Freeware alternative list

[sanctified Veteran]

Updated by ultima 10/2/2005

Originally compiled by [sanctified], thanks to the Neowin members.

Items marked in red are new additions.

3D Graphics:

3Delight Free - http://www.3delight.com/index.htm

Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/

Aqsis - http://www.aqsis.com/

Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/

gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/

Houdini (Free Edition) - http://www.sidefx.com/apprentice/index.html

Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services..._maya_ple.shtml

Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.htm

OpenFX - http://www.openfx.org

SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/

Terragen - http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/

Toxic - http://www.toxicengine.org/

Wings 3D - http://www.wings3d.com/

Anti-Virus:

AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/

Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html

AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/

ClamWin - http://www.clamwin.com/

Anti Spyware:

Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/

Bazooka - http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html

Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/

SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/

SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html

WinPatrol - http://www.winpatrol.com/

IRC Clients:

BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/

BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php

HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/

TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/

XChat - http://www.silverex.org/news/

Audio Players:

1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch

Billy - http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy

CoolPlayer - http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/

DeliPlayer. http://www.deliplayer.com/

Foobar 2000 - http://www.foobar2000.org/

iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/

Jet Audio Basic - http://www.jetaudio.com/

Musik - http://musik.berlios.de/

QCD Player - http://www.quinnware.com/

Sonique - http://sonique.lycos.com/

Winamp - http://www.winamp.com/

XMPlay - http://www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html

Audio Tools:

Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/

dBpowerAMP Music Converter - http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm

EAC - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

Encounter 2003 - http://www.waschbusch.com/

GermaniXEncoder - http://www.germanixsoft.de/

K-MP3 - http://www.katarncorp.com/

KraMixer - http://www.kramware.com/

MP3 Book Helper - http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/

MP3 Tag - http://www.mp3tag.de/

mp3DirectCut - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch/

MP3Gain - http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/

mp3Trim - http://www.logiccell.com/~mp3trim/

MusicBrainz - http://musicbrainz.org/

Rarewares - http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/

SoundEngine Free - http://www.cycleof5th.com/en/index.htm

TagScanner - http://xdev.narod.ru/tagscan_e.htm

The GodFather - http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/

CD/DVD Burning:

Burn4Free - http://www.burn4free.com/

Burnatonce - http://www.burnatonce.com/

CDBurnerXP - http://hem.bredband.net/cdburnerxp/

CDRDAO - http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/

CDR Tools Frontend - http://demosten.com/cdrfe/

Deepburner - http://www.deepburner.com/

DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com/

Easy Burning, DropCD & Audio CD - http://www.paehl.de/cdr

Compression / Decompression:

7-zip - http://www.7-zip.org/

bzip2 - http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/index.html

ExtractNow - http://www.extractnow.com/

FilZip - http://www.filzip.com/

IZArc - http://www.florida.plus.com/izarc/

QuickZip - http://www.quickzip.org/

TUGZip - http://www.tugzip.com/

UPX - http://upx.sourceforge.net/

Zip&Go - http://www.handybits.com/zipngo.htm

Zipgenius - http://www.zipgenius.it/

Defrag Software:

DIRMS & Buzzsaw - http://www.dirms.com/

OpenVMS - http://www.execsoft.com/freeware/freeware.asp

Desktop Enhancements:

AveDesk - http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?t=17372

CursorXP - http://www.stardock.com/products/cursorxp/download.html

Kapsules - http://kapsules.shellscape.org/

MobyDock - http://www.mobydock.com/

Panorama - http://www.ivory.org/panorama.html

Rainlendar - http://www.ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=proj...ject=rainlendar

Samurize - http://www.samurize.com/

tclock2 - http://home.inreach.com/2tone/tclock2/tclock2.htm

Weather Watcher - http://www.singerscreations.com/

Download managers:

Free Download Manager - http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

Fresh Download - http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdown.html

Star Downloader - http://www.stardownloader.com/downloads.php

wackget - http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/

wget - http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/

Encryption and data security:

Axcrypt - http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/

Blowfish Advanced CS- http://web.bsn.ch/lasse/bfacs.htm

Eraser - http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/default.php

File Shredder - http://www.sys-shield.com/fileshredder.htm

KeePass - http://keepass.sourceforge.net/

GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org/

PGP Freeware - http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html

WindowsCleaner - http://www.winnowsoft.com/internet-eraser.htm

File Managers:

