Free Software Thread

[Anti-Trend]

Opera



Free (as in beer) web browser with great features and a very good track record for security. As of version 8.5 the free version no longer contains banner ads. Opera is available for any platform you can think of (Windows, Linux, OS X, legacy Mac, UNIX, BeOS...)

[sabashuali]

Sygate Personal Firewall - The easiest I used so far....

DVD Decrypter - Backing up your precious DVD's does not get any easier.

IsoBuster - a highly specialized yet easy to use CD and DVD data recovery tool. Also very easy CD/DVD Image creator.

Someone mentioned Daemon Tools. I would literaly die without this one....

Although I read somewhere that it removes IE, I use it and with no problems - for spyware active sheilding, monitoring and removing - MS Antispyware

I try and use only freeware as I am broke as an eggshell under an elephant's stiletto. If I come accross any other gems I will post...

[Anti-Trend]

Cinelerra



"Heroine Virtual Ltd. presents an advanced content creation system for Linux. Cinelerra takes what normally is a boring server operating system - studied in computer science classrooms, hidden in back offices - and turns it into a 50,000 watt flamethrower of multimedia editing power. That's right kids. Unlike most of the Linux solutions out there, Cinelerra requires no emulation of proprietary operating systems, no commercial add-ons, no banner advertizements, no corporate dependancies, no terrorists, just a boring old Linux box. Cinelerra does primarily 3 main things: capturing, compositing, and editing audio and video with sample level accuracy. It's a seemless integration of audio, video, and still photos rarely experienced on a web server. If you want to make movies, you just want to defy the establishment, you want the same kind of compositing and editing suite that the big boys use, on the world's most efficient UNIX operating system, it's time for Cinelerra."

As the summary states, this is a Linux program. It may be possible to get it compiled on other UNIX systems, such as BSD and Solaris (maybe even Mac OS X?). It is not possible to run Cinelerra on Windows, as it has vastly inferior threading compared to Linux. If you use Mandriva Linux, Cinelerra is available in the PLF repository; just setup your repositories and type the following as root:

urpmi cinelerra

Enjoy,
-AT

[Anti-Trend]

amaroK



amaroK is, in my humble opinion, the best audio player for any platform. "amaroK is a music player for Linux and Unix with an intuitive interface. amaroK makes playing the music you love easier than ever before - and looks good doing it." Its features are too numerous to list here, but allow me to mention a few to get the ball rolling:

• Quick and simple drag and drop playlist creation
• Automatic lyrics download on demand
• Support for your iPod
• Unique and powerful context browser
• Eye-candy interface with many availiable skins
• Plays from System Tray
• Wikipedia integration to grab info on the artist
• Dynamic playlist creation
• Visual effects
• Clean, transparent on screen display
• Modular sound engine
• Much, much more...

amaroK is included in most Linux distros. Mandriva users can get the latest version for Mandriva 2006 by adding the following urpmi mirror (as root):

urpmi.addmedia SoS-2006 http://seerofsouls.com/RPMS-2006/ with hdlist.cz

...and then running an update. I recommend using amaroK with the Xine sound engine and ALSA sound server for the best possible experience. For you Windows users who want to try out amaroK, they do have a Live CD -- no installation required, just boot to the disc. Even includes some free tunes from magnatune.com!

[Anti-Trend]

MediaMonkey



Probably the best audio platform for the Windows operating system. While technically inferior to the UNIX-only amaroK, it does provide a similar interface and some of the same functionality. If you're a Windows user with no desire to try out Linux, at least give MediaMonkey a whirl -- it may be as close as you can get to arguably the best audio player in the world.

[sabashuali]

JAP -

JAP makes it possible to surf the internet anonymously and unobservably.

Basicaly, proxy surfing! It does slow surfing down slightly but it is a very small price to pay for absolute anonymety.....

Foe more details read here - http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html

[Anti-Trend]

Hamachi



"Hamachi is a UDP-based virtual private networking system. Its peers utilize the help of a 3rd node called a mediation server to locate each other and to boot strap the connection between themselves. The connection itself is direct and once it's established no traffic flows through our servers."

Basically, Hamachi is a free program which allows a secure connection between two or more PCs, making it as if they are both on the same physical network sans the speeds. It allows for secure gaming, file sharing, messaging, just about anything you would normally send over a network. There is a client for both Windows and Linux.

Note: Connecting to untrusted peers with Hamachi is akin to allowing untrusted strangers to plug into your local network, behind your firewalls. Keep this in mind and VPN safely.

[Sniper]

i.ftp http://www.memecode.com/iftp.php this is quite decent, its all you need to transfer files.

i.Ftp is a little graphical FTP/SFTP client, which does what I need in an FTP client without the size and fuss. I originally wrote i.Ftp to be the first freeware graphical client for BeOS, but someone beat me to it by a few days and well nobody notices who comes 2nd.

Source is available so if you want to fix that glaring bug and just tinker with it by all means, hack away. Download Lgi and the source. The projects for building the Win32 version are included, you'll need Visual C++ 6.

i.Ftp is designed to work from portable media like USB keys as well. It doesn't store anything in the registry and will find it's resource files and options via relitive paths. A full install is about 900kb so it doesn't eat up much space on your portable storage. If you don't need SFTP support then you can delete libssh.dll and libeay32.dll to make it even smaller!

Please don't leave any comments etc this thread is only to post software! thanks

[Sniper]

something to keep an eye on maybe? Synfig http://www.synfig.com/overview/

Synfig is a powerful, industrial-strength vector-based 2D animation software package, designed from the ground-up for producing feature-film quality animation with fewer people and resources. While there are many other programs currently on the market to aid with the efficient production of 2D animation, we are currently unaware of any other software that can do what our software can.

