Freeware Alternative List

PCWin Speaker Record - records everything you hear from your speakers. Save as mp3 or wav files. Records at 128 Kbps CD quality. Now you can enjoy your music and podcast anytime!

Record from Internet radio stations. Grab audio from any web site, podcast, Internet Radio, DVD or CD as it plays.

Easy-to-use. Select mp3 or wav file format. Click 'Start Recording' and when you are ready to stop recording press 'Stop Recording' button. Then save your newly created mp3 or wav file and play it anytime!

3,512 · December 21, 2008

Checksum Utilities

HashCheck Shell Extension http://www.ktechcomputing.com/hashcheck/

The HashCheck Shell Extension makes it easy for you to calculate and verify file hashes/checksums from Windows Explorer.

First, HashCheck can process and verify the hashes/checksums stored in checksum files--these are files with a .sfv, .md4, .md5, or .sha1 file extension. Just double-click on the checksum file, and HashCheck will check the actual checksums of the listed files against those specified in the checksum file.

Second, HashCheck will add a "File Hashes" tab to the Explorer file properties dialog so that you could easily check the hash of a file (or even multiple files and directories) from Explorer. You can also save the results to a checksum file.

Finally, if you want to create a checksum file but think that opening the file properties dialog, navigating to the "File Hashes" tab and then clicking "Save" is too much trouble, HashCheck simplifies the task by adding an optional "Create Checksum File" command to Explorer?s context menu. Simply select the files and directories that you want to hash and create a checksum file for, right-click on them, and select "Create Checksum File".

4,656 · December 31, 2008

IObit Smart Defrag

http://www.iobit.com/iobitsmartdefrag.html

"It's hard to stand out in the crowded field of defraggers, but Smart Defrag is able to do so with an unexpected twist."
- 5 stars, CNET Download.com, Sep 2008

"Smart Defrag is a free defragment tool and worth investigating. It?s also rather fast."

- Editor?s Review, PC Magazine, Feb 2007

[quSmart Defrag

The World?s Most Efficient Defragmenter

What?s the primary cause of slow/unstable PC performance? It?s disk fragmentation. Smart Defrag helps defragment your hard drives more efficiently than any other product on the market ?? free or not.

This powerful, award-winning free defragmenter is 100% safe and clean with no adware, spyware, or Key Benefits Benefits Extremely Easy to Useasy to Use

Install it and forget it. This powerful, free defragmenter works continuously, automatically and quietly in the background on your PC. Its intuitive interface makes Smart Defrag the ideal utility for complete computExceptionally Efficient Defragmentationgmentation

Smart Defrag has the world?s fastest defragmenting engine. It?s been specially designed for modern, large hard drives, so it eliminates longOptimize Disk Performancesk Performance

Smart Defrag doesn?t just use simple defragmentation. It also streamlines your file system, places the frequently used files and directories into the fastest area of the disk, enabling your computer to run at top speed with thAlways-on to Work Automaticallyrk Automatically

Smart Defrag works automatically and quietly in the background, so it continually and constantly keeps your computData Safe and Reliability Guaranteedility Guaranteed

Smart Defrag uses the commercial-level standard to move data and does not damage any file in your disk. Besides, unlike other "Automated" Defragmenters, Smart Defrag does NOT constantly perform analysis and defragment, which does damage your hard drive and shorten its life. Smart Defrag has a "Safe Intelligence" technology that can assure the health of your disk by deciding When and How to startFree Defragmenter Foreveragmenter Forever

Smart Defrag is 100% freeware. Download, use, and update it absolutely free for your personal computers, business or enterprise servers ?? it won?t cDesigned for Windows Vista, XP, 2000. and Windows 7P, 2000. and Windows 7

3,512 · January 1, 2009

General Utilities And Other Applications

Magnifixer http://www.blacksunsoftware.com/screenmagnifier.html

Magnifixer is a screen magnifier utility. You can place it anywhere on your screen, make it any size you want and select a zoom level. Magnifixer will always show the area of your screen where the mouse cursor resides.