2xExplorer - http://netez.com/2xExplorer/

A43 - http://www.shawneelink.net/~bgmiller/

ExplorerXP - http://www.explorerxp.com

Gyula's Navigator - http://www.wanari.com/

JExplorer - http://home.megapass.co.kr/~woosjung/

MeeSoft Commander - http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/

File repair and recovery:

PC Inspector File Recovery - http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Firewalls:

Kerio (Kerio Personal Firewall is FREE for home and personal use) - http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html

Outpost Firewall (version 1 is free) - http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost1.html

Sygate (FREE for personal use) - http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm

Zonealarm Basic firewall - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/content/comp...reeDownload.jsp

FTP Clients:

CoreFTP - http://www.coreftp.com/

Filezilla - http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla

miFiles - http://www.simdata.com.au/mifiles.html

SmartFTP - http://www.smartftp.com/

FTP Servers:

FileZilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

Golden FTP Server - http://www.goldenftpserver.com

GuildFTPD - http://www.totalshareware.com/asp/detail_v...pplication=8334

Quick 'n Easy FTP Server - http://www.pablovandermeer.nl/ftp_server.html

SlimFTPd - http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd

WarFTPD - http://www.jgaa.com/

HTML Editors:

1st page 2000 - http://www.evrsoft.com/download.shtml

AceHTML - http://freeware.acehtml.com/download.html

Aracnophilia - http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/

HTML-Kit - http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

NVU - http://www.nvu.com/index.html

Selida - http://www.amaryllis.8m.com/

Trellian webPAGE - http://webpage.vendercom.com/

TSW WebCoder - http://www.tsware.net/

Image viewers:

Ahaview - http://www.aha-soft.com/ahaview/ahaviewfree.exe

Irfanview - http://www.irfanview.com/

Picasa - http://www.picasa.com/content/download.php

SlowView - http://www.slowview.at/

XNView - http://www.xnview.com/

Instant Messenger:

Gaim - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

IM2: http://www.im2.com

Miranda IM - http://www.miranda-im.org/

Pandion - http://www.pandion.be/

PSI - http://psi.affinix.com/

SIM - http://sim-icq.sourceforge.net/

Trillian Basic - http://trillian.cc/downloads

Internet Explorer Front-Ends:

Avantbrowser - http://www.avantbrowser.com/

Maxthon - http://www.maxthon.com/

SlimBrowser - http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/sbrowser.htm

Mail programs:

Foxmail - http://fox.foxmail.com.cn/english/

i.Scribe - http://www.memecode.com/

Mahogany Mail - http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/

Pegasus Mail - http://www.pmail.com/

PopTray - http://www.poptray.org/

Thunderbird - http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/

Anti-spam programs:

K9 - http://www.keir.net/k9.html

MailWasher- http://www.mailwasher.net/

POPFile - http://popfile.sourceforge.net/

SpamBayes - http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Network Tools:

CMDTime NTP Utility - http://www.softshape.com/download/

Ethereal Protocol Analyzer - http://www.ethereal.com/

NetMeter - http://readerror.gmxhome.de/

NetProfiles - http://netprofiles.danielmilner.com/

NMap - http://www.insecure.org/nmap/

Ntop - http://www.ntop.org

PingPlotter - http://www.pingplotter.com

PuTTY - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty

RAS Graph & Stats - http://forum.flashfxp.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2400

RealVNC - http://www.realvnc.com/

TightVNC - http://www.tightvnc.org/

UltraVNC - http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/

WinSCP - http://www.winscp.com/

Office Suite:

602PC Suite free edition - http://www.software602.com/products/pcs/download.html

AbiWord - http://www.abiword.com/

OpenOffice.org - http://www.openoffice.org/

Partition Managers:

Partition Resizer - http://zeleps.com/

Ranish Partition Manager - http://www.ranish.com/part/

TestDisk - http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

PDF Utilities:

Free PDF - http://www.webxd.com/zipguy/frpdfdl.htm

Ghostscript/GSView - http://www.ghostscript.com/

PDF 995 - http://www.pdf995.com/

PDFCreator - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

PrimoPDF - http://www.primopdf.com/

Photo manipulation and image design:

ColorPic - http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/

Paint .NET - http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/

Pixia - http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/

Pixie - http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.html

PhotoFiltre - http://www.photofiltre.com/

Sodiodi - http://www.sodipodi.com/

The Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/

Tuxpaint - http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint

Programming:

ActivePerl - http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl

Crimson Editor - http://www.crimsoneditor.com/

Context - http://www.context.cx/

Dev C++ - http://www.bloodshed.net/

Dev Pascal - http://www.bloodshed.net/

Digital Mars C++ - http://www.digitalmars.com/download/freecompiler.html

Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/

ExamDiff - http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff

Freepascal - http://www.freepascal.org/

JCreator LE - http://www.jcreator.com/download.htm

jEdit - http://www.jedit.org/

Notepad++ - http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

Notepad2 - http://www.flos-freeware.ch/

Pelles C - http://www.smorgasbordet.com/pellesc/index.htm

PHP Hypertext Parser - http://www.php.net/

PSPad - http://www.pspad.com/

Python - http://www.python.org/

Ruby - http://www.dm4lab.to/~usa/ruby/index_en.html

SharpDevelop - http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/

Pop-up Blockers:

Google Toolbar - http://www.google.com/

NoAds - http://www.southbaypc.com/NoAds/

PopUp Stopper - http://www.panicware.com/product_psfree.html

Privoxy - http://www.privoxy.org/

Proxomitron - http://www.proxomitron.info/

RSS Readers:

Ablion - http://www.fileheaven.com/Abilon/download/14059.htm

RSSOwl - http://www.rssowl.org/

System Information and monitoring:

CPU-Z - http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php

Everest - http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.p...ang=en&pageid=1

Gkrellm - http://bill.nalens.com/

Motherboard monitor - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311

SpeedFan - http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php

Sysmetrix - http://www.xymantix.com

WCPUID - http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002374/src/download.html

Video codecs :

DivX Codec - http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=toptab_divx_from_/index.php

FFDSHOW - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow

XviD - http://www.xvid.org/

Video players :

BsPlayer - http://www.bsplayer.org/

Crystal Player - http://www.crystalplayer.com/index.php?page=downloads

Cygwin MPlayer - http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/

DivX Player - http://www.divx.com/

MaximusDVD - http://www.maximusdvd.com/

Media Player Classic - http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303

VideoLan - http://www.videolan.org/

Video tools:

DVD Shrink - http://www.dvdshrink.org/

DScaler - http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/

FlasKMPEG - http://www.flaskmpeg.net

GSpot - http://www.headbands.com/gspot/

VirtualDub - http://www.virtualdub.org/

VirtualDubMod - http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=65889

Zwei-Stein Video Editor - http://www.thugsatbay.com/software/index.html

Web browsers:

Firefox - http://www.getfirefox.com

K-Meleon - http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/

Mozilla - http://www.mozilla.org/

Netscape - http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp

Web servers:

Abyss - http://abyss.sourceforge.net/

Apache - http://httpd.apache.org/

Sambar - http://www.sambar.com/

Savant - http://savant.sourceforge.net/

SimpleServer:WWW - http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/sswww.htm

TinyWeb - http://www.ritlabs.com/tinyweb/index.html

Webcam Software:

booruWebCam - http://www.booru.net/

Pryme - http://www.hilo.dk/pryme/

Checksum Utilities:

fsum - http://www.slavasoft.com/fsum/

hksfv - http://www.big-o-software.com/products/hksfv/

md5sum - http://www.etree.org/md5com.html

md5summer - http://www.md5summer.org/

General Utilities And Other Applications:

AnalogX - http://www.analogx.com/

AppRocket - http://www.candylabs.com/approcket/

Celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia

CCleaner - http://www.ccleaner.com

Cygwin - http://www.cygwin.com

Dirkey - http://www.protonfx.com/dirkey/

EditPad Lite - http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html

HTTrack - http://www.httrack.com/

Inno Setup - http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php

Memtest-86 - http://www.memtest86.com

MWSnap - http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html

NetTime - http://nettime.sourceforge.net

Nullsoft Installer - http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nsis

