a broken mold

This is a growing resource of free software, all of which we’ve tested. For now the entries are arranged in alphabetical order, but as the list grows, maybe later by subheadings such as ‘Internet’ or ‘Media.’ For a more extensive selection, see the Free Windows Software List on the NotebookReview.com forums. Lots of free software can also be found listed at AlternativeTo.net (the Free & Open Source filter will be helpful).

7-Zip

Win

7-Zip is a versatile file archiver/extractor with a high compression ratio. Command line Mac, Linux, and other Unix-like ports are available.

Audacity

WinMacLinux

Audacity is a sophisticated open source audio recorder and editor.

AVG Free AntiVirus

Win

AVG is a free anti-virus program that, while arguably not as thorough as Avira or Avast, has a user-friendly interface and update system. See also this article on Taming AVG Free version 8.

Avira AntiVir

Win

Avira is an excellent free anti-virus program, but does occasionally nag you about upgrading. This post describes how to disable the popup nag screen, splash screen and/or update notifier.

BurnCDCC

Win

BurnCDCC is a simple utility for burning an ISO file to a disc.

CCleaner

Win

CCleaner is a cleaning utility. It can clean out the registry (not that it makes a difference), delete temporary files and clear MRUs for a number of applications, empty the Recycle Bin, clear browsing history in the popular browsers, and uninstall applications.

Comodo Firewall Pro

Win

Comodo is an excellent free firewall with multiple levels of threat protection, and an optional antivirus.

Core FTP LE

Win

Core FTP is a functional, lightweight FTP client.

CPU-Z

Win

CPU-Z is a simple utility that displays detailed CPU, mainboard, and memory information for your system.

Cryptainer LE

Win

Cryptainer is a lightweight encryption tool, useful for securing personal information.

DOSBox

WinMacLinux

DOSBox is a DOS emulator that allows you to run classic games, such as the freeware versions available from DOS Games Archive or DOSGames.com. See instructions on running DOS games here.

FileZilla

WinMacLinux

FileZilla is a fully-featured open source FTP client. A Windows FileZilla Server also exists.

Firefox

WinMacLinux

Firefox is a highly customizable, open source web browser with over 6,000 add-ons available. For other good browser choices, see Nat’s IE Alternatives.

FLV Extract

Win

FLV Extract offers a quick, lightweight method of extracting audio and video from FLV (Flash video) files.

foobar2000

Win

foobar2000 (named after the metasyntactic variable) is an advanced, highly customizable audio player.

Foxit Reader

Win

Foxit offers a lightweight alternative to Adobe Reader for PDF files.

fre:ac

Win

fre:ac, previously called BonkEnc, is an extremely capable open source audio converter and CD ripper.

Free Download Manager

Win

Despite the boring generic title, Free Download Manager is a useful tool for managing and optimizing large downloads. Its many features include BitTorrent and HTML Spider support. Alternatively, DownTheMall is an excellent in-browser solution for Firefox.

GIMP

WinMacLinux

Why shell out upwards of $300 for Photoshop? GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a free alternative with advanced features and a wide online support communtity.

Gnome Do

Linux

Gnome Do is a remarkably versatile desktop launcher for Linux with an extensive selection of plugins. Features range from microblogging, searching Gmail contacts, and uploading images to Flickr to file indexing, launching programs, and system functions like volume control and session management. The Docky theme adds the functionality of a dock, and the weather and email docklets show live updates on your desktop. [Update: the Docky theme is no longer packaged within Gnome Do, but using Do in conjunction with Docky yields much the same effect.]

GnuCash

WinMacLinux

GnuCash is a free financial-accounting program with powerful features, perfect for personal or small business use.

Google Earth

WinMacLinux

Google Earth is a cool program that allows you to view satellite imagery on a 3D globe of the Earth, zooming in with incredible detail on virtually any area of the planet. With powerful features like terrain view, photos, and integrated Wikipedia articles, it surprisingly doesn’t crash or drag down your system as might be expected. Oh, and it’s free.

GPU-Z

Win

GPU-Z is a lightweight utility that provides detailed information about your video card.

HD Tune

Win

HD Tune is a hard drive scanning tool that checks for errors, offers a health report, and provides detailed information about your drive.