- Up to 40x Magnification

- Place anywhere on your screen

- Dual monitor supported

- Smoothing for better readability

- Cursor tracking or fixed location view

- Stay-on-top window option

- Color Display (HTML or RGB mode)

- Most settings are saved and reused

- Very simple and intuitive interface

- Uninstall option

I was looking for an alternative to the Windows magnifier utility and came across this. Most of the alternatives I looked at only captured the screen once and never updated the display. Magnifixer can update the display up to 30 times per second.

For those who don't like installers, all you need is the EXE to run the program. But I think it stores the settings in the registry.

4,972 · January 14, 2009

Educational Utilities:

BoneLab http://www.nextd.com/bonelab.asp

BoneLab is a teaching and learning tool for medical professionals, students and anyone who is interested in skeletal anatomy. It is based on the integrated human 3D skeleton model with the highest level of detail presently available. BoneLab is a free program for Windows XP.

Students can interact with the 3D model and create new views,

colorize it, add annotations and comments and save it. Instructors can use BoneLab to teach and present anatomical content to students and patients, using predefined views.

3,512 · January 18, 2009

Educational Utilities

CrypTool http://www.cryptool.com/

The application CrypTool is a free e-learning application for Windows. You can use it to apply and analyze cryptographic algorithms. The current version of CrypTool is used all over the world. It supports both contemporary teaching methods at schools and universities as well as awareness training for employees.

The current version offers beside others the following highlights:

* Numerous classic and modern cryptographic algorithms (encryption and decryption, key generation, secure passwords, authentication, secure protocols, ...)

* Visualisation of several methods (e.g. Caesar, Enigma, RSA, Diffie-Hellman, digital signatures, AES)

* Cryptanalysis of certain algorithms (e.g. Vigen?re, RSA, AES)

* Crypt-analytical measuring methods (e.g. entropy, n-grams, autocorrelation)

* Auxiliary methods (e.g. primality tests, factorisation, base64 coding)

* Tutorial about number theory

* Comprehensive online help

* Supportive script with further information about cryptology

screenshot-1.en.png screenshot-4.en.png

3,512 · January 24, 2009

System Information and monitoring

Moo0 SystemMonitor http://www.moo0.com/?top=http://www.moo0.c...23SystemMonitor

This software let you keep your eye on system resource usages of your PC. It currently supports 26 kinds of information including CPU, Memory, Network, and detailed HDD usages. Using this software, you may discover what is limiting your system performance in each occasion.

Educational Utilities

SMath Studio http://en.smath.info/forum/default.aspx?g=topics&f=12

Absolutely free mathematical program with "paper"-like interface and numerous computing features (now with integrated mathematical reference book).

Key features:

* 2D and 3D plot creating;

* Numeric and symbolic calculations;

* Matrices, vectors, fractions etc;

* Data export to HTML format;

* and many others.

SMath Studio has the following features:

* Systems, matrices, vectors, complex numbers, fractions. Support of the following operations and functions:

* Addition, subtraction, multiplication (scalar and vector), division, finding of factorial, raising to power, roots, determination of modules, trigonometric functions, inverse trigonometric functions, hyperbolic and inverse hyperbolic functions, logarithms, determination of signature, calculation of an argument, determinants of matrices, transposition of matrices and vectors, minors of matrices, algebraic additions to matrices, calculations of matrix trace, ranking, conversion of complex numbers from algebraic to trigonometric form.

* Display of 2D and 3D graphs of functions for variable "x".

* Symbolic and numeric differentiation (derivatives) are available.

* Availability of inserting text regions into a worksheet. This feature is automated, so when the user inserts text or formula, the program will detect it and the user does not have to select "Menu" >> "Insert" >> "Text region" option in the menu.

* Export of created worksheets into html format - creation of web-pages.

* Support of parameters (constants and user-defined parameters).

