The 46 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

2005 June 30
by MeanDean

There are a lot of great freeware products out there. Many are as good or even better than their commercial alternatives. This list features my personal pick of the ‘best of the best.’ - TechSupportAlert; June 13, 2005

Opinions are like belly-buttons, everyone has got one. Likewise, I’m sure each of you has in their own mind and/or heart a top-10 list of their favo-freeware.

That said, here is a list I liked — mostly because the freeware at the top of the list is useful stuff, like FireFox and/or firewalls and/or free anti-virus programs –some items I wish a certain church would install on each of their office and personal computers so their former webmaster doesn’t get spammed into oblivion each and every time a minister or staff get’s zombied; ahem.

Personal conjecture aside, enjoy the list. Leave a comment here if you see anything you dislike, like but think it should be ranked higher - or better yet, suggest some freeware solution not on the list that can help your church operations and/or website run smoother, safer and less irritating to former web masters; ahem.

14 Comments leave one →
2005 June 30
Caleb permalink

Bible study software
http://e-sword.net/index.html
http://www.crosswire.org/index.jsp

Databases
Oracle - http://www.oracle.com/technology/tech/linux/index.html
MySQL - http://www.mysql.com/
Firebird - http://firebird.sourceforge.net/

Network Monitoring Tools
http://www.nagios.org/
http://pawikan.sourceport.dost.gov.ph/index.php
http://ocsinventory.sourceforge.net/?lng=en
http://www.jffnms.org/
http://autoscan.free.fr/
http://www.cacti.net/index.php

Vulnerability Scanner
http://www.nessus.org/download/

Router/Gateway
http://contribs.org/modules/news/
http://www.smoothwall.org/
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-emu/?ca=dgr-lnxw07-obg-RouterOnLin (dated but good)
http://www.freesco.org/?L=
http://www.clarkconnect.org/index.php

WiFi Access Point
http://www.nycwireless.net/pebble/

PBX Solution
http://www.asterisk.org/

VPN Solution
http://3sp.com/showSslExplorer.do

Video Editing
http://www.jahshaka.com/
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3

3D graphics/modeling programs
http://www.blender3d.org/

Video Rendering
http://www.drqueue.org/

Image Painting Retouching
http://cinepaint.sourceforge.net/

Vector-based illustration and graphics tool
http://www.inkscape.org/

Multi-track digital audio
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/
http://www.agnula.org/
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Portable Firefox and Thunderbird
http://portablefirefox.mozdev.org/
http://portablethunderbird.mozdev.org/

Chat Program
http://gaim.sourceforge.net/ (All in one)

Editors
http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php
http://www.mpsoftware.dk/htmlgate.php
http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
http://www.evrsoft.com/download.shtml

Free E-Commerce Solution
http://www.oscommerce.com/

Utilities
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm (Gmail Drive)
http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/BgInfo.html (Display system/server info)
http://www.cfengine.org/ (configure and maintain Unix computer systems)
http://www.amanda.org/ (Network-based enterprise backup)
http://mirror.open-xchange.org/ox/EN/community/ (Collaboration and Integration Server Environment allows you to store appointments, contacts, tasks, mails, bookmarks, documents, and many more elements and share them with other users.)

HTPC Media Center
http://mediaportal.sourceforge.net/

3D desktop replacement for Microsoft Windows XP
http://www.hamar.sk/sphere/

2005 June 30

Editors:
Vim (even on windows)
http://www.vim.org/download.php

2005 July 1
Caleb permalink

Great call with VIM. That is a wonderful editor.

2005 July 2
Herman Kwok permalink

One more vote to VIM. It rocks.

As for Web Authoring System (FrontPage and Dreamweaver alternatives), I found that Nvu (pronounced N-view, for a “new view”) is good.

http://www.nvu.com/about.html

2005 July 2

Thanks for the link. While not on Ubuntu, having to use windows, I do find the registry cleaners and anti-virus software very usefull.

2005 July 4

I’ve found several good freeware programs through this site, including EditPad (whick rocks, BTW).

That’s where I found the IE based Maxthon which is loaded with features including tabbed browsing and built in RSS.

There’s also a link to IEspell which add a spell checker to any form field in IE. It’s not as good as the spell check plugin for FF, but it’s the best I’ve found for IE.

Lastly, there’s WinSCP, a very stable FTP program. It’s the only one I’ve tried that lets me download my entire site in one download without locking up.

2005 July 4

i heart editpad and evrsoft products. 1stpage2000 is INFINITELY better than frontpage and still very user-friendly.

2005 July 5

I use Notepad2 quite often. I loads even the largest files like a freight train and supports syntax highlighting.

http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html

2005 July 29

Any ideas out there on good freeware for Content Management Systems or Tracking Systems (like webtrends)?

2005 August 4

I’ll cast my vote for Notepad2 too!

I use the Xoops CMS (www.xoops.org) and love it. It’s powerful yet relatively intuative, continually improving (it’s open source), and also has an active user community.

Thanks for the extra links everyone. I’ve found this quite useful (and I thought I knew all there was to know about freeware!).

2005 August 4

FTP: Filezilla.sf.net (I use this because it’s free and uses SFTP!)
Telnet: Putty http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
TFTP server: http://kin.klever.net/pumpkin/ (nice for assisting automated installs of OS).
CMS: I’m using WebGUI. (http://www.plainblack.com) It’s a bit of work to set up, but very nice for the user. I’m also one of the few who provide free assistance as I am able, along with an FAQ.
Editor: VIM (rocks, I agree!)
IDE: Eclipse http://www.eclipse.org (HUGE, but … does everything.)
Love GAIM! Trillian is also nice.
I second smoothwall.
I’m running: smoothwall express (firewall)+ dansguardian (web content filter) + clamav (antivirus) + assp (email spam filter) + adzapper (web ad eliminator). All free.

2005 August 7

I agree that Vim is a great editor. If you’re willing to learn how to use it, you’ll fall in love with it.

Another amazing text editor I love is http://www.crimsoneditor.com

Remember that sourceforge.net is full of open source projects of all kinds.

2005 August 7

I really enjoy Taco HTML Edit (sorry, only for Mac OS X). With the new Project Directory features, and line numbers, it’s been my html editor of choice.

http://www.tacosw.com

It’s FREE!

2005 August 17

You’re right, everyone has their lists of favorites. Here’s mine ;-)
http://www.wilk4.com/superlinks/default.asp?focus=page&pageID=software

btw, as an answer to the question about webtrends alternates, have you tried Analog? I’ve used it for years and love it.
http://www.analog.cx/

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