M
Mike Henley
what are the must have freewares for windows xp that i could be
missing out on, with a brief description and links if you can but not
necessarily
i found the following good and useful, to the extent that they've
become part of my windows xp install
- ava find http://www.think-less-do-more.com/avafind/ (excellent,
builds up an index of your files so you can find any file within a
second or two)
- avast antivirus http://www.avast.com/i_idt_153.html (wonderful
antivirus, i don't know if it's better than norton antivirus but i had
the 2002 version of norton antivirus which i've uninstalled and prefer
avast, it guards against p2p viruses and builds a database of your
file to repair them, it can also do a boottime virus search, it also
found many viruses that microtrend failed to find... has anyone found
anything wrong with this one)
- dirms and buzzsaw defragmenters http://www.dirms.com/
and sysinternals pagedefrag
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml (those
three very small defrag tools in combination are better than the
latest professional version of diskeeper 8, dirms is a dos defrag
utility with wonderful options and very very effective, it'll defrag,
compact files, move them according to lcn and according to last
modification date.. etc, buzzsaw defrags on the fly in an idle state
which i found better than diskeeper as diskeeper actually schedules
its defrags and i found interfers with my work even when its priority
set to lowest, diskeeper isn't a true on-the-fly defragmenter, at
least not in my experience, pagedefrag is set on for every reboot i do
and it defrags things such as pagefile and system registery files)
- clipcache the last freeware version (you can find the freeware
version here http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32/clipcache.html, this
thing saves a list your clipboard cuts and pastes so you can use them
anytime you want, handy if you cut and paste more than once)
- switch off http://yasoft.km.ru/eng/switchoff/ (switches off
automatically)
- mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ (i think everyone knows what this
is, i must have it with multizilla and optimoz, i no longer enjoy IE)
- the gimp http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/downloads.html (lovely
once you get used to it)
- rocket.time http://www.rocketsoftware.com/portfolio/rockettime/overview.htm
(syncs your desktop clock to the atomic time, i love in combination
with timecopy for the palm OS which means my vaio and my clie are both
automatically in sync with atomic time)
- kazaa lite k++ with full codecs and BSplayer (eh, you know kazaa
lite k++, BSplayer seems very very nice with the right skin, i like
DVP v3 'cos it's most usable)
- visualboyadvance http://vboy.emuhq.com/ (gameboy advance emulator,
great for playing yoshi's island during those breaks from doing work)
- openoffice.org http://www.openoffice.org/ (what can i say, let's
just say i already have Office XP which i've uninstalled and prefer to
use openoffice.org, i especially like that it's smaller, loads faster,
scrolls faster, smaller files, almost never crashes, more reliable,
and more usable with things such as autocomplete and a great
full-screen mode)
one software that is useful though not freeware is picasa
also, One redeeming factor for being an AOL subscriber is that they
give a version of McAfee personal firewall plus for free, which is the
best personal firewall i've tried but i don't think it's free for
non-aol subscribers
what freeware is a must have that either have become part of your
winxp install or have replaced commercial software you had, or is just
simply good that i could be missing out on
missing out on, with a brief description and links if you can but not
necessarily
i found the following good and useful, to the extent that they've
become part of my windows xp install
- ava find http://www.think-less-do-more.com/avafind/ (excellent,
builds up an index of your files so you can find any file within a
second or two)
- avast antivirus http://www.avast.com/i_idt_153.html (wonderful
antivirus, i don't know if it's better than norton antivirus but i had
the 2002 version of norton antivirus which i've uninstalled and prefer
avast, it guards against p2p viruses and builds a database of your
file to repair them, it can also do a boottime virus search, it also
found many viruses that microtrend failed to find... has anyone found
anything wrong with this one)
- dirms and buzzsaw defragmenters http://www.dirms.com/
and sysinternals pagedefrag
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/pagedefrag.shtml (those
three very small defrag tools in combination are better than the
latest professional version of diskeeper 8, dirms is a dos defrag
utility with wonderful options and very very effective, it'll defrag,
compact files, move them according to lcn and according to last
modification date.. etc, buzzsaw defrags on the fly in an idle state
which i found better than diskeeper as diskeeper actually schedules
its defrags and i found interfers with my work even when its priority
set to lowest, diskeeper isn't a true on-the-fly defragmenter, at
least not in my experience, pagedefrag is set on for every reboot i do
and it defrags things such as pagefile and system registery files)
- clipcache the last freeware version (you can find the freeware
version here http://www.woundedmoon.org/win32/clipcache.html, this
thing saves a list your clipboard cuts and pastes so you can use them
anytime you want, handy if you cut and paste more than once)
- switch off http://yasoft.km.ru/eng/switchoff/ (switches off
automatically)
- mozilla http://www.mozilla.org/ (i think everyone knows what this
is, i must have it with multizilla and optimoz, i no longer enjoy IE)
- the gimp http://www.gimp.org/~tml/gimp/win32/downloads.html (lovely
once you get used to it)
- rocket.time http://www.rocketsoftware.com/portfolio/rockettime/overview.htm
(syncs your desktop clock to the atomic time, i love in combination
with timecopy for the palm OS which means my vaio and my clie are both
automatically in sync with atomic time)
- kazaa lite k++ with full codecs and BSplayer (eh, you know kazaa
lite k++, BSplayer seems very very nice with the right skin, i like
DVP v3 'cos it's most usable)
- visualboyadvance http://vboy.emuhq.com/ (gameboy advance emulator,
great for playing yoshi's island during those breaks from doing work)
- openoffice.org http://www.openoffice.org/ (what can i say, let's
just say i already have Office XP which i've uninstalled and prefer to
use openoffice.org, i especially like that it's smaller, loads faster,
scrolls faster, smaller files, almost never crashes, more reliable,
and more usable with things such as autocomplete and a great
full-screen mode)
one software that is useful though not freeware is picasa
also, One redeeming factor for being an AOL subscriber is that they
give a version of McAfee personal firewall plus for free, which is the
best personal firewall i've tried but i don't think it's free for
non-aol subscribers
what freeware is a must have that either have become part of your
winxp install or have replaced commercial software you had, or is just
simply good that i could be missing out on