* Unlimited size of worksheets and their quantity.

* Copy, cut, paste, and delete of expressions and/or parts of expressions.

* Tracking history of changes (undo, return).

* Possibility of saving and opening of created worksheets while working in SMath Studio (.sm) file format.

* Automatic saving of user’s preferences while exiting the program.

* Possibility to change the font size of expressions, as well as their colors and background color.

* Support of devices with any screen resolution and screen orientation (starting from 240x240 pixels and higher). Full VGA support.

* Support of 18-th interface languages.

4,972 · January 24, 2009

Educational Utilities:

SpeedCrunch http://www.speedcrunch.org/en_US/index.html

SpeedCrunch is a fast, high precision and powerful desktop calculator. For Windows, Mac and KDE.

* history and results on a scrollable display

* up to 50 decimal precisions

* unlimited variable storage

* intelligent automatic completion

* fully usable from the keyboard

* more than 50 built-in math functions

* optional virtual keypad to be used with a mouse

* on-the-fly and selection calculation

* customizable appearance

* syntax highlighting and parentheses matching

3,512 · February 8, 2009

Audio Tools

Similarity http://www.music-similarity.com/

This program can compare and find similar (duplicates) of musical files (MP3, WMA, ASF, WAV, FLAC, APE, WV). The analysis is made on contents of a file, it is necessary to note that similarity of a sound part is checked, using various algorithms FFT, Wavelet, math statistics, i.e. this is not bit-by-bit comparison, and for that it is necessary for program to decode a musical file. Also the program can compare values of ID3, ASF tags and names of files. Feature of the program is that that it counts up a certain estimation of a file and does not demand constant presence of the carrier with a file, in other words for the analysis it is possible to specify files on time carriers of CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, flash, all of them will equally participate in comparison correctly.

3,512 · February 9, 2009

These are programs I found through other threads on Neowin:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=705620

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=730398

Audio Tools

XRecode http://xrecode.com/

Credit to Imothep for finding this one

Audio converter with support for multiple formats.

Convert to MP3, WMA, OGG, APE, FLAC, WavPack, AAC, AC3, WAV

Supports RealAudio (.ra) files decoding

Supports files splitting by silence

Can convert multiple files in parallel by taking full advantage of multi-core CPU

Supports 24Bit encoding for OGG,FLAC,APE,WavPack and WAV and 32Bit encoding for OGG,WavPack,FLAC and WAV

Full unicode support for input and output files under Win2K,XP,VISTA

Confirmed to run under linux via Wine (Ubuntu 8.04)

This is a good converter, but it doesn't preserve tag metadata.

General Utilities And Other Applications

Visipics http://www.visipics.info

Credit to Striker for this one

VisiPics does more than just look for identical files, it goes beyond checksums to look for similar pictures and does it all with a simple user interface. First, you select the root folder or folders to find and catalogue all of your pictures. It then applies five image comparison filters in order to measure how close pairs of images on the hard drive are.

Visipic is a program that is considerably faster than any other commercial product and has an interface that let you do other things while Visipics automatically finds your duplicated images. It will detect two different resolution files of the same picture as a duplicate, or the same picture saved in different formats, or duplicates where only minor cosmetic changes have taken place.

All detected duplicates are shown side by side with pertinent information such as file name, type and size being displayed. Its auto-select mode let you choose if you want to keep the higher resolution picture, space-saving filetype, smaller filesize or all of the above. If you are insecure over what you really want to delete you can manually select the images you don't want to keep and delete them yourself.

Works well :)

General Utilities And Other Applications

SimilarImages http://celebnamer.celebworld.ws/similarimages/

Credit to Salgoth

SimilarImages is a free application designed to find similar images (duplicates) on your harddrives.

It therefore uses a fast Graphics Library to access the files and analyized the contents of the images and not the binary contents of a file.

Depending on these results (datasets) SimilarImages computes comparision values on a file-to-file base.

