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Peter Collards’ Freeware Links

Freeware Resources
How to find Genuinely Free & Useful Software
for for members of Sydney PC User Group Incorporated
by Peter Collard

There is a lot of freeware on the interweb that is of equal or better than payware : smaller, faster, focused. Why pay for a commercial package when you can get equivalent software for just the cost of searching and downloading it? But there is also a lot of cr**** and evilware that deliver viruses, trojans, spyware and adware : popping up ads while you work, stealing your information or using your computer to send spam. How do you find useful and harmless freeware? M$^©®™ puts out a lot of software, some free, but their company policy is to make it large, incompatible and insecure. There are better alternatives. Search engines are just about useless as many distribution sites combine freeware with shareware and payware, and offer 'free download' software that you must register or pay to use. You need to narrow your focus and look for software that has been tested and recommended by others. So here are some links and tips to find freeware resources on the interweb that may be useful. Although these sites offer software that is 'safe' it is possible that a newer version than that reviewed has changed its status, so check when downloading and still use virus and spyware scanners. Most freeware programs uninstal easily if you don't like them, but a good uninstaller is always useful - see below.

You may ask why there is so much good freware available. Some are 'Starter' or 'Lite' editions designed to induce you to buy a version with more features. Some are older versions of software released free for the same reason. Some are personal pet projects, supported by donations or Google^©®™ advertising. Others are community efforts under the 'Open Source' concept or as a public service (eg anti-virus or anti-spyware). Some are free for home use, perhaps so you can nag your boss to buy the corporate edition. Whatever the reason, be thankful that they are available. If you really like the software you can encourage its development by sending some money to the developer (usually via PayPal^©®™). The suggestions below mostly offer Windows^©®™ XP^©®™ compatible software, some will run on Windows^©®™ 98SE^©®™, v3.1 or _Vista^©®™.

www.pricelesswarehome.org offers "The best of the best in Freeware - selected by alt.comp.freeware participants". The selections are voted for by users, and are the best in the various sections. The latest voted list is 2007. The acf lists are candidates for 2008 and runners-up for the other years. Many have user reviews, and quite a few are 'no-install' (see below). Link to the author's site to download. CD images of past years are available with a lot of the software on them

htmole.altervista.org/mainpage.htm has many links to free software, in different categories to help you search. The descriptions are very brief and in Italian. The links are directly to the downloadable file, so you may have a bit of work to get to the author's page for a full description.

www.concisefreeware.com again offers a good list of categorised free software, with brief descriptions. This site links to the download page, so you can find out some more about the software before downloading.

www.completelyfreesoftware.com offers a vast collection (even DOS programs) of freeware. Unfortunately you must pay to download some, but once you have the filename you may be able to find a free download site using a search by www.findfiles.com, or Google^©®™.

www.filehippo.com keeps you up-to-date with freeware, allowing direct downloads of the latest version. A utility for those who have installed the .NET Framework will scan your system and tell you what needs updating. You can also browse the categories for ideas (but some are 'commercial demo' or 'shareware').

A similar update service is provided by software.informer.com , but it is (June 2008) a beta version and makes a lot of mistakes (and it is not limited to freeware). http://freewareupdater.com/ concentrates on freeware, http://driveragent.com/ attempts to keep your device drivers current, and https://psi.secunia.com/ looks for un-patched security issues. Give them a test, but all are in their early stages and not 100% reliable. Secunia Personal Software Inspector is probably the most accurate, but does not seem to look for non-security updates. Be aware that these services need to inspect the software on your computer and send information back to their host, so may qualify as spyware. Use a spammable e-mail address if you are tempted to register (as a precaution).

Newspaper IT sections often mention freeware in their columns, don't limit yourself to local publications, I often find useful ideas in Wanda Sloan's columns in the Wednesday www.bangkokpost.com/Database .

Computer magazines also frequently review freeware. Look at Robert Israel's Links for some examples from PC World. Other user groups probably have a page like this with similar tips.

Columnists from computer magazines often collect their utilities on their own web page. Google^©®™ to find their page if it is not listed in the magazine. One example is www.karenware.com .

Look at the Portable Software below, many are derived from installable versions that offer greater functionality, like shell integration (right click) functions. The site will usually link to the original author's site.

Once you find some useful software in a listing, go to the author's site. There will probably be more software listed there. You may even hit a gold mine, as some authors have a page listing their favourite freeware. Occasionally (or eventually) freeware becomes shareware or payware as the author's workload becomes too great to support a popular program without income. They sometimes keep the last freeware version available as a trial version. Some hide all reference to the freeware version to 'encourage' your payment. You then have two options - pay or search for the free version in some other location. The best place to start is www.321download.com/LastFreeware/index.html . The RareWare section of The Mole Zone also holds some last freeware versions.

Portable Software

Portable Software is designed to run on a USB thumb drive. It does not integrate itself into the Windows^©®™ operating system (registry) or install special .dll files, although it may depend on standard .dll files. Thus it can run on a computer in an internet cafe, for example. You could use diagnostic or recovery tools on your thumb drive to repair a friend's computer. One thing I often do when on holiday is resize and crop photos for e-mailing.

The SanDisk Cruzer U3 drive that most members have uses software compiled for this system. Some is freeware, and can be found by using the link on the U3 menu.

portableapps.com provides versions of open source freeware that have been re-compiled to run portably. Applications include OpenOffice, the GIMP and ClamWin (anti-virus, essential at internet cafes). I use an alternative menu that includes a memo/note function and auto-runs when the drive is inserted Pstart from www.pegtop.net/ .

www.pendriveapps.com provides information on the PortableApps above, and also many programs (or versions) that will run on a thumb drive. Also links to many thumb drive utilities and techniques. Note that the PortableApps are designed to leave NO data in the host machine. Some others that will run from a thumb drive may leave configuration files on the host machine, so (if you are paranoid or really being tracked by ASIO^©®™) you may want to check this aspect.

Quite a few programs are 'no-install' or offer a no-install version. These don't use the registry and so are inherently portable. Those that come as .ZIP files without a setup.exe are likely to be such. XNView has a .zip no-install version. Even some that have an install program can be copied to a thumb drive and work (but may leave configuration data on the host machine). PhotoFiltre is one of these.

I hope this is helpful and saves you some time. I'm preparing a list of my favourites (ongoing). But here are some interim suggestions -

Function	Program Name		Website
You will benefit from a download manager	Free Download Manager		www.freedownloadmanager.org
Undeleting after emptying the recycle bin	Recuva		www.recuva.com
Erasing beyond chance of recovery	Eraser		www.heidi.ie/eraser
Office suite (reads M$.DOC *)	OpenOffice		easiest to get via www.filehippo.com
Video transcoding & player	Super		www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html
Spyware detection	Spybot S&D		www.safer-networking.org
Photo editing (simple)	FastStone Image Viewer		www.faststone.org
Photo editing (complex)	The Gimp		gimp-win.sourceforge.net/stable.html
Software uninstaller	Revo Uninstaller		http://www.revouninstaller.com
HTML page editor	KompoZer		http://www.kompozer.net/
File backup	SyncBack		http://www.syncbackse.com/

* Version 3 is soon to be released and it will read M$.DOCX too.

All but Super, Revo and Eraser can be downloaded through  www.filehippo.com.

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