Guest post by If you haven’t looked at the Windows utilities landscape lately, you’re in for a big surprise. Many of the old favorites have changed, bringing new features to Windows 7, as well as XP. Others have fallen by the wayside, replaced by upstarts that deliver meaningful functionality that once cost big bucks. With that reality in mind, Woody Leonhard has picked the 15 free Windows utilities everyone should have.
Don’t forget the Firefox plugin Repagination, some webpages are rendered useless without it
http://www.infoworld.com/print/144063
The list is a little “meh” IMHO. There is a ton of freeware for Windows, and over the years I’m sure we’ve all found our own “hidden gems”. These are mine, in so far as I can recall off the top of my head.
Here are the applications I always put on a new Windows install:
Media Player Classic Home Cinema Edition* **, ffdshow* **, IrfanView (with plugins), Putty*, Naviscope, PDF X-Change*, 7zip*, Process Explorer*
* 64 bit version available (check out your temp directory for the real x64 version of Process Explorer, which loads *much* faster if you’re IO saturated)
** Check out the nightlies at xvidvideo.ru
Here are some very nice applications that I used to use, but rarely now due to changing needs:
Altiris SVS, Rainlendar, Litestep, Daemon Tools, ImgBurn, Tom Grandgent’s TMail, Powermenu, SecureTrayUtil, FreeOTFE, Privoxy, TestDisk
I suppose PLoP boot manager, XosL, and Ranish Partition Manager don’t count as they aren’t for Windows per se, but I’ll throw them out there anyway.
Adding:
Dual Display Mouse Manager
SpeedFan
UltraMon
Wizmouse/Katmouse.
Stops the mouse scrollwheel from being focus sensitive, makes Windows 2% less retarded.
http://antibody-software.com/web/software/software/wizmouse-makes-y…
WinXMove.
Allows you to move windows by Alt+LeftMouse clicking anywhere in the window, resize by Alt+RightMouse clicking anywhere in the window, making windows 1% less retarded.
http://winxmove.sourceforge.net/
Windows X Kill.
Ctrl+Alt+Backspace turns the mouse into a giant skull and crossbones, allowing you to kill unresponsive windows properly (isn’t regularly ignored like Alt+F4 tends to be), avoids having to bring up the task manager, making Windows 2% less retarded.
http://solo-dev.deviantart.com/art/Windows-xKill-100737525
Foobar 2000.
Requires a bit of fiddling with it’s UI but is the least bullshit-laden music player/manager I’ve found on Windows.
bb4win[_mod].
Sadly doesn’t work particularly well with Vista, or 7 but if you’re still using <= XP, it’s the single biggest improvement you can make to your Windows desktop. Gives you extended window management capabilities, sloppy focus (although this can be achieved with DWM and TweakUI as well), the only competent workspace management you’ll find on Windows and has an extensive plugins system (highly recommend the workspace wheel plugin in conjunction with wizmouse/katmouse). bb4win_mod’s default layout is horrible but is easily fixed. Makes Windows 20% less retarded.
http://www.lostinthebox.com/viewforum.php?f=64
Classic Shell.
Win 7 only. Allows you to get the classic Start Menu back, design your own menu, add the Up button to explorer’s title-tool-bar-widget-thingy, allows you to disable the address bar breadcrumbs. makes Windows 10% less retarded.
http://classicshell.sourceforge.net/
SumatraPDF.
Adobe Reader but doesn’t use 80-100MB of RAM, doesn’t take 10 minutes to load, doesn’t run crap in the background and doesn’t force you to upgrade to the latest version before letting you read a PDF.
http://blog.kowalczyk.info/software/sumatrapdf/free-pdf-reader.html
I found your list interesting.
I used to use katmouse too but needed a portable version of that functionality. I ended up using taekwindow which combines the Mac/Linux-style (and so much saner should I say) wheel applies to window under cursor and the Alt-move-resize functionalities.
You might want to make that at least 10%. This is a killer feature.
Most of these apps, not only in the article but also being mentioned in comments just seem to be an attempt to give windows functionality that is present by default in any modern linux distro…
Only, with windows you still have to be extremely careful what you download, do you trust the sites on which these apps reside? Do you know what sites these apps *should* be on, and can you be sure your downloading from the correct site and not a scam? Even if you do find the correct program, as the article points out many windows freeware programs try to install extra crap that you don’t want.
It is generally windows freeware that gives linux a bad name, they think that free software is virus laden, dangerous, often intentionally crippled and frequently bundled with unwanted crap.
Just love these articles on applications. I wish we could have more.
There is also a lot of scaremongering going on the net about freeware.
I always Google an application before installing and I did so not long ago regarding one application on the short list (not going to name) there were specifically one flyby flame review to make you feel as though the other paid one is safer. It turned out to be utter crap because I installed it and thoroughly monitored it.
Reading things such as those you can’t help not feeling insecure when installing this stuff.
What can you do to feel more secure? (Other comments can help on this)
(This advice is for noobs like we all were at some stage and mostly relates to Windows)
1. APPLOCKER
Expensive option: Get windows ultimate for its Applocker feature.