If this comparision value is below a certain, user-configurable value the file-pair will be considered to be similar and the Compare Files Window shows up.

Crashed every time I tried to compare images. Perhaps you'll have better luck with it.

General Utilities And Other Applications

ImgSearch http://kolmck.net/e_apps.htm

ImgSearch is a smart, reliable and easy-to-use application designed to allow you to search and delete similar images (JPG, GIF, BMP, ICO, CUR, WMF, EMF, PNG, PCX).

I found this one. The interface is a bit confusing, but it's the fastest and I like the way it presents the duplicates to you. All images are shown side by side, and all images are resized equally (smaller images will appear smaller than larger images).

4,972 · February 12, 2009

Image viewers:

Ginipic http://www.ginipic.com/

Ginipic takes image search to a whole new level. Now you can search image search engines, photo sharing websites or your own local picture collections simultaneously. Find what you're looking for and use it instantly in your own creation - document, presentation, art work - you name it. Work alongside other applications with Ginipic in Dock mode.

3,512 · February 19, 2009

Encryption and data security

Xyzzy http://www.haxial.com/products/xyzzy/

Xyzzy is a pronounceable password generator. It is useful for network or server administrators that find themselves creating new user accounts on a regular basis and need to come up with passwords for them.

The reasons to use a pronounceable password generator such as xyzzy are simply because passwords based on dictionary words are easy to crack by brute force methods, and passwords which are hard to remember usually need to be written down which makes them vulnerable to being found by prying eyes.

The passwords generated by xyzzy are easy to remember because they are pronounceable (usually) and are more secure because they are not dictionary words. Occasionally one will slip through, but this is very rare (usually about 1 in every 1000).

The algorithm used to create the passwords is based on work of several people. In simple terms, it uses the statistics of how often one letter appears next to another and generates passwords based on these trends. For example, if a password contains the letter 'Q', then it is very likely that it will also contain a 'U' right beside it, because this is almost always the case in real words.

I'm not sure I'd recommend this for system administrators where security might be more important. I think this program is good for the average user who typically won't choose a very strong password for themselves, making their information vulnerable.

3,512 · February 22, 2009

General Utilities And Other Applications

Fast Duplicate File Finder http://www.mindgems.com/products/Fast-Dupl...inder-About.htm

Fast Duplicate File Finder will help you find fast all duplicate files in a folder and its sub folders. The applications will compare the content of your files so it will find duplicates even if they are using different file names. It uses fast binary comparison algorithm and has internal preview supporting a lot of image, video, music and text file formats. You can also preview the files in binary mode. When the scan process is finished the program shows you all duplicate files in groups and can automatically mark the older files for deletion. The auto mark algorithm has advanced settings to exclude from auto mark files with user specified extensions, file sizes, file dates and file names. You can also set which folders you want to exclude from the auto mark. There is an option to protect system files and folders which is recommended to be turned on.

This program is pretty fast, but it will take a moment when "building file list..." if you're scanning a large number of files. I particularly like the UI though, the preview area is a very nice touch.

3,512 · February 26, 2009

File Managers

SearchMyFiles http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/search_my_files.html

SearchMyFiles is an alternative to the standard "Search For Files And Folders" module of Windows. It allows you to easily search files in your system by wildcard, by last modified/created/last accessed time, by file attributes, by file content (text or binary search), and by the file size. SearchMyFiles allows you to make a very accurate search that cannot be done with Windows search. For Example: You can search all files created in the last 10 minutes with size between 500 and 700 bytes.

After you made a search, you can select one or more files, and save the list into text/html/csv/xml file, or copy the list to the clipboard.

SearchMyFiles is portable, and you can use it from a USB flash drive without leaving traces in the Registry of the scanned computer.

AlternateStreamView http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/alternate_data_streams.html

AlternateStreamView is a small utility that allows you to scan your NTFS drive, and find all hidden alternate streams stored in the file system. After scanning and finding the alternate streams, you can extract these streams into the specified folder, delete unwanted streams, or save the streams list into text/html/csv/xml file.

