Free Software for Windows

Here are some tips on useful free and/or open source software for Windows, to make your life easier.

I try to keep this list short - only the best of breed. Let me know if there are some glaring omissions, but I'm not trying to list every application out there. I use most of the listed programs regularly, but some of them I have only tried briefly.

Disclaimer: I accept no responsibility for any consequences of you using these programs. Read the licenses properly if you need to know if you can use them in your workplace.

General

• Cygwin - makes Windows almost tolerable
• VMWare Server or VMWare Player - run a full Linux system in a window
• Google Earth - take the planet for a spin

Development

• Emacs (the Windows port is known as "NT Emacs")
• Cmake - a cross-platform build tool
• GnuWin32 - native Windows ports of many important Unix commands
• MinGW and MSYS - GCC compiler for building native Win32 (non-Cygwin) applications, and a "minimal system" for running Make and Autoconf

System tools

• InfraRecorder - CD/DVD burner
• IsoBuster - backup/extract disk images or individual files from CD/DVD, or extract files from a disk image
• SysInternals - ProcessExplorer and other tools; now owned by Microsoft
• cwRsync - straightforward packaging of Cygwin-rsync; includes ssh support
• Junction LinkMagic - create directory links on NTFS partitions
• SyncBack (freeware edition) - easy file backup/synchronization
• FreeUndelete - recover deleted files from your disk
• WinDirStat - find out how your disk space is being used, using graphical visualization
• TreeSize - a more lightweight disk space reporting tool with a handy context menu entry
• TightVNC - free (GPL) implementation of VNC (remote control of computers)

Security

• AVG Free - good virus protection, free for personal use, low resource usage
• Spybot - search and destroy spyware
• AdAware Free edition - anti-spyware, free for personal use
• ZoneAlarm - firewall, free for personal use
• ClamWin - free virus checker (GPL)
• GPG: Gnu Privacy Guard - encryption and digital signing

Office

• OpenOffice.org - if you don't want to pay for MS Office, this is quite good enough
• Gnumeric - Excel-compatible spreadsheet
• AbiWord - MS Word-compatible word processor

Desktop utilities

• Stickies - Virtual Post-it notes. Possibly the best free little desktop application ever.
• 7-Zip - Archiving utility. Handles most kinds of archive files (zip, rar, cab, tar, gzip, lzh, ...).
• KeePass - Encrypted storage for all your passwords. Also for Linux and Mac OS X (KeePassX).
• Password Safe - The original password safe. Still pretty good, if you only use Windows.
• HashOnClick - context menu tool for computing MD5/SHA-1/CRC32 hashes for one or several files
• TweakUI - Microsoft PowerToy; lets you control loads of hidden settings in Windows, such as window-auto-raise and focus-follows-mouse.
• CmdHere - Microsoft PowerToy; context menu for starting a console window in a specific directory
• Virtual Desktop Manager - Microsoft PowerToy; not great, but it works - gives you 4 desktops to switch between
• SyncToy - Microsoft PowerToy; synchronize files between directories/machines

Internet

Web Browser

• Firefox - You cannot seriously be using Internet Explorer, I hope? Get Firefox now!

  Useful Firefox plug-ins

  • Adblock Plus - how could anyone live without it?
  • Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer - share the same bookmarks on all your machines
  • IE Tab - open IE-specific pages in a tab in Firefox
  • LocalLink - make it possible to open file:-links, via the context menu

E-Mail

• Thunderbird - The only mail client you need

  Useful Thunderbird plug-ins

  • Lightning - integrated calendar
  • Provider for Google Calendar - bidirectional access between Lightning and Google Calendar (great!)
  • Contacts Sidebar - shows the contact list in a side bar
  • Mail Redirect - adds a "Bounce" function
  • Remove Duplicate Messages - very useful tool if you need to clean out duplicates from your mail boxes
  • Enigmail - mail signing and encryption (requires GPG) - user guide can be found at the Enigmail project home page.

Chat clients

Multi-protocol chat clients. (Use a single program for chatting on ICQ/MSN/Yahoo/AIM/GoogleTalk, etc., or on a local Jabber/XMPP server at work.)

• Pidgin - is Open Source and is included in many Linux distributions. There are also several plug-ins for Pidgin, for added functionality.
• Miranda - lightweight and quick.
• Trillian - a very flexible client. XMPP/Jabber (Google Talk, etc.) is only supported in the Pro version, but it's pretty cheap.
• Digsby - is free but not Open Source; it also works on Linux and Mac OS X. Note that it does not handle group chats.

Telephony

• Skype - you probably know what this is

Other internet programs

• Kompozer - HTML "WYSIWYG" editor (based on the Mozilla Composer codebase). Previously known as Nvu.
• µTorrent - friendly and lightweight BitTorrent client.
• Free Download Manager - makes downloads easier (also works with FlashGot in Firefox).
• FileZilla - FTP client.
• PuTTY - ssh/telnet client

Audio and video

Music

• Winamp - a great music player with a very useful built-in library database
• Last.FM - personalized Internet "radio"
• CDex - straightforward CD ripping
• MusicBrainz Picard - rename and tag your MP3 files automatically

Video players

• VLC media player - plays most video files, DVD:s, VCD:s, disc images, and streams
• Media Player Classic - part of the guliverkli project - lightweight but powerful and simple to use; plays most video files
• MPlayer - extremely general video player; however, installation on Windows may require some manual labour

Other audio/video programs

• Audacity - sound editor
• VirtualVCR - small, simple video capture program

Graphics and images

PDF and PostScript

• PDFcreator - create PDF files from nearly any Windows application
• Foxit Reader - a small, fast PDF reader, as a replacement for Adobe Reader
• GSview - view PostScript files with Ghostscript

Image editing

• Paint.NET - forget MS Paint and install this program right away!
• GIMP - Gimp for Windows; almost as good as Photoshop, and it's free

Managing images

• Picasa - keeps track of all your pictures; view, edit, mail, upload, timeline...

Desktop publishing

• Scribus - similar to QuarkXPress, PageMaker and InDesign

Vector Graphics

• Inkscape - a complete vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator and Corel Draw
• Dia - a Visio-like program for drawing graphs and figures

3D modelling

• SketchUp - quick and easy 3D-modeling; put your house in Google Earth
• Wings 3D - easy to use 3D modeller
• Blender - advanced 3D modelling and rendering