Peerguardian - http://xs.tech.nu/

QuickSFV - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Mouse/4668/

png2ico - http://winterdrache.de/freeware/png2ico

Stickies - http://finiteloop.org/~btaylor/software/stickies/

Sysinternals - http://www.sysinternals.com/

Toolbox - http://www.sil.org/computing/toolbox/

TuneXP - http://www.driverheaven.net/dforce/showdoc.php?doc=txp_about

Turbo Pad - http://turbopad.sourceforge.net/

Vim - http://vim.sourceforge.net

Edited February 10, 2005 by ultima

[mark03]

don't know if this has been considered or whatever, but it would be useful to have ratings next to the programs on the list. don't know how you'd implement this to be practical, i doubt you could poll it for so many items but someone could think of something i'm sure. which is the best all-round anti-virus software on that list?

[Duo Maxwell]

Great list!

some additions:

VIDEO PLAYER: Zoom player standard ( http://www.inmatrix.com )

MAIL CLIENT: Foxmail ( http://fox.foxmail.com.cn/english.htm )

note: download the chinese v5b1 version and turn it into english by deleting chinese.lgb file

french and spanish versions here: http://foxmail.free.fr/www/home.php

INSTANT MESSENGER: Skype ( http://www.skype.com )

Skype isn't just an IM program, it does free Voice Over Internet

[Si Veteran]

Free CAD software:

QCad http://www.ribbonsoft.com/qcad.html

[insanekiwi]

free shutdown utility: alt+f4...nah j/k :)

it's named switch off. best by far. and it's free.

http://yasoft.km.ru/eng/switchoff/

Overview

Switch Off is a tiny easy-to-use tray-based system utility that can automatically perform various frequently used operations like shutdown or restart your computer, disconnect your current dialup connection, lock workstation, etc. It also provides fast access to this operations through system tray icon. Utility has fully customizeable Web interface, that allows you to initiate operations mentioned above remotely from any computer with web browser installed. Web interface includes WAP support, so you can control your computer from mobile phone. This utility is intended to be used by either novice or professional user, because of its intuitive interface and professional features.

Features

Scheduled and immediate options for:

Shutdown / Restart computer

Log-off user

Lock WorkStation

Disconnect dialup connection

Standby / Hibernate (power saving options)

Fast restart (Windows 95/98)

Customizeable Web interface (mini HTTP server)

WAP protocol support.

Simple intuitive multi-language interface

Can work everytime when windows is running, even at logon screen.

Command line support (including timer setings)

Silent install option (good for run in a batch scripts)

Works on all 32-bit versions of Windows (9x/NT/2000/XP)

Tiny size and system resource requirements

[Bizkit]

What about audio stuff? Like my friend wants to record some stuff his band is making, and wants to clean it up and stuff. Any ideas?

[Aaron Veteran]

Programming C#

SharpDevelop

[lyte]

Great list! Thanks for the work!

[dEs0lAt0r]

Video tools:

DVD Rip and Burn

DVD Decrypter

[mackol]

does anyone know of a standalone excel program?

[Fili]

FTP Servers:

TYPSoft FTP Server

File Managers:

Dimension File Manager

[dev/null]

AppRocket is now shareware (as of final ver 1.0)

[aalaap]

Has anyone tried Crimson Editor? It's almost a clone of EditPlus (which every "real" coder swears by). CE is EditPlus, but free. Has a few extra's like inline evaluation (type 10+3= and press enter and it gives u the result on the next line) and stuff like that. Its prettttty nice. I had a few crashing problems while using regular expression searching and replacing, but apart from that, great freeware.

www.crimsoneditor.com

- Aalaap

[aalaap]

Also this reallly simple and cute download manager called WinGet. I was unable to get the latest WinGet 1.6 from the website at winget.cc but i managed to get 1.5 from FileMirrors. It's got the basics - multi threaded downloading and queing and all that. Its almost perfect for an average user. It shall come in handy in my effort to woo users away from clunky Download Accelerator Plus :angry:

- Aalaap

[Fili]

Also this reallly simple and cute download manager called WinGet. I was unable to get the latest WinGet 1.6 from the website at winget.cc but i managed to get 1.5 from FileMirrors. It's got the basics - multi threaded downloading and queing and all that. Its almost perfect for an average user. It shall come in handy in my effort to woo users away from clunky Download Accelerator Plus :angry:

- Aalaap

Great little download manager, I also use it. You can download the latest 1.6 here http://filicide.timdorr.com/files/winget16.exe

[CoolCatBad]

Programming Editors

Hexplorer

http://artemis.wszib.edu.pl/~mdudek/

CodePad

http://shicola.d2.cz/codepad/download.php

[trigger_my_passion]

Newsgroups reader (mainly for downloading binaries): Xnews.