4,972 · March 2, 2009

Network Tools:

NetWorx http://www.softperfect.com/products/networx/

NetWorx is a simple and free, yet powerful tool that helps you objectively evaluate your bandwidth situation. You can use it to collect bandwidth usage data and measure the speed of your Internet or any other network connection. NetWorx can help you identify possible sources of network problems, ensure that you do not exceed the bandwidth limits specified by your ISP, or track down suspicious network activity characteristic of Trojan horses and hacker attacks.

# Clear graphic and/or numeric display.

# Usage reports with export to a variety of file formats, including Excel, MS Word and HTML.

# Permits close supervision of uploads and downloads.

# Works with dial-up, ISDN, cable modems, ADSL, Ethernet cards, and more.

# Includes network information & testing tools with advanced netstat that displays applications using your Internet connection.

# Scalable to your own modem download capabilities.

# Option to notify user or disconnect from the Internet automatically when network activity exceeds a certain level.

March 2, 2009

Web Authoring

KompoZer

KompoZer is a complete Web Authoring System that combines web file management and easy-to-use WYSIWYG web page editing capabilities found in Microsoft FrontPage, Adobe DreamWeaver and other high end programs.

KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.

Based on Gecko: http://www.kompozer.net/

March 2, 2009

I have a couple I use but did not see them listed ... if they are already updated please accept my appology...

www.orbitdownloader.com/ download manager

http://www.speedbit.com/downloads/ download manager

www.teamviewer.com remote desktop sharing and support

http://www.download.com/WinDriver-Ghost/30...4-10121443.html ( windriver-ghost ) device driver backup utility FULL 15day trial period works great when you need to reinstall and cannot find the drivers. Use the program before you erase the drive.

hope you can use them...

3,512 · March 5, 2009

File repair and recovery

DiskDigger http://dmitrybrant.com/diskdigger

DiskDigger can recover files from any type of media that your computer can read. This includes USB flash drives, memory cards (SD, CompactFlash, Memory Stick, etc), and of course your hard drive. The types of files that it recovers includes photos, videos, music, documents, and other formats.

DiskDigger is not an “undelete” utility per se. Well, it kind of is, but isn’t. An “undelete” utility scans through the file system on your disk and looks for file records that have been marked deleted, and allow you to bring them back.

DiskDigger, on the other hand, brute-forces its way through your media, scanning it thoroughly for any trace of files that can be recovered. I don’t mean “brute-force” in any malicious way; this simply refers to the fact that DiskDigger reads every single sector of data, and scans it for traces of various file types. In this sense, DiskDigger is advantageous over an undelete utility because DiskDigger goes underneath the file system.

DiskDigger is not a “repair” utility. It cannot repair a broken memory card or disk. DiskDigger is a strictly “read-only” tool, and never changes the contents of the media you scan. It will, of course, scan unformatted (or badly formatted) media, but it won’t attempt to fix the formatting of the media.

DiskDigger is best used as a last resource for situations where the file system or partition has been deleted or corrupted, and any attempt recover from the problem has failed. DiskDigger scans every byte on the drive, and lists all of the files it finds, regardless if that file has been deleted or not.

4,972 · March 10, 2009

Desktop Enhancements:

Desk Drive http://blueonionsoftware.com/deskdrive.aspx

Desk Drive adds a desktop icon pointing to the drive automatically. Remove the media and the shortcut goes away. Brilliantly simple and effective.

3,512 · March 10, 2009

General Utilities And Other Applications

Duplicate & Same Files Searcher http://malich.ru/duplicate_searcher.aspx

Duplicate & Same Files Searcher (Duplicate Searcher) is an application for searching duplicate files (clones) and NTFS hard links to the same file. It searches duplicate file contents regardless of file name (true byte-to-byte comparison is used). This application allows to delete duplicate files or to move them to another location, but to replace duplicates with NTFS hard links as well (unique!).

