-> General Freeware
| Download Portals | |
| Download.com |
Download.com
is a massive
download portal provided by CNET. There are 3 main areas: software,
music, and games. |
| Tucows |
Tucows
is probably the
best known portal for software download. Tucows provides software in
many categories for several platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux). Mirror:Tucows at Univ. of Vienna. |
| Browsers
and E-mail |
|
| Avant Browser |
Avant Browser is an
upgrade to Internet Explorer.
Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window
browser.
Avant has a built-in pop-up blocker, flash-animation filter, and most importantly can display multiple browser windows. Avant Browser comes with all Internet Explorer functions, including Cookies, ActiveX Controls, Java Script, Real player and Macromedia Flash. IE bookmarks are automatically imported into Avant Browser. |
| Firefox |
Firefox
is a fast, flexible, and versatile browser developed by the Mozilla
community. Features include
tabbed browsing, saving of tab groups as bookmarks, pop-up blocking,
spam mail filter control, highlight search terms in web pages, and many
many more. |
| Netscape |
Netscape
(and Mozilla)
still is the better browser than MS Internet Explorer, and this is not
because of "religion", it is a simple fact. Advanced features include
tabbed browsing, saving of tab groups as bookmarks, pop-up blocking,
spam mail filter control, highlight search terms in web pages, and many
many more. The Netscape browser is available from the site "Netscape Browser Central". There is also a vast user forum for discussing Netscape (and Mozilla etc.) - related topics, called Netscape Unofficial FAQ. |
| File
Zipping and Transfer |
|
| WinZip |
WinZip
is still the most
widely used free program for zipping (condensing file sizes)
and un-zipping files for the transport between users via e.g. mail
programs. The free version is available as "evaluation copy", which
nevertheless can be used without time restrictions. |
| WS_FTP |
FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
is a way of "directly"
transferring files between users over the internet. WS_FTP is
one of the best known programs for this purpose. WS_FTP is available in two
different versions, the Professional (Pro) version and
the (free !) Limited Edition (LE) version. The LE version is
absolutely sufficient to provide the basic functionalities. FTPplanet.com also provides very instructive help on all basic and advanced questions concerning FTP. |
| Download
Utilities |
|
| HTTrack |
HTTrack
is a free
(GPL,
libre/free software) and easy-to-use offline browser utility.
It allows you to download a World Wide Web site from the
Internet to a local directory, building recursively all directories,
getting HTML, images, and other files from the server to your computer.
HTTrack arranges the original site's relative link-structure.
Simply open a page of the "mirrored" website in your browser, and you
can browse the site from link to link, as if you were viewing it
online. HTTrack can also update an existing mirrored site, and resume
interrupted downloads. HTTrack is fully configurable, and has an
integrated help system. Notes: - When using HTTrack for the first time, a default path has to be defined, where all HTTrack projects are saved. - Every download starts with the definition of the project name and category. - There are several "modes of action", default is "Download web site(s)". Note that there is also an option for "Test links in pages (bookmark test)". - Several filter options allow to include/exclude specific file types, images, etc. NOTE: For most cases, the default settings should yield a satisfying result ! - When download is complete, the website can be launched locally in the following way: open the "index.html" file which is generated during first-time use within the default HTTrack projects folder. This file is opened in your standard web browser and displays all HTTrack projects which are available locally. Simply select the project of interest and start working. |
| Image
Manipulation |
|
| GIMP |
The GIMP
is
the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed
piece of software suitable for such tasks as photo retouching, image
composition and image authoring. |
| IrfanView |
IrfanView
is one of the
most popular free image viewers. It can display images of many
formats as full size or as e.g. thumbnails and slideshows. In addition, it is a great tool for batch conversion between different file formats. |
| Ulead Photo Explorer | Ulead
Photo Explorer is a program to quickly get, manage, enhance and
share
digital photos, audio and video files. It lets you view and
browse digital media, enhance photos, create slideshows and many more. Note that the program is available both as free trial and as freeware. Note that the free versions do not support GIF and LZW-compressed TIFF file types, due to licensing matters. |
| Office Programs | |
| Adobe Reader |
Adobe Reader
is a free
program for viewing and printing (but NOT for creating, which
would need the commercial version Adobe Acrobat !) PDF-files.
It is available from the Adobe web-site. |
| Ghostscript and
GSview |
1. Ghostscript
is the name of a set of software that provides an interpreter for the PostScript
(TM) language, with the ability to convert PostScript language files to
many raster formats, an interpreter for Portable Document Format
(PDF) files, with the same abilities, the ability to convert the
two formats and many more. 2. GSview is a graphical interface for Ghostscript. Ghostscript is an interpreter for the PostScript page description language used by laser printers. For documents following the Adobe PostScript Document Structuring Conventions, GSview allows selected pages to be viewed or printed. GSview requires Ghostscript. GSview is available for Windows, OS/2 and Linux. |
| OpenOffice.org |
To create, as a
community, the leading international office suite that will run on
all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and
data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format. OpenOffice provides software which is highly similar to the corresponding Microsoft products (WORD, EXCEL, Powerpoint) and in addition comes with a graphics program similar to CorelDraw. All OpenOffice documents may be exported to Microsoft formats to allow easy file sharing. |
| PDF995 |
PDF995 is a
free tool to easily create PDF files. |
| Security | |
| AVAST |
AVAST
is a reliable anti
virus protection software that is distributed free of charge
("avast! Home" version) for non-commercial use. In addition, AVAST can
be up-dated without limitations. |
| AVG |
AVG
is a powerful anti
virus protection software (AVG free
version download), which is available as free and
commercial
versions. Note that also the free version allows un-limited updates and
up-grades, but is not designed to be used in networks. |
| ZoneAlarm |
ZoneAlarm,
provided by Zone Labs, is even in its
free version a reliable firewall protecting your system from
hackers, worms, trojans, and more. In addition, ZoneAlarm is easy to
configure even for the un-experienced user. |
| System
Tools |
|
| PCinspector |
PCinspector
is an
excellent system for file recovery and it's free of charge.
It is designed to rescue deleted, lost files or even whole
drives. |
| Miscellaneous |
|
| MacAnova |
MacAnova is a
free, noncommercial, interactive statistical analysis program
for both PC and Mac. |