[gringo]

Another Free (Excellent) Mail Program (My Default)

FoxMail 4.1 - http://fox.foxmail.com.cn/english.htm

there are newer versions but these are in japanesse or something like that :p

[shill]

Programming Editors

Hexplorer

http://artemis.wszib.edu.pl/~mdudek/

CodePad

http://shicola.d2.cz/codepad/download.php

The only real programming editor is gVim.

http://www.vim.org/

[ramian]

What about audio stuff? Like my friend wants to record some stuff his band is making, and wants to clean it up and stuff. Any ideas?

You can try Audacity over at Sourceforge

Audacity is a free audio editor. You can record sounds, play sounds, import and export WAV, AIFF, Ogg Vorbis, and MP3 files, and more. Use it to edit your sounds using Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited Undo), mix tracks together, or apply effects to your recordings. It also has a built-in amplitude envelope editor, a customizable spectrogram mode and a frequency analysis window for audio analysis applications. Built-in effects include Echo, Change Tempo, and Noise Removal, and it also supports VST and LADSPA plug-in effects.

Audacity is being developed by a team of volunteers under the open-source model. It is written in C and C++, using the wxWidgets cross-platform toolkit. All of the source code to the program is made available under the GNU General Public License, which essentially allows anyone to modify the source code as long as they publicize the changes. The code is hosted on SourceForge.

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

cheers!

[Laughing-Man]

I like to use GDivx, now GDivx Zenith player for video: Link.

[Mike Frett]

Video: VirtualVCR

[Hidea]

a better stickies...:

Nullsoft's safesex SAFESEX

[Oblivion]

Any good Registry Cleaners?

[ramian]

Any good Registry Cleaners?

RegSeeker 1.35

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 !

There are also other freeware on the page listed above.

http://www.hoverdesk.net/freeware.htm

HoverSnap v0.8

HoverSnap is a a free handy snapshot tool with jpg, png, bmp and gif support.HoverSnap can take snapshots of the full screen, active window or a selected area. It can even capture layered windows (alphablended ones under 2K / XP). You can even FTP upload your screenshots !

You can set up the capture folder / filename and format.

You can reduce the capture size.

Auto-generate filename option will add the time stamp (date/time) to your filename in order to be able to take several captures without having to change the filename.

Optional sound when capture is done.

HoverSnap is FREE for personal use only !

HoverMatch

HoverMatch is a FREEWARE utility designed to allow desktop customizers to modify exiting themes and skins to their tastes by altering an images Hue, Saturation and Brightness values and saving the results. This utility makes it possible for users to modify themes and skins without requiring an image editor program like Photoshop.

Features:

Skin colorizing preserves the transparency ?key color?. This can be ?magic pink? (255,0,255) or any user specified color.

Lock Filter to re-apply the same filter for each new loaded image.

Zoom with optional lock for appplying the same zoom valye for every image loaded (zoom is only for preview)

Target color panel an easy way to select the hue/sat/brightness values to match a selected target.

A moveable preview image (to place it near the target color for example).

2 Color pickers included: 1 for the color to exclude (bitmap color picker) / 1 for the target color (desktop color picker).

Bitmap / Icon (size from 16x16 up to 128x128) / Jpeg recolorizing support (changed save to bitmap files).

Icon to Bitmap conversion: Icon files (.ICO) can be saved into Bitmaps in a very easy way.

Sophisticated image browsing: - a small thumbnail preview in the image list with different text colors to identify the image types.

Details View: image size / bpp / date display.

cheers!

[Banzai]

FTP Servers:

http://en.typsoft.com/

its a good one do i need to pm sait dark?