iTunes Music Store if it's available in your country. Part of the iLife suite of products.
VLC -- Media Player which supports most audio and video, DVD's, VCD's and streaming
GarageBand -- Digital Music creation / mixing. Part of the iLife suite of products.
iMovie -- Movie editing. Supports HD Video. Part of the iLife suite of products.
iDVD -- DVD Authoring. Part of the iLife suite of products.
Final Cut Studio -- Apple's Professional video and audio tools. Includes Final Cut Pro 5 (editing), Soundtrack Pro (sound), Motion 2 (animation) and DVD Studio Pro 4 (DVD authoring).
Logic Pro -- Apple's music toolkit
Shake -- Apple's digital compositing and effects
Predixis MusicMagic -- analyses your music and generates playlists based on similar features in the music.
Game Music Box -- SPC Player
Photo Editing / Graphics
Aperture -- Apple's own Photo Editing software, designed for Professional Photographers.
Pixen -- Cute open-source software for small-scale or pixel-art.
iPhoto -- Photo editing, sorting, slide-shows, etc. Part of the iLife suite of products.
the GIMP -- funny name, powerful open-source image editing.
Seashore -- An open-source alternative to GIMP.
Inkscape is not a program I've used, though I hear it's good. It's pretty much a free version of Adobe Illustrator.
Pixen. It's a fun little raster graphics editor, and great for making pixel art. It's tailored for game designers, and has lots of neat features to play around with.
Office / Productivity Software
OpenOffice.org -- open-source alternative to Office and iWork.
OmniGraffle -- Diagramming software for OS X
OmniOutliner -- Project planning software for OS X.
Text / HTML / etc Editors
Taco HTML Edit -- Free HTML editor for OS X. Color-codes your code.
Text Wrangler -- good, native text editor for OS X.
Emacs is an HTML editor. Well, it actually does a whole lot more, like C++, Java, Python, Perl, Ruby, PHP, and a bunch of other stuff.
Antivirus Solutions
Norton AntiVirus for Mac -- Norton's AV solution for OS X.
Virex -- McAfee's AV solution for OS X.
Utilities (ie, Zip Tools, VNC.. etc.. etc)
Unsanity Shapeshifter -- Sick of the default Aqua theme? This allows you to skin OS X.
Chicken of the VNC -- for all your VNC needs.
StuffIt Expander -- An all purpose expander and compressor. This is much better than the one that is included with the default software. More information can be found on this Apple page, along with another download link.
DropBox
Other
Darwine. It's pretty much a Mac version of WINE. Quite useful, if I do say so, myself.
Magnifique is a skin changer for Mac. The great thing about this one is that it's the only one that works with Leopard.
CandyBar is an icon changer for Mac. It also lets you change your dock around.
Caffeine is a neat little program that stops your computer from going into sleep mode and such when activated. Useful for watching long videos online.
Deeper is a program that lets you enable some hidden options on your computer, and Safari, too. It might do the same for some other applications too, but I haven't used it in a while, so I forget.
Apple Related Websites
Apple -- Uh... Apple's Website
AppleInsider -- Apple Rumors
ThinkSecret -- More Apple Rumors
Slashdot: Apple -- Slashdot's Apple section
Infinite Loop -- ArsTechnica's Apple Blog
MacOSXhints -- Handy OS X hints
Useful Software for Unix-like/free operating systems
This list is for free operating systems such as BSD and GNU/Linux. If you want a completely free OS, don't install software marked "PROPRIETARY"
Operating Systems themselves
Fedora Core - Nice and simple, Red Hat based and a very large community to turn for help.
Ubuntu / Kubuntu - Semi-New OS (started Oct 2004) based on Debian, designed for users that never used computers before; pretty nice for those looking for a new OS also.
CentOS - An operating system based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux; recompiled to obey RH's requirements in order to redistribute (basically remove the name "Red Hat" and logos)
PC-BSD - An OS based on FreeBSD, made easy-to-use by having a graphical installer and uses KDE by default for its desktop.
Debian - Gives you complete choice of what software is going onto your system, while being easy to install.
Desktop environments and window managers
KDE - Complete DE including a desktop, panel, web browser, window manager, text editors, games, and all that good stuff.
GNOME - Like KDE, it's a complete DE including a desktop, panel, web browser, etc. In my opinion, the releases aren't as polished as KDE, but it's up to you to decide what you like best.
XFCE - Not-so-complete DE that includes the window manager, a panel, control panel, and file manager. Like GNOME, it's built on GTK, so such applications will also blend into this.