ImgBurn

Win

ImgBurn is a feature packed disc burning and imaging tool. You can make discs from image files as well build audio CDs, DVDs, video HD DVDs, and video Blu-ray. The author reports that it should run under Linux using WINE.

KeePass

Win

KeePass is a light weight open source password manager. We recommend the 1.x branch because of wider platform support and better performance. Mac and Linux support are available as KeePassX, a port. There are also versions for PocketPC, Java on mobile phones, iPhone (unreleased), BlackBerry, PalmOS, PortableApps, U3, Windows Preinstalled Environments, and Android.

Kdenlive

MacLinux

Kdenlive is a powerful and versatile video editor, offering similar functionality to Windows Movie Maker for Linux users. While the interface is somewhat less user-friendly, this remains the best Linux alternative I’ve found for simple (and even advanced) video editing.

KompoZer

WinMacLinux

KompoZer is a free, easy-to-use WYSIWYG web editor with integrated file management and professional capabilities.

Launchy

WinLinux

Launchy is an incredibly useful desktop launcher that indexes your files, programs, and bookmarks for instant access. With the addition of folder navigation, Launchy streamlines your desktop interface to the point where icons, file browsers and menus feel unnecessary. Plugins like the calculator feature are also quite handy.

Lightscreen

Win
Lightscreen is a screenshot tool that makes things painless. Very fast and contains a good selection of options. Toggle a checkbox and you’re ready to pound out rapid fire screenshots with no bothersome save dialog or pasting process.

LogonStudio

Win

Logon Studio offers login screen customization for Windows XP and Vista users.

Memtest86+

WinMacLinux

Memtest86+ is a bootable memory diagnostics tool.

MyDefrag

Win

MyDefrag is a versitle defragging tool based on the Microsoft defragmentation API (application programming interface), that offers superior performance to the Windows utility. Options include a GUI, command line, and screensaver version. For defragmenting boot files to speed up boot time, follow these instructions.

NetLimiter Monitor

Win

NetLimiter Monitor lets you monitor and track your internet and network usage by individual processes or as a whole. Lots of nice statistics here especially if you have a capped internet connection.

Notepad++

Win

Notepad++ is an advanced text/source code editor for Windows.

OpenOffice.org

WinMacLinux

OpenOffice.org is a highly feature-full open source office suite for those who can’t afford MS Office or are free software buffs. It includes Writer, Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (PowerPoint style slideshows), Base (database management like Microsoft Access), Draw, and Math (make and edit mathematical formulas)¹.

Picasa

WinMacLinux

Picasa is a useful program for organizing and viewing photos and albums, creating collages and slideshows, and minor image editing.

Recuva

Win

Recuva is a free file recovery program with an intuitive interface.

Resource Hacker

Win

Resource Hacker is a Windows binary file editor, useful for viewing and modifying executables.

U3 uninstall

WinMac

This little app removes the annoying U3 application from USB drives. If you want that kind of functionality, try PortableApps instead.

UNetbootin

WinLinux

UNetbootin is a small but very handy tool that allows you to make Linux LiveUSB sticks (or even hard disks) from an .iso file or by downloading a distro.

VirtuaWin

Win

VirtuaWin is a very light and stable virtual desktop manager. It does not have have any fancy effects but it is very fast and has some nice key bindings.

Vista Shortcut Overlay Remover

Win

The Shortcut Overlay Remover, true to its name, is a little utility that removes the hideous “overlay” arrows on Vista shortcut icons.

VistaGlazz

Win

Since Microsoft, for reasons unknown to mere mortals, decreed that Vista should not support third-party themes, VistaGlazz is here to patch your Vista theme files and enable custom theming as was possible in Windows XP.

VLC Media Player

WinMacLinux

VLC is a media player with high error tolerance that supports a very broad range of formats.

Wget

WinMacLinux

Wget is a command line utility for downloading files from HTTP and FTP servers. It is highly robust and packs in a ton of features. One nifty one is resuming downloads from other programs—I’ve used this to pickup a big download from Firefox before, a handy ability as you might imagine. Wget is packed with most, if not all, Linux distros and probably other Unix-likes and can also be gotten for Windows and Mac.

XAMPP

WinMacLinux

“XAMPP is an easy to install Apache distribution containing MySQL, PHP and Perl.”² Basically this means web development on your local machine with a minimum of setup fuss. Throw on XAMPP and start developing. Very nice.