[Anti-Trend]

Blender



"Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback. Available for all major operating systems under the GNU Public License. Blender therefore is fully free to use and distribute within any educational, professional or commercial environment. Artwork created with Blender - including python scripts - is the sole property of the creator."

Blender is a powerful, professional-grade 3D rendering application. It provides an impressive array of features, including the following abbreviated list:

• Revolutionary non-overlapping and non-blocking UI delivers unsurpassed workflow
• Flexible and fully configurable window layout with as many screen setups as you prefer
• Undo support on all levels
• Powerful built-in database system allowing instances, scene management, and dynamic linking multiple project files
• Anti-aliased fonts with international translation support
• Windows for animation curves/keys, outliner, schematic scene diagram, non-linear video sequence editing, character animation action editor, non-linear animation mixer, image/UV editing, file/image selection and file management
• Built-in text editor for annotations and editing Python scripts
• Consistent interface across all platforms
• A range of 3D object types including polygon meshes, NURBS surfaces, bezier and B-spline curves, metaballs, vector fonts (TrueType, PostScript, OpenType)
• 'Smooth proxy' style catmull-clark subdivision surfaces with optimal iso-lines display and sharpness editing
• Mesh modeling based on vertex, edge and/or face selection
• Boolean mesh functions
• Editing functions such as extrude, bevel, cut, spin, screw, warp, subdivide, noise, smooth Soft selection editing tools for organic modeling
• Python scripting access for custom tools
• Armature (skeleton) deformation with forward/inverse kinematics, auto skinning and interactive 3D paint for vertex weighting
• Non-linear animation mixer with automated walkcycles along paths
• Constraint system
• Vertex key framing for morphing, with controlling sliders
• Character animation pose editor
• Animatable lattice deformation
• 'Ipo' system integrates both motion curve and traditional key-frame editing
• Audio playback, mixing and editing support for sound synchronisation
• Python scripting access for custom and procedural animation effects
• Very fast inbuilt raytracer
• Integral support for the famous Yafray render engine
• Oversampling, motion blur, post-production effects, fields, non-square pixels
• Environment maps, halos, lens flares, fog
• Various surface shaders such as Lambert, Phong, Oren-nayar, Blinn, Toon
• Edge rendering for toon shading
• Procedural Textures
• Ambient Occlusion
• Radiosity solver
• Export scripts available for external renderers such as Renderman (RIB), Povray, Virtualight
• UV texture editor with various mesh unwrap modes
• Graphical editor for defining interactive behavior without programming
• Collision detection and dynamics simulation
• Python scripting API for sophisticated control and AI, fully defined advanced game logic
• Supports all OpenGLTM lighting modes, including transparencies, Animated and reflection-mapped textures
• Playback of games and interactive 3D content without compiling or preprocessing
• Audio, using the SDL toolkit
• Multi-layering of Scenes for overlay interfaces
• Save all scene data in a single .blend file
• .blend format supports compression, digital signatures, encryption, forwards/backwards compatibility and can be used as a library to link to from other .blend files
• Read / Write TGA, JPG, PNG, Iris, SGI Movie, IFF, AVI and Quicktime GIF, TIFF, PSD, MOV (Windows and Mac OS X)
• Native import and export for DXF, Inventor and VRML files, with python scripts available for many other 3D formats
• Create stand-alone executables containing interactive 3D content or play back with the 3d web browser plugin

I have personally found that Blender runs best on Linux+AMD64/Opteron, but it also runs quite well on other platforms. Linux users can download Blender with their distro's package manager, all others can find their respective binaries here.

[Anti-Trend]

Album Shaper



"Album Shaper strives to be the most friendly, easy to use, open source application for organizing, annotating, framing, enhancing, stylizing, and sharing your digital photos. Album Shaper embraces open formats like XML, JPEG, and XSLT, while supporting Windows, Mac OS X, and Unix users who speak a multitude of languages around the world."

Excellent software used for organizing, labeling, and editing photos and then exporting them to a beautiful HTML photo album with several stages of thumbnails and many templates to choose from. Mandriva Linux users: Album Shaper can be found in your package manager. Alternately you can run the following command as root:

urpmi albumshaper

[Sniper]

Foxit Reader for Windows, this is quite impressive!

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

Originally Posted by Foxit Reader

Foxit Reader is a free reader for PDF (eBook) documents. You can view and print PDF documents with it.

Foxit Reader is small (the download size less than 1MB), so you can download it quickly. It doesn't need any lengthy installation, so you can start to run it as soon as you can download it.

And it starts up immediately, so you don't need to wait the annoying "Welcome" screen to disappear.

Foxit Reader is extremely easy to use, just double click it to start and then click open button to open your PDF document. If you want to print, click on "Print" button. If you want to setup the page layout for printing, select "Print Setup" from "File" menu.

[megamaced]

Sunbelt Kerio Personal Firewall

Reasonably good firewall, more powerful then ZoneAlarm's free Personal Firewall. Kerio is downloadable as a free trail of the Professional (paid for) edition. However, when the time limit runs out, the program reverts to the free version.

Avast Home Edition

Probably the best free anti-virus program around. Available for Windows and Linux. Includes on-access protection against web threats, p2p shaing, instant message and email. Excellent!

[megamaced]

DVD Rip-O-Matic (for Linux)

The only DVD ripper I could get working under SuSE Linux Thank god it's pretty good at what it does. The ripping takes place from an easy-to-use wizard. There are various options to choose from, including desired file size and media format. The ripping process takes around 3 hours to complete for a standard length film.

[donkey42]

this startup program controller for control panel (windows (all))
also this to stop win9x rebooting when you don't want it to
and this to optmize any internet connection (windows (all))

all pretty good, i couldn't live with windows without them