Free Windows Software Without Spyware/Adware 636
Jem Berkes writes "This week I launched CleanSoftware.org, a resource site with a unique goal: listing free, daily-use software that is free from spyware, adware, and other malicious/intrusive components. With Windows users increasingly believing that free software invariably means adware or spyware, I set out to promote good, clean, free software. Perhaps geeks helping family and friends set up their new computers this holiday can make use of this resource; sticking to clean software is much easier than struggling with never-ending cleanups. To expand my listing, I am also looking for input from the Slashdot readership: what other free, clean desktop software do you regularly use that Windows users should know about?"
Good, clean, free. (Score:3, Informative)
Firefox (and Linux!).
for mac page (Score:3, Informative)
IrfanView (Score:5, Informative)
Real Player alternative (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternati ve.htm [free-codecs.com]
Although less annoying, there's a Quicktime alternative too:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alte rnative.htm [free-codecs.com]
Teraterm and winzip (Score:1, Informative)
I've recently been impressed with Solarwinds network utilities...
Re:Good, clean, free. (Score:2, Informative)
microsoft has some of nice little freeware (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/to
I also use The Core Media player, a free media player that I use to replace windows media player with. It has all the known codecs already built-in, and has many other unique and helpful features.
http://www.tucows.com/preview/299014.html
Hope you'll find those two useful.
Anthony
Re:Currently (Score:3, Informative)
Now to be a little more of a help than an ass...
There's Bittorent, Azureus, Firefox, Mozilla, Thuderbird, Open Office, the GIMP, Ad-aware, Spybot-S&D, Winamp (at least in the 3.0 series...haven't upgraded for a while.)
I'm sure others will name more.
Trillian (Score:4, Informative)
Here's some (Score:5, Informative)
By the way, how do you plan to take submissions in the future and filter out bunk submissions? It'd be nice to have a moderated system that could evolve some.
Video processing (Score:1, Informative)
I use VirtualDubMod (http://virtualdubmod.sourceforge.net [sourceforge.net]) and AVISynth (http://www.avisynth.org [avisynth.org]) extensively for video processing. They're the two big reasons why I keep a Windows XP partition on my computer.
You can find a large collection of AVISynth filters at http://www.avisynth.org/warpenterprises/ [avisynth.org]. I don't do much filtering in VirtualDubMod (I use it mostly for viewing AVISynth output, writing AVISynth scripts, performing compression, and muxing), but you can find a good starting list of VirtualDub filters at http://neuron2.net [neuron2.net].
The doom9 forums for AVISynth development [doom9.org] are also a good place to look for software and hints.
Re:Teraterm and winzip (Score:5, Informative)
Cygwin! (Score:5, Informative)
more programs (Score:2, Informative)
WinHTTrack
Battle for Wesnoth
Lbreakout
Filezilla
TightVNC
SciTE
All free - all free from adware/spy ware
Obvious Choices (Score:4, Informative)
UltimateZip (Score:2, Informative)
UltimateZip http://www.ultimatezip.com/ [ultimatezip.com] for file compression
Crimson Editor http://www.crimsoneditor.com/ [crimsoneditor.com] for editing code
BadBlue http://www.badblue.com/ [badblue.com] for local webserving
LeechFTP http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~jdebis/leechftp/down
for the Geekier MS Windows user (Score:4, Informative)
For the geekier MS Windows user, how about emacs and yudit [yudit.org]?
And the less obvious (Score:5, Informative)
For power users, mostly (because they'll confuse your grandma)
I'm sure there are many others, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind.
Re:Good, Clean, and Free (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously speaking my desktop right now looks like a Full screen X0rg-cygwin + Fluxbox running - like this [dotgnu.info]. With lots of Xterms and ssh logins :)
FileZilla (Score:5, Informative)
Media Player Classic (Score:3, Informative)
Media player classic [sourceforge.net] is part of the "guliverkli" [sourceforge.net] suite of multimedia opensource tools and applications.
It is much better than any other free player that I have tried, such as WMP, BSPlayer, and others.
