Useful Free Software

[JimmyB76]

ya i know we've done this one before lol
anyway, thread title is self-explanatory...
just please link to whatever it is you refer to, and a brief description, and please try to avoid posting anything already posted...

edit - also, please avoid any debates of one thing being better than something else (unless it is asked), just please post things you have found useful


ill begin:

Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Malwarebytes has a variety of tools that can identify and remove malicious software from your computer; and if your computer becomes infected, Malwarebytes can provide the needed assistance to remove the infection and restore the machine back to optimum performance.

CCleaner is the number-one tool for cleaning your Windows PC. It protects your privacy online and makes your computer faster and more secure. Easy to use and a small, fast download.

Glary Utilities is the #1 free, powerful and all-in-one utility in the world market! It offers numerous powerful and easy-to-use system tools and utilities to fix, speed up, maintain and protect your PC.

TweakNow Registry Cleaner is an excellent freeware utility makes the potentially daunting prospect of cleaning your Windows Registry safe and simple.

ToniArts Easy Cleaner is a small program which searches the Windows registry for entries that are pointing nowhere. EasyCleaner  also lets you delete all kinds of unnecessary files such as temps and backups. You can search for duplicate files and you can view some interesting info about your disk space usage! You are also able to manage startup programs, invalid shortcuts and add/remove software list.

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a compact and fast defragmenter that supports both FAT 16/32, and NTFS file systems. It is supplied with advanced optimization techniques, which will remedy your system sluggishness and crashes caused by files fragmentation.

FileHippo Update Checker will scan your computer for installed software, check the versions and then send this information to FileHippo.com to see if there are any newer releases. These are then neatly displayed in your browser for you to download. Please note that not all programs are supported.

Process Explorer shows you information about which handles and DLLs processes have opened or loaded.  Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open? Now you can find out.

Revo Uninstaller is a powerfull uninstaller, which you can use to uninstall programs and scan after uninstall for leftover registry keys, files, folders, and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer.

The Weather Channel Desktop provides instant severe weather alerts, extended forecasts, interactive maps, radar and much more directly from The Weather Channel.

Audacity is a free, open source software for recording, editing, slicing, and mixing audio with a whole lot more options.

Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser.

[1DeadlySAMURAI]

IrfanView Nice little program for viewing, editing and converting images.

[TheConstable6]

VirtualBox Superb app I use to run Windows (not to mention support for almost every OS under Sol) on my Mac

[King Class Scout]

keep up with filehippo, or it gets to be a pest.  unfortunately, you guys have mentioned most of the utility software I have on here.

http://www.drivermax.com/ filehippo for computer internals.  usefull for keeping up your old hardware.  watch for it spamming itself, though

[Morgan]

Advanced SystemCare - awesome program that cleans out junk files, maintains privacy, and cleans the registry. Available in both paid and free versions.

Game Booster - Another awesome program that shuts down unnecessary background programs that you select and cleans memory to make games run faster.

[Lionus]

free version of ASC is rubbish. it gets stuck and usually freaks out after some time.. well, atleast it did so on my old rig.

[Morgan]

free version of ASC is rubbish. it gets stuck and usually freaks out after some time.. well, atleast it did so on my old rig.

I've had zero problems with it, so I don't know what to tell ya; could have been the program (older version), your old PC, who knows 

[FarShot]

Game Booster - Another awesome program that shuts down unnecessary background programs that you select and cleans memory to make games run faster.

Put this baby in your startup folder in program files and you'll always have a faster computer.  You can definitely see the difference when you're on Vista. ;)

[Morgan]

Put this baby in your startup folder in program files and you'll always have a faster computer.  You can definitely see the difference when you're on Vista. ;)

Or XP (and 7 I'm sure)  ;)

[King Class Scout]

agreed on the game booster.  I'm no longer having hangups with BC on higher res textures.  it also appears i got a couple of partially disabled mods back, as well.  I'm gonna test it with a real memory eater of a game i have, Mushroom Kingdom Fusion 0.4 beta.  they've made so many adjustments to the engine in the latest it slows down to 3 frames per second, and renders itself useless.

[tiqhud]

all of these are quite handy, I got some, I hook-up my older brother with Irfanview, he had to check some technical pics and the only viewer that would run em is Irfanview

[086gf]

http://www.avast.com/index This is a really good anti-virus program.

http://www.lavasoft.com/products/ad_aware_free.php This is a awesome anit-malware/spyware/rootkit program.

http://www.piriform.com/defraggler This is a neat little defragging tool. From the creators of CCleaner and Recuva.

http://www.getpaint.net/index.html As is its a decent little painting/image editing program but after you've downloaded some plugins its usefulness goes way up. Kind of a mspaint 2.0 if you will.

http://www.gimp.org/ In some areas its better than paint.net and not so much in others. There are many plugins out there for it aswell.

[Senator]

Linux

[Nebula]

and Senator does it again...

[tiqhud]

Game Booster - Another awesome program that shuts down unnecessary background programs that you select and cleans memory to make games run faster.

This might be VERY helpful, who all has tried it?
How did it do?

[Morgan]

This might be VERY helpful, who all has tried it?
How did it do?

It works wonders for me. BC and Fleet Ops have never run better since I started using it.

[JimmyB76]

hmm... perhaps i shall give that program a try also...
how does it work?  what settings are best?  does it re-open programs when the game exits?

[King Class Scout]

Jimmy: just install the thing, and it shuts off some background stuff.  even my browsers are working faster.  it also has a built in mini-defragger for game folders.  it shuts about 20 background programs off for me.  the whole thing is controlled by a switch right IN the program.  one of the simplist and most effective programs I've ever seen.

[Morgan]

what settings are best?

I usually kill everything except for Daemon tools. I don't worry about killing my anti-virus because I disconnect from the Internet before I do it, but even if you stay online you should be fine, it doesn't kill any firewalls or Windows security settings and they're fine for playing games like BC, EF, A2, or MMO's online.

does it re-open programs when the game exits?

Not automatically, you re-open the program from the system tray/desktop/start menu and click on "Switch to Normal Mode," at that point everything is turned back on the way it was.

[Nebula]

can't forget Speccy

http://www.piriform.com/speccy

it's a great tool to figure out exactly what your comp specs are.