This application was developed because I haven?t find any similar application which allows to operate NTFS-links.

# Fast search engine (byte-to-byte comparison and hard link detection algorithm are used)

# Detailed visualisation of duplicate files, NTFS hard links and junction points (unique!).

# Shows fragmentation of files (unique!).

# Shows compressed NTFS files in color.

# Manual and filtered selection files to delete, move or replace with NTFS hard links.

# Allows to move and delete files.

# Allows to replace files with NTFS hard links (unique!).

# Allows to compress files on NTFS volumes.

# Allows selecting disks and folders to scan.

Extremely fast search engine, even faster than 'Easy Duplicate Finder'. The EXE is only 197KiB, and the ability to replace duplicates with hard links is very unique (instead of deleting / moving files, this lets you free up space while keeping the original files intact). I haven't found any other duplicate finder with all of these qualities, and I've been through several.

A few issues:

- The GUI isn't the prettiest

- It requires .NET

- There are no options to automatically select files by name / date / etc.

3,512 · March 17, 2009

System Information and monitoring

VMMap http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinte...s/dd535533.aspx

VMMap is a process virtual and physical memory analysis utility. It shows a breakdown of a process's committed virtual memory types as well as the amount of physical memory (working set) assigned by the operating system to those types. Besides graphical representations of memory usage, VMMap also shows summary information and a detailed process memory map. Powerful filtering and refresh capabilities allow you to identify the sources of process memory usage and the memory cost of application features.

Besides flexible views for analyzing live processes, VMMap supports the export of data in multiple forms, including a native format that preserves all the information so that you can load back in. It also includes command-line options that enable scripting scenarios.

VMMap is the ideal tool for developers wanting to understand and optimize their application's memory resource usage.

dd535533.vmmapScreen(en-us,MSDN.10).jpg

4,972 · March 18, 2009

HTML Editors:

Araneae http://www.ornj.net/araneae/

* Syntax highlighting

* Support for HTML, XHTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP, Ruby, and more

* Instant browser preview, even without saving

* Insert customizable quick clips

* Tabbed multi-document interface

* Drag and drop support for files and images

* Downloadable extensions

3,512 · March 21, 2009

Audio Tools

Sonic Visualiser http://www.sonicvisualiser.org/

The aim of Sonic Visualiser is to be the first program you reach for when want to study a musical recording rather than simply listen to it.

As well as a number of features designed to make exploring audio data as revealing and fun as possible, Sonic Visualiser also has powerful annotation capabilities to help you to describe what you find, and the ability to run automated annotation and analysis plugins in the Vamp analysis plugin format ? as well as applying standard audio effects.

* Load audio files in WAV, Ogg and MP3 formats, and view their waveforms.

* Look at audio visualisations such as spectrogram views, with interactive adjustment of display parameters.

* Annotate audio data by adding labelled time points and defining segments, point values and curves.

* Overlay annotations on top of one another with aligned scales, and overlay annotations on top of waveform or spectrogram views.

* View the same data at multiple time resolutions simultaneously (for close-up and overview).

* Run feature-extraction plugins to calculate annotations automatically, using algorithms such as beat trackers, pitch detectors and so on.

* Import annotation layers from various text file formats.

* Import note data from MIDI files, view it alongside other frequency scales, and play it with the original audio.

* Play back the audio plus synthesised annotations, taking care to synchronise playback with display.

* Select areas of interest, optionally snapping to nearby feature locations, and audition individual and comparative selections in seamless loops.

* Time-stretch playback, slowing right down or speeding up to a tiny fraction or huge multiple of the original speed while retaining a synchronised display.

* Export audio regions and annotation layers to external files.

sv-1.0-notetracker.png

March 25, 2009

Small but very useful tools (part 2): http://www.primitivezone.com

Primitive Case Changer

Primitive File Size Chart

Primitive Word Counter

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