I found out that most problems related to subtitles, audio, and codec-specific sync issues, which occur in many other players, never happened in Media Player Classic.
This could be a nice addition to CleanSoftware.org
Zonealarm (Score:2, Informative)
video lan client (vlc) (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.videolan.org/ [videolan.org]
a clean, free, open source gem
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition (Score:5, Informative)
WinMX (Score:3, Informative)
For those of you that make .AVIs (Score:3, Informative)
Re:the obvious (Score:3, Informative)
Check out NoNags (Score:3, Informative)
From their intro page [nonags.com]: "Before we list anything here we check for viruses, trojans, spyware etc."
Re:so what's wrong with (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Waaaaait a minute there, pal... (Score:3, Informative)
Free Software vs. Freeware (Score:3, Informative)
It is Freeware that is very often infected with spyware, trojans, ads, etc.
Free Software is almost the opposite. It's where not only can you be reasonably sure it's safe, it's also where you can check - something almost all commercial software doesn't allow you to.
Miranda IM (Score:3, Informative)
Other Media Software (Score:5, Informative)
Zoom Player http://www.inmatrix.com/ [inmatrix.com]
VideoLAN http://www.videolan.org/ [videolan.org]
VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org/ [virtualdub.org]
Oh, and one more (Score:1, Informative)
Re:the obvious (Score:2, Informative)
I found that http://freedownloadmanager.org/ fits the niche exactly, for what I need in a download manager. Multipart, resume, etc. And it integrates with firefox!
-PHiZ
Sysinternals (Score:2, Informative)
www.sysinternals.com
Re:so what's wrong with (Score:1, Informative)
Why 7-Zip??? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Asking /. about Windows software? (Score:5, Informative)
Ask the slashdot admins to reveal what % actually uses desktop linux, its in the logs. The windows userbase is huge, even here. Almost all of my unix use is server side. That being said:
Winamp - disable anon statistics at setup
Firefox/Mozilla
Media Player Classic - best videoplayer out there OSS
Music Brainz - indentifies mp3 files my their sound signature
Abiword - word processor OSS
eMule - like kazaa only better
TightVNC - A nice VNC derivative
Cygwin - unix on windows. sexy.
Winzip - it now does 256 ARS encryption
PGP - the free version, crippled but useful
Textpad - great text editor
Thunderbird - email client OSS
7-zip - free zip/rar/everything opener
Trillian - best IM client, does encryption
Gaim - okay IM client OSS
CoreFTP - better than filezilla
atomic time sychronizer - for PCs/users that cant do NTP
Tweak UI - Users will want this eventually
AGP - free virus scanner
Ad Aware - spybot not needed really. AA catches just about everything now
What NOT to recommend:
Google toolbar - the full version is spyware. Warn users if they are going to use this.
Re:AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition (Score:4, Informative)
Re:IrfanView (Score:1, Informative)
Some suggestions for site (Score:5, Informative)
1. Editors! There are a lot of freely available (open source, freeware, etc.) editors out there. EMacs, Jove, VIM, Elvis, VILE/XVile/WinVile, NVI, Scintilla, and others too countless to name. I haven't seen ANY of these encumbered by SpyWare.
2. MultiMedia: RealPlayer and QuickTime both avoid spyware, if I'm not mistaken.
3. Blender and DIA are missing. They appear on
TheOpenCD.org, which seems to be a similar project to yours.
4. Cygwin32 -- Essential for any Linux user that needs to occasionally run Windows. With laptops with humongous drives, you can have an entire development system with GCC, perl, python, etc.
5. ActiveState has freeware implementations of a few useful languages, such as ActivePerl.
6. Tcl/tk comes to mind as not on your list.
7. Sun's Java is almost a requirement nowadays and integrates into IE, Opera, and the Mozilla-based browsers.
8. PaintDotNet was mentioned on Slashdot recently.
Now... for the site...
If you wish to use this as a service for users, then you should have a "This Just In!" section that shows items and when they are added. This way, a person can visit every couple of weeks and keep abreast of the things that have changed since they last left. This is also a good use for cookies--remember the last visit and highlight things that have changed since then.
Good attempt, and good luck!
