All software listed here is for Windows and is free, unless noted.
Browsing/Newsreading
The plugin architecture of Firefox allows the creation of extensions, and there's lots to be had!
A few of my favourite firefox extensions:
NoScript
FasterFox
Adblock
CustomizeGoogle
ColorfulTabs
TabMixPlus
SessionSaver
DeepestSender for lj posting...
Comms
The fileZilla project presents both an ftp client and an ftp server.
Ftp client for windows. Works fine for me.
De facto telnet/SSH client for windows.
SFTP (secure ftp) and secure copy file transfer client.
VNC client and server for windows. (The free version doesn't support encryption.)
Another VNC client.
Document editing or production
Open source office suite compatible with Microsoft Office. Versions for both windows and linux.
High quality document preparation - the most popular document system used in academia. Loves
academic documents; eats them alive.
For info on diagramming software associated with LaTeX, read this here entry.
What You See Is What You Get word processor for LaTeX. Works well for very simple uses, but once you start to do anything vaguely involved, you start running into bugs.
One to watch, but I've stopped trying to use it due to bugs.
Another WYSIWYG word processor for LaTeX. Much more stable than MicroImp from what I've seen. And there is now an official Windows port!
Allows a PDF to be created from any application that can print. (It installs a printer driver which captures the output to a PDF file.)
Music typesetting system which is based on LaTeX. Produces beautiful output which is very customizable (but it is quite technical). If LaTeX doesn't scare you, this shouldn't....
Voice over IP (internet telephony)
Skype 2.0 is now out and there are some nice new features like video calling (using a webcam or similar) and the ability to do conference calls.
For Linux as well as Windows. Supports multiple voices on the same line, different 'channels' (think: rooms), and server based - you need to run a server to use TeamSpeak. Very handy for gaming.
Video conferencing
Video conferencing app (Linux) which is compatible with Microsoft's NetMeeting.
Instant messaging
Instant messaging client for Linux, handles many different popular instant messaging protocols.
Instant messaging client, handles many different popular instant messaging protocols.
Audio
Open, free and and patent-free professional audio codec. Does a better job than mp3 too!
(See this wikipedia entry for
more info on the legal issues surrounding use of mp3.)
Open source audio file editor. For Linux too.
Software for retrieving and listening to podcasts. Website also lists lots of podcasts
from different sources.
Video
GNU licensed video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms. Does a good job.
Image
Free image viewer/editor. Does batch operations like a dream.
GNU image manipulation program.
Antispyware and privacy
Finds and eliminates threats on your PC. Regular updates provided.
Immunizes IE and Firefox against threats embedded within web pages. Regular updates provided.
PC optimisation and privacy tool - frees up disk space by deleting temporary files, identifies and can fix issues in registry, tracks cleaner for erasing internet history etc.
Antivirus
Personal edition of this antivirus software is free. Does internet virus definition updates,
and is not too bloated. (My current choice of AV.)
Antivirus software for non-commercial use (otherwise it costs). Internet updates available.
Antivirus software for a variety of platforms.
Windows front-end for the above (Clam AntiVirus).
Antivirus with regular automatic updates. (Free for non-commercial use.)
I find this a pain to use because of the mystery meat in their GUI. They have lots of skin available, but they all seem to suffer the mystery meat problem :/
File sharing
Very nice BitTorrent client written in Java, also works on Linux.
File sharing. Has some nice features like being able to define friends (and give them more
privileges than others), being able to browse a users shared files, and more.
Client for the eDonkey network (also talks to some other networks).
Improved version of eMule. I'd use this rather than the plain eMule.
Programming/development
Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows that provides the standard GNU tools and
command line interface. Highly recommended if you find the standard *nix tools handy...
Open-source reimplementation and improvement of CVS, the version control system. Also for Linux.
Open source Windows shell extensions for Subversion, works very nicely.
One editor to rule them all. See the wikipedia article. Not for
the casual computer user (steep learning curve); favoured by programmers.
You may be interested in the Windows version.
Small compact editor based on the notepad editor that comes with Windows. Has syntax highlighting.
Programmers editor written in Java.
IBM's glorious gift to the world - extensible, open IDE with many very useful plugins available. Built-in support for Java, Ant etc.
"XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl. XAMPP is really very
easy to install and to use - just download, extract and start." Note that Xampp is intended for a development environment,
and you shouldn't use it for hosting a live system! (Due to its permissive security setup.)
File differencing and merging utility. Does what it says on the tin, easy to use. Now features Windows context
menu intregration which is very handy.
Backup
MicroSoft tool for doing backups and related things. Seems to work quite well in my experience so far...
See a few notes I made on SyncToy.
System rescue
Linux distro which boots from CD/DVD. Pretty good at recognising hardware.
Bootable CD containing many useful tools for system rescue/testing/setup. The full version contains Insert (see below).
Another bootable Linux distro with useful tools.
Many floppy disk images of Win9x, Dos, etc.
Misc.
Free, open-source software for on-the-fly disk encryption, also available for linux.
Supports hidden inner volumes (plausible deniability) and can encrypt whole disks or just use a storage file.
Mind mapping software tool, very handy for organising ideas/information.
Site offering old versions of popular software. "Because newer is not always better."
CD/DVD burning software. Not quite as fully featured as something like Nero but good for the price (free).
(I've had a few issues with this not working in some way from time to time, esp. when burning ISO images it seems.)
Desktop manager which offers the same sort of control as in Linux: multiple desktops, transparency, etc.
Blogging software.
Lots of useful codecs for viewing videos on your PC (e.g. includes the DivX codec).
A website with convenient links to the latest versions of popular free software
Very handy site for bypassing compulsory free registration on various sites.
Just bung in the URL of a site that is asking you to register, and BugMeNot gives you a login.
Open source version of windows media player, based on when it was less bloated and more useful!
Highly recomended.
Codec for playing RealMedia files without having to download the Real One bloatware. Includes Media Player Classic.
(May not always work completely satisfactorily - but it works well enough to be useful to me!)
Codec for playing QuickTime files without having to download the Quicktime player bloatware. Includes Media Player Classic.
(May not always work completely satisfactorily - but it works well enough to be useful to me!)
Small, clean, fast PDF viewer, much less bloated than the official PDF reader. Now apparently supports editing docs to some degree.
SysInternals have released a lot of very useful windows tools on their site. Some of the ones I've found useful:
Contig - defragment specific files on your hard disk
FileMon - monitor disk activity, real time. No need to guess which version of DLL is being loaded by a
program any more!
PageDefrag - defragment your page file (at boot time).
ProcessExplorer - see which pesky process has a handle on that file you're trying to access, or delete.
Find out details of many file formats
Util for visualising where all your disk space is being used. It inspired a Mac version called Disk Inventory X. Another similar program is available for Mac OS X called GrandPerspectiv.
