Great Free Software

[BasiliskWrangler]

I wanted to start this thread as a way of keeping up-to-date on great FREE software that everyone should take a look at. We use all of this software here at Basilisk Games. Please note while these are all free, many of these authors rely on donations. Also note that these are mostly cross-platform (Windows, Macintosh & Linux) unless noted otherwise. Even more great software links are in the posts following this one, so be sure to take a look at the other recommendations. (thanks Saxon1974 for the original post that led to this post.)

CODES:
W - Windows compatible
M - Macintosh compatible
L - Linux compatible
64 - 64-bit version available

[UPDATED 02/11/2010]

Office Software
OpenOffice: http://www.openoffice.org/ [ W / M / L ]
Nearly everyone knows of this, but not everyone uses it which is a shame. Awesome, full featured MS Office compatible suite of applications.

Internet [ W / M / L ]
Firefox: http://www.mozilla.com/ - Perhaps the best internet browser ever.
Chrome: http://www.google.com/chrome/ - This browser is quickly gaining in popularity. Still in beta, but it is very nice.
FileZilla: http://filezilla-project.org/ - FileZilla is an outstanding FTP client.

Email [ W / M / L ]
Thunderbird: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
Lightning: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/lightning/
Sunbird: http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/sunbird/
Thunderbird is a great cross-platform email client. Lighting is the calender plug-in for it. If you need a stand-alone calender, Mozilla Sunbird is fantastic.

System Utilities [ W ]
MyDefrag Disk Defrager: http://www.mydefrag.com/ - Formally called JkDefrag, still the best defragger.
Auslogics Disk Defrager: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag
CCleaner (Registry cleaner): http://www.ccleaner.com/

Disk Duplication: [ W ]
CDBurnerXP: http://cdburnerxp.se/ - Currently my favorite CD/DVD creator for Windows. Better than any commercial software out there.
ImgBurn: http://www.imgburn.com/ - After burning 3 coasters in-a-row with NERO, I found this free image burning software- it worked perfectly the very first time. It will burn pretty much any CD/DVD disc image you come across.

File Compression
7-Zip: http://www.7-zip.org/ [ W / 64 ]
PeaZip: http://peazip.sourceforge.net/ [ W / L / 64 ]

Graphics [ W / M / L ]
GIMP: http://gimp.org/ - Great photo editing program.
Blender: http://www.blender.org/ [ 64 ] - Outstanding 3D renderer.
XnView: http://www.xnview.com/ - Great image viewer/browser.

Audio [ W / M / L ]
Audacity: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ - Audacity is a competent little audio sample editor, and getting more powerful all the time. Be sure to check out all the plug-ins for it.

Multimedia
Handbrake: http://handbrake.fr/ [ W / M / L ] - Video transcoder for converting video sources.
Combined Community Codec Pack: http://www.cccp-project.net/ [ W ] - This is the ultimate collection of audio and video codecs for playing back various media formats.

Operating System
Ubuntu: http://ubuntu.com [ 64 ]
Tired of Microsoft's shenanigans? Can't afford to be part of the Mac crowd? Stick it to them by going with Linux! Ubuntu is the easiest version of Linux I have ever used, although Linux purests might suggest a different distro. This is the perfect OS if you just need an internet/email/movie watching computer, but it can also play a good number of games. Most of the software listed above works fine on Ubuntu as well!

[VPeric]

System Utilities
Disk Defrager: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag
Registry Cleaner: http://www.eusing.com/free_registry_cle ... leaner.htm
Don't use Windows built-in defrager unless you enjoy waiting. Eusing's Registry Cleaner is free and works as good as any commercial product.

Jkdefrag: http://www.kessels.com/Jkdefrag/

It's pretty good; it tries to optimize file placement by moving data near the beginning of the disk - apparently, it can be even twice as fast as the end! All that fancy stuff is explained fairly well on the page I linked to, plus there's always the option of disabling 'em and doing just a "normal" defragmentation. The main advantage is speed, in any case.