Re:I love... (Score:4, Informative)
Why does anyone use WinMX, Kazaa or any other spy and mal-ware software when both eMule [emule-project.net] and Shareaza [shareaza.com] are available? with source?
I guess I spend so much money on my hobby, CGI and the software for that, I just can't handle the thought of buying something when a free application does as good or better.
Some free software that is better than alternative commercial software (or has no alternative):
FREENET [sourceforge.net]
Steel Panthers: World at War [steelpanth...datwar.com]
Irfanview [irfanview.com]
PAF 5 [familysearch.org] (genealogy software, go to download products, ignore Marie Osmond's attempts to seduce you to the dark side)
GMAX [discreet.com] 3D Modelling software
You can also get tons of free software with the purchase of magazines (I know, not really free); you can get the previous version or a free version of just about any graphical app when you buy digit magazine, including software that cost kilobucks as recently as a year ago.
Re:Best mediaplayer for Windows (Score:2, Informative)
Official Homepage:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/ [mplayerhq.hu]
Unofficial Win32 binaries + installers and/or GUI's:
http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/ [nicewarrior.org]
http://csant.info/mplayer.htm [csant.info]
http://deje.uw.hu/ [deje.uw.hu]
http://mplayer.sunset-utopia.homeip.net/ [homeip.net]
http://mplayerc.uw.hu/ [mplayerc.uw.hu]
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php [netfarm.it]
Re:Teraterm and winzip (Score:4, Informative)
among other things that nag screen says is that "WINZIP IS NOT FREE SOFTWARE", it's kind of it to let you keep using it but it makes it pretty clear that you shouldn't. there's quite a lot of shareware that even if it works after 30days says in it's licensing that you're not allowed to use it after that.
Try these out . . . (Score:2, Informative)
http://nonags.com/ [nonags.com]
http://www.pricelessware.org/thelist/index.htm [pricelessware.org]
http://www.doom9.org/ [doom9.org] (click on the download button on the left)
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/ [sunsite.dk]
http://www.komando.com/shareware_index.asp [komando.com]
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best.htm [techsupportalert.com]
Do I need to mention sourceforge and freshmeat?
Not sure if http://skype.com/ [skype.com] is listed in the above lists - it is surely worth mentioning but sometimes requires a USB headset purchase to tweak it, which is well worth the expense since this software often rivals Vonage service in quality when calling pots lines (non-free) and blows away anything when calling pc to pc (free).
http://grouper.com/ [grouper.com]
http://www.ultravnc.com/ [ultravnc.com] is almost always my preference over tightvnc.
Realplayer is not that bad if it is tweaked - you have to look for the setting that disables automatic ownership of filetypes.
http://kerio.com/ [kerio.com] is my firewall preference over ZoneAlarm and Sygate, although the windows xp built-in is is usable. Kerio keeps an eye on changing files via an md5 hash.
http://grisoft.com/ [grisoft.com], in most cases, would be my recommendation for AV software.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/ [apple.com] is great if you have the connection for it.
And if you want more free software then download emule.
um uh . . erase that last line
Re:Asking /. about Windows software? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Real Player alternative (Score:1, Informative)
Re:And the less obvious (Score:5, Informative)
AbiWord (word processor)
AVG Anti-Virus Free Version (obvious)
Azureus (bit torrent)
burnatonce (cd burning)
ChatZilla (irc client)
Daemon Tools (disk image mounting)
DC++ (file sharing)
FileZilla (ftp client)
Firefox (obvious)
Free Launch Bar (taskbar/toolbar customizer)
GrabIt (usenet downloader)
HoeKey (global hotkey utility)
ImageMagick (command line image utilities)
IrfanView (image viewer)
Locate32 (filename search)
Media Player Classic (obvious... not from microsoft)
PINs (password storage)
Purrint (screen capture utility)
SpaceMonger (disk space visualizer)
Start Killer (disable start menu and/or windows key)
Startup Control Panel (control startup items)
Startup Monitor (monitor startup items)
TClock2 (takbar/clock cutomizer)
TeamSpeak (voice chat for gaming)
Thunderbird (email)
Viewtify (customize open/save dialogs)
VirtuaWin (virtual desktop manager)
VLC (media player)
Wackget (wget frontend)
Wget (command line downloader)
Wherzit (find lost windows)
Winamp (music)
Wizmo (various command line tools... i use it to sleep monitor)
XnView (like irfanview, but better)
There are more I use, but this is a new Windows install.