GNUstep/WindowMaker - WindowMaker's a window manager, and GNUstep is a library. Not much of a DE, but with a bunch of OPENSTEP/GNUstep applications, it can be one. Like NeXTSTEP. (There's some support for Cocoa applications in GNUstep, but not all APIs)
Fluxbox - Extremely lightweight window manager. About as much as you can get.
Web Browsers
Mozilla Firefox - Not much explaination needed here, a web browser built on the Mozilla framework to have little features built-in, so that you can expand it with features you want.
SeaMonkey - The Mozilla Foundation cancelled development of Mozilla Suite. So Suite-lovers got together and continue it on their own. (Possibly faster and lighter on resources than Firefox, but it's debatable)
Konqueror - Comes with KDE by default (part of kdebase; it's rare to find someone that left it out). Outstanding browser with support for HTML4, XHTML, and CSS1/2/3. Recently passed Acid2. Also doubles as a great file manager and (simple) FTP application.
Opera - Claims to be the fastest browser, sacrificing web standards-support for speed. It seems to be the same speed as Firefox for me, but here you go if you like it. PROPRIETARY
Galeon - A GTK browser with the Gecko rendering engine. Integrates well into XFCE and GNOME.
Epiphany - The official web browser for GNOME; similar to Galeon.
Dillo - The fastest GUI browser ever made (yes, faster than Opera or Firefox or Konqueror). Aims to fully support HTML4 also.
IRC, IM, etc
Irssi
Gaim - Lightweight, cross-platform GTK IM client that supports many protocols.
Kopete - The KDE Instant Messenger. Like Gaim, it supports many protocols. Plus video chat over Yahoo! and MSN. (This comes with most full-blown KDE installs, but not all; part of kdenetwork)
X-Chat - GTK cross-platform IRC client with many features.
Skype - Free-of-charge voice chat platform. PROPRIETARY
RSS agregators
aKregator - Easy-to-use program that's yet another official KDE component (in kdenetwork).
Peer-to-Peer
Azureus - Popular Java BitTorrent program with tons of features.
KTorrent - KDE BiTorrent program with most of Azureus' features, plus an integrated search for many popular BT search engines. (This is not an official KDE application, so you probably will need to get it separate from "KDE").
BitTorrent - Let's not forget the official BT client! ... it pretty much sucks though <_<
GTK-Gnutella - Connects to some of the popular classical P2P protocols. Gnutella, Gnutella2, FrostWire, etc
Multimedia
MPlayer - It does everyting (with proper codecs installed, of course)
Audacious - Originally a fork of BeepMP with some new features, but then BeepMP was officially discontinued in favor of a client/server thing that hasn't been finished yet. So it's pretty much XMMS using GTK+2 and some other stuff.
XMMS - GTK+1 Winamp clone, mostly obseleted by Beep, but retains the doublesize feature that Beep removed for implementation problems.
JuK - KDE audio player; it's like iTunes except that it doesn't crash every two minutes.
AmaroK - Like JuK, but the UI can take many forms.
Xine-ui - It's like MPlayer but with excellent DVD support.
VLC - The cross-platform media player with excellent VCD, SVCD, and DVD support.
Totem - Minimalist media player for GNOME.
Audacity - Nice audio grabber and editor.
WINE - Allows you to run Windows programs on Linux.
Graphics stuff
GIMP - Almost every feature that Photoshop has, GIMP has. That says enough. Oh yeah, some people seem to forget that GIMP, like Photoshop, isn't meant as a simple painting program.
Krita - Another professional photo editor, like Photoshop or GIMP. Technically, it's part of KOffice.
KolourPaint - Simple painting program that's like MS Paint, official KDE project (part of kdegraphics).
Xpdf - A PDF program, it looks ugly though so there's a few front-ends to the underlying source. It also obeys PDF authors' wishes for locking you from copying from or printing a PDF; search Google to find a fix if you want/need it.
KPDF - KDE PDF program, based on Xpdf but doesn't look ugly!
Evince - PDF, PostScript, djvu, tiff, and dvi viewer for GNOME.
Office / Productivity Software
OpenOffice.org - Complete office suite that can easily replace MS Office or WordPerfect Office.
KOffice - Complete office suite for KDE.
AbiWord - Lightweight, cross-platform GTK word processor. Similar to MS Word
Gnumeric - Spreadsheet application similar to MS Excel (recently got a Windows port). Designed and works for scientific data, but can be used for general stuff.
Scribus - Professional desktop publishing!
Utilities
DropBox
If you have a program you would like to see added to the list, post it and I will add it. Also, if you find any broken links, let me know.