(This should really be a default feature in all windows versions I think)
But as we all know ultimate isn’t exactly cheap.
2. SANDBOXING, NETWORK ACCESS CONTROL, NETWORK MONITORING
At this stage Microsoft security essentials don’t have sandboxing.
It should have. (I’m not saying MSE is not good)
Some security software comes with more bells and whistles for this.
Specifically:
Sandboxing (Program has no network access)
Networking access rights control (limit a programs right to access the internet. Some have a sliding scale across trusted and untrusted)
Network monitoring (where you can see what/if applications is actually using network bandwidth when they aren’t suppose to be.)
Windows have such a network monitoring feature but lacks in comparison to others.
(This naturally has it negatives to. It won’t update those maybe useful patches and some require network access to work properly)
3. PROCESS MONITORING
When a program is not in use look in your active processes if (Press CTL/ALT/DEL to access your task manager) if it still runs. (Although this might be necessary for a program to function correctly most of times it’s not needed.
There are also programs you can use to control what programs boot on start-up.
4. UPDATE/PATCH YOUR SOFTWARE
Software mostly is not insecure by design. It’s an ongoing effort to patch up vulnerabilities that can lie across thousands of lines of code.
(Sometimes software can fall into neglect with known vulnerabilities left unpatched.)
There is programs that can help you with this.
A program like Secunia free edition looks if any of your applications is unpatched.
Some antivirus/firewall suites also have this feature. Although it mostly require a special scan.
Alternatively if the program is not set to check for automatically routinely check if your sofware is updated. Usual way of doing this. Open program-Help-About…-Check for updates or Help-check for updates.
5. RESEARCH
Do a bit of research before installing.
Google the application, but also don’t believe everything you read. Read an at least a few reviews before making up your mind.
6. DOWLOAD SITES
Don’t download your freeware from just any site. Some sites such as Cnet test their programs for Spyware act. Although we can’t expect Cent or others inspect every line of code. The effort at least help towards the effort.
This is by far not an exhaustive list and quickly written.
Others might want to contribute.
That reminded me of when I stopped using Windows.
I still have XP at work and it is the only Windows machine I still have to use. Win7 will come here eventually, and a lot of the programs I use probably won’t work when it happens. Currently I use the following programs to make work tolerable:
Litestep – I used to churn out themes/UI’s at pretty regular intervals. Even got a few DD’s at deviantart. The official Reluna litestep theme was probably my biggest one. I have my shell currently specific to my job with custom hotkeys, system meters, RSS feeds, and so on.
FileBox – makes the file dialogs actually useful.http://www.hyperionics.com/files/index.asp
allSnap – Windows snap to screen edges and each other. http://ivanheckman.com/allsnap/
TaskSwitch – just a better Alt+tab. http://www.ntwind.com/software/taskswitchxp.html
xplorer2 – What the Windows file manager should be. http://zabkat.com/
I used to use WinRoll and WinFlip but not so much anymore.
I don’t want to use a windows pc for more than 24 hours without it, and usually end up installing it immediately afterwards.
If I’m using the PC heavily, then I often install the command prompt from freedos and use that to invoke cygwim. Makes Windows terminal computing bearable.
Though Windows is installed on 2 of the 5 computers in my personal-slash-work setup, I’m not a big fan of it per se, so I’ve installed lots of little tools to make using it more bearable. Also probably one of the big reasons I’ve stuck with XP – much of this stuff has broken in Vista/7.
QTTabbar – lets you used tabs in Windows Explorer.
http://qttabbar.sourceforge.net/
VolumeTray – among other things, lets you assign keyboard shortcuts to things like increasing & decreasing system audio volume.
http://www.brothersoft.com/volumetray-137145.html
UnxUtils – common *nix command line tools compiled for Windows.
http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/
xxamplite – a package containing Windows versions of Apache, PHP, and MySQL, very handy for doing quick-n-dirty application testing or “offline” web development.
http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp-windows.html
QTIndexSwapper2 – an Adobe AIR application that moves MP4 metadata to the front of the file (necessary for streaming h.264 through Flash).
http://renaun.com/blog/code/qtindexswapper/
SpeedSwitchXP – application that gives some basic control over speedstep on CPUs that support it.
http://www.diefer.de/speedswitchxp/
RawWriteWin – a Windows GUI for rawrite, I use it for backing up my collection of boot diskettes (Ghost, burn-in testing tools, etc).
http://www.chrysocome.net/rawwrite
Unlocker – a VERY handy shell extension that lets you see what process is locking a particular file (preventing it from being deleted, etc), and various options for unlocking it.
http://www.chrysocome.net/rawwrite
Oscar’s Renamer – a batch-renaming tool that gives you a text list of the files/folders in a particular directory, and lets you edit them the same as if you were editing a text file.
http://www.mediachance.com/free/renamer.htm
And then there’s my collection of support/anti-malware tools: AVG Free or MSSE, Spybot S&D, Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, Super Antispyware, and Combofix.