Google should find you the sites.
PS: Stupid Lameness Filter.
TheOpenCd (Score:1, Informative)
A cd full of good and open source software, a must!
The cd includes
From the page:
* OpenOffice 1.1.3
* AbiWord 2.2.1
* PDFCreator 0.8
Design
* GIMP 2.0.5
* Blender 2.35a
* Dia 0.94
* TuxPaint 0.9.14
Internet/Networking
* FireFox 1.0
* Thunderbird 1.0
* Mozilla suite 1.7.3
* Gaim 1.1.0
* Filezilla 2.2.9
* TightVNC 1.3dev6
* WinHTTrack 3.32-2
Multimedia
* Audacity 1.2.3
* Celestia 1.3.2
* CDex 1.51
Utilities
* 7-zip 3.13
* Notepad2 1.0.12
* SciTE 1.62
Games
* Sokoban 1.187
* Battle for Wesnoth 0.8.8
* Lbreakout 2.4.1
Multimedia: EAC (Score:1, Informative)
EAC [exactaudiocopy.de] is an audio grabber for CD-ROM drives
Anything from Systernals [systernals.com]
Anything from AnalogX [analogx.com]
Anything from GNU Win II [gnuwin.epfl.ch]
Anything from TheOpenCD [sunsite.dk]
Re:more programs (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.bnr2.org/
Re:so what's wrong with (Score:2, Informative)
# Live 24/7 New & Updated Software.
# Direct Downloads From Our Servers.
# No More Broken links to files.
# More than 4000 freeware files.
# 5.1 Gigabytes of freeware.
# 300+ Gigabytes of MP3 Audio Books, Old Time Radio, and theater plays.
# More than 4200 quality True Type fonts. Free!
# More than 13000 quality imagess. Free!
# Other special downloads.
# Best in Nonags, top rated programs.
# NO ADVERTISING, no banners, no popups, nothing.
# And more...
Re:Good, clean, free. (Score:5, Informative)
Category 3D Graphics: ----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/CharacterCountF ilterForAValidList----
3Delight Free - http://www.3delight.com/index.htm [3delight.com]
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/ [anim8or.com]
Aqsis - http://www.aqsis.com/ [aqsis.com]
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/ [blender3d.org]
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/ [discreet.com]
Houdini (Free Edition) - http://www.sidefx.com/apprentice/index.html [sidefx.com]
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services...ple/i ndex.shtml [alias.com]
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.h tm [libero.it]
OpenFX - http://www.openfx.org [openfx.org]
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/ [softimage.com]
Toxic - http://www.toxicengine.org/ [toxicengine.org]
Wings 3D - http://www.wings3d.com/ [wings3d.com]
Category Anti-Virus:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Char acterCountFilterForAValidList----
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/ [free-av.com]
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html [avast.com]
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/ [grisoft.com]
ClamWin - http://www.clamwin.com/ [clamwin.com]
Category Anti Spyware:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/ [lavasoft.de]
Bazooka - http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html [kephyr.com]
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/ [dietk.com]
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/ [safer-networking.de]
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htm l [javacoolsoftware.com]
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html [wilderssecurity.net]
Category IRC Clients:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/ [bersirc.com]
BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php [bitchx.org]
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/ [hydrairc.com]
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/ [tinyirc.net]
XChat - http://www.silverex.org/news/ [silverex.org]
Category Audio Players:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch [uni-frankfurt.de]
Billy - http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy [sheepfriends.com]
CoolPlayer - http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
DeliPlayer. http://www.deliplayer.com/ [deliplayer.com]
Foobar 2
Re:Real Player alternative (Score:2, Informative)
To avoid this, next time you want to use Quicktime, set your system clock forward ten years or so before launching and click "Later" when it asks you to upgrade. Then it won't ask you again until 2014. (Don't forget to set your clock back.)
