Mozilla Firefox
The award-winning Web browser from Mozilla is now faster, even more secure, and totally customizable to your online life.The premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world’s best browser.
VLC
VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, … and almost any other format you may come accross) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
Media Player Classic
Compact, but powerful media player. Plays anything under the sun. No install necessary.
Audacity
Audacity allows users to record live audio, convert tapes and records to digital formats, or mix pre-existing digital audio tracks. Supported formats include Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org is a multiplatform and multilingual office suite and an open-source project. Compatible with all other major office suites. It contains an extensive spreadsheet, word processor, presentation, database software.Big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with and a free replacement for Microsoft Word documents. Also supports OpenDocument Format.
GIMP
The GIMP is massively extensible. It has over 100 readily-available plug-ins which allow for the easy addition of new file formats and new effect filters. And the number of available brushes, gradients, and other add-ons make the GIMP extremely customizable. Even most of the popular Adobe Photoshop brushes and add-ons also work with GIMP
Paint.NET
Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools.
Filezilla
FileZilla is a fast and reliable FTP client. Its small and quick but wont let you down, Fillezilla is a powerful client and is suitable for home and office use.
Notepad ++
Notepad++ is a source code editor which supports several programming languages under Windows environment. It’s also a lightweight replacement of Notepad. The supported languages by Notepad++ are: C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, Javascript, RC file, makefile, nfo, doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python, Lua, Unix Shell Script, Fortran, NSIS and Flash action script. Notepad++ main features are: Syntax Highlighting and Syntax Folding, User Language Define System, Regular Expression Search, WYSIWYG (If you have a color printer, print your source code in color), Unicode support, Full drag-and-drop supported, Brace and Indent guideline Highlighting, 2 edits and synchronized view of the same document, User Language Define System.
KompoZer
KompoZer is designed to be extremely easy to use, making it ideal for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.
7-Zip
Supported formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
Self-extracting capability for 7z format
Integration with Windows Shell
Nasa World Wind
World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there
Celestia
This program doesn’t feature Carl Sagan, but it does have the billions and billions of stars about which he waxed poetic–and you can experience them all from the comfort of your desk chair.
Celestia is a free real-time space simulation that lets you experience our universe in three dimensions. You can travel throughout the solar system, to any of over 100,000 stars, or even beyond the galaxy.
Pidgin
Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that allows you to use all of your IM accounts at once.Pidgin can work with:AIM, ICQ, SIMPLE, Bonjour, IRC, Sametime, Gadu-Gadu, MSN, XMPP, Google Talk, QQ, Yahoo!, Groupwise, SILC, Zephyr.
Mozilla Thunderbird
Thunderbird allows you to customize your email to suit your specific needs whether it’s how you search and find messages or listening to music right out of your inbox.Powerful spam filtering, solid interface, and all the features you need.
SkipScreen
A Firefox extension that skips unnecessary clicks and wait times on Rapidshare, Megaupload, Mediafire, zShare, and more.
uTorrent
Most of the features present in other BitTorrent clients are present in µTorrent, including bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT (compatible with BitComet). Additionally, µTorrent supports the Protocol Encryption joint specification (compatible with Azureus 2.4.0.0 and above, BitComet 0.63 and above) and peer exchange.
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{ 55 comments… read them below or add one }
I am using VLC, MPC and Pidgin everyday…they are simply awesome open source softwares
You should also have a look at SSuite Office for a free office suite. They have a whole range of office suites that are free for download.
Their software also doesn’t need to run on Java or .NET, like MS Office and so many open source office suites, so it makes their software very small, efficient, and easy to use.
You may try these links for more info:
http://www.ssuitesoft.com/index.htm
Just saw SSuite Office which is specially made for windows and it’s really cool
I like it
is it free for trial or really free for use?
Yeah It’s absolutely free
I use VLC Player for FLV files and Audacity for audio recording. 2 great products!
I use Media Player classic for it
Nasa world wind is similar to google earth, am i right?
Similar to Google Earth and it’s open source
Open Office is a great free software too.
I’m using most of them daily. Mozilla firefox is the bestest in this list.
Great Collection, but I am currently having all of them, so no need to download,but thanks
Yeah Renz…Nasa world wind is similar to google earth and most imp it’s the opensource
I must say its a great list
I haven’t heard about Nasa world wind.. I only used Google Earth.. let me give it a try too
I like this article so much of giving so much of useful applications. I have some of it and going to try the others.
It’s amazing the programs that are out there, just about anything you can imagine and voila it’s there! Gotta love Celestia and will have to tell my daughter about PIDGIN!
Pidgin is simply awesome tool for IM
I am using it Daily
Yeah and Pidgin is really best software that you can have
It’s nice of you to compile this list. This is perfect for those who just bought new computers (and those who have recently reformatted theirs)
You are right Ellen. The softwares listed here are best for anyone who just bought new PC or laptop.
I saw one post on some blog regarding ‘Must Install this softwares after Reinstallation’
I will post the link here!!
another free tool is Photoscape.. It’s a nice software for photo editing
@Ellen
Photoscape is really nice software for editing images and moreover its free of cost.
What I like about the Photoscape is the ability to Change photo file names in batch mode
Hey Ellen,
Thanks for listing Photoscape here
cool collections i am using few of this already
Downloading KompoZer now . hope it will be useful
kompozer is best for non-technical computer users who want to create an attractive, professional-looking web site without needing to know HTML or web coding.
@ellen Photoscape is cool. i hav used it before
have you ever tried PhotoPlus?
I want to read more about Photoscape and PhotoPlus…let’s see which is better
no i havent tried photoplus is it similar to photoscape?
yup. it’s a photo editing software offered by serif
I like photo editing softwares always and this one is really useful
@ Dany
Even I will download KompoZer , I never used it before
@Vishal
I didn’t notice KompoZer in the list before. M downloading it too. You tried it ?
Nah dude..I didn’t tried it but surely will give a try
cool we both hav 2 test it now.. u post its review in ur blog too
Has anybody tried Free Serif Softwares before?
I haven’t heard about it.
Do look it up on the net. They have free software programs for DTP and website publishing too
Softwares for website publishing always attract me..will search more about this softwares
Whats the Free Serif Softwares ??
Never heard about it
Thanks Ellen for your info
ya thanks for the share.. wil google abt it
It’s a bunch of really good softwares for photo editing, web designing, etc… do try it.. the web designing software worked well for me
nope.. what kinda software is tht ?
It’s like dreamwever kinda software I guess
Nasa World Wind looks like a superb one.. gonna try it
yeah.. it’s a good one… even better than Wikimapia
But the problem with Nasa world wind is that it require 3D video card
what is this gimp about? i have heard it b4 too.. anyone care to explain?
From their site: GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It’s a freeware you can use for retouching, composing, creating, and authoring images that run on Linux, other Unix-based operating systems, Windows and Mac OS X.
GIMP Is simply best software coz I have used it sometimes back