Pegasus Mail (Score:5, Informative)
Dev-C++ (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Asking /. about Windows software? (Score:3, Informative)
Gnucleus (Score:3, Informative)
Freeware/Cleanware (Score:2, Informative)
1. Firefox with adblock plugin (browser)
2. CDEx (ripping audio CDs)
3. AVG (antivirus)
4. AceMoney Lite (Personal finance management)
5. Irfanview (Image viewer)
Cheers
Re:Asking /. about Windows software? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Good, clean, free. (Score:2, Informative)
WinLibre is a rigorous selection of free/open source, legal software for Windows 98, 2000, XP
HijackThis (Score:2, Informative)
These ones were mentioned already, but bear repeating:
AVG - free antivirus. I just used this over xmas to clean out someone's computer...
Virtualdub - possibly the best video editing program ever written. Source code too.
Sysinternals.com - my favorite site for expert's utilities. These guys are sharp, and they release their sourcecode too.
Re:Asking /. about Windows software? (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Asking /. about Windows software? (Score:4, Informative)
I've noticed a lot of sites actually selling NTP clients for windows as shareware. Rediculuous scams.
All versions of windows 2000, XP and 2003 support Simple NTP natively via the Windows Time Service. You just can't configure it using a GUI. However, entering this simple command line:
The server time.nist.gov is a decent choice for users in the US. You can enter multiple NTP servers separated by commas, and the Windows Time service will try them in order.
free Windows math software (Score:2, Informative)
R http://www.r-project.org/ [r-project.org]
WinBugs http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bugs/winbugs/content
symbolic mathematics:
Maxima http://maxima.sourceforge.net/ [sourceforge.net]
numerics:
Octave http://www.octave.org/ [octave.org]
Scilab http://scilabsoft.inria.fr/ [inria.fr]
g95 (Fortran 95 compiler)http://www.g95.org/ [g95.org]
Re:Good, clean, free. (Score:2, Informative)
I use the professional version on a single machine (which is definitively non-free software) and the free version on three machines with a lot of success at its primary purpose (making modles for games)
GNU! (Score:1, Informative)
For all those who want people to stop porting GNU software to Windows... what about us who are forced to use Windows at our place of work, etc.? I don't think we should be denied GNU tools on those grounds.
On the contrary, I think we should try and make GNU software work with Windows even better. Already we have seen some bright things come out of it... Is there any better dev enviroment for windows than DJGPP? And it's DJGPP that first got me into the whole free software philosophy.
jEdit (Score:2, Informative)
Available at http://www.jedit.org/.
Re:Asking /. about Windows software? (Score:2, Informative)
Robert
Freeware Tools List (Score:2, Informative)
This wiki page is a conglomeration of work and suggestions from many different forums I am a part of. Lots of good utilities available such as:
Nokia Monitor test: Test your CRT for focus, convergence, moire, geometry, voltage regulation, etc.
Locate - Windows version of a linux utility. Creates a database of every file on your drives. You can then search and get instant results.
Unstoppable Copier - The program allows you to attempt recovery of files from a physically or logically damaged disk. The program will attempt to recover as much data as possible without giving up once an error is encountered. The program allows recursive copying of whole disks.
OpenOffice.org - Think: Free MS Office without the bloat. Has Writer (word), Calc, Impress (powerpoint), Draw (vector art program) and the DB user tools to give you all the tools you need for day to day database work in a simple spreadsheet-like form.
Here is the full list:
File Utils
Installation / Automation
Multimedia Tools
Re:Even better: Free Linux software... (Score:2, Informative)
July 2002
Linux/Slapper
September 16, 2002
Backdoor.Linux.GMM
2003-02-01
Backdoor.Linux.Rst.a
October, 2002
DoS.Linux.Chass
Dec 03 2004
Exploit.Linux.Dar.b
Dec 03 2004
HackTool.Linux.BF.a
couldn't find any references
Backdoor.Linux.Gata.a
10/12/2004
I rest my case...