[BasiliskWrangler]

Very nice, VPeric. I like it a lot! I'll add it to the list above.

[Sslaxx]

How about some software/game development stuff?

http://gambas.sourceforge.net/ - for example, Gambas. Somewhat like Visual Basic.
http://gcc.gnu.org/ - the GNU Compiler Collection - which BlitzMax uses to compile its programs.
http://www.lazarus.freepascal.org/ - a Rapid Application Development environment for http://www.freepascal.org/ Free Pascal.
http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/ - want to write graphical adventure games? This contains everything you need to do that!
http://www.inform-fiction.org/ - if traditional text adventures (Interactive Fiction) are more your bag, then this might be useful to you!
http://www.tads.org/ - on the other hand, if you dislike the natural language-esque approach Inform 7 takes, this might be more up your street.

[Jude]

I've noticed everything listed seems to be for Windows. Here are a few programs for Mac and Windows, both, and sometimes Linux, too. There are also numerous free apps for Mac only, of all sorts not listed here, like Neo Office.
Jude

Free music software for Mac and Windows and Linux:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/download/
Music player/editor/converter

Unzipper/Unstuffer for Mac and Windows:
http://my.smithmicro.com/mac/stuffitexpander/index.html

Free PDF reader for Mac and Windows and Linux:
http://www.adobe.com/products/reader/

Free art programs for Mac and Windows:
http://www.ambientdesign.com/artrage.html
Starter edition is free.
http://www.daz3d.com/
Daz Studio is a free 3D art program.

Also, free software by Apple for Mac that also has WIndows versions:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/
(There is also a pro version)
Movie and sound viewer

http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Music player/converter/organizer

[MegaHassan]

Add Flock (browser) and Paint Dot Net (Image manipulation) to the list too.

[jape]

ccCleaner (clean your winblows)
XnView (Best image viewer)

[BasiliskWrangler]

Lots of good links, people! Thanks

[Dragonlady]

ccCleaner (clean your winblows)
XnView (Best image viewer)

Suggestion for additions: Put what kind of computer it is for, as was mentioned in some of the post above, ie. Mac or PC. Thanks!

[jape]

ccCleaner (clean your winblows)
XnView (Best image viewer)

Suggestion for additions: Put what kind of computer it is for, as was mentioned in some of the post above, ie. Mac or PC. Thanks!

OK

ccCleaner = windows
XnView = Windows 95/98/NT/2000/ME/XP/Vista, Windows 3.x, MacOS X, Linux x86, Linux ppc, FreeBSD x86, OpenBSD x86, NetBSD x86, Irix mips, Solaris sparc, Solaris x86, HP-UX, AIX (would be easier to list what 'modern' system its NOT available for )

[Iane]

Audio
-------
Wavosaur free audio editor http://www.wavosaur.com/ Windows 98, Windows XP and Windows Vista.

Misc
------
Karen's Power Tools http://www.karenware.com/powertools/powertools.asp Windows stuff

Firewall
---------
What are you using and what do you suggest please - free or otherwise

[Evnissyen]

This is one heck of a useful thread.

I'm wondering if anyone knows of any good, free programs that will allow you to arrange flash animations? I know they're out there, I'm just too lazy at the moment to do an exhaustive websearch for free programs and then going through the trouble of analyzing them all. Tiresome, tiresome.

For that matter... does anybody know of any good, free programs that will allow you to edit and review website coding offline?

In the meantime:

Visual art:
Artweaver : I use this one all the time... I've got Gimp installed but I haven't gone into checking out its capabilities, yet.

Programming:
C-Free : for C/C++ coding and compilation
JustBasic : For those still attached to the freewheeling nature of BASIC.
AGAST : A simplified programming language specifically designed for game development. Haven't tried it, but perhaps somebody else will want to.

Gaming:
(For those who don't know already) : DosShell : A front-end program for running old DOS games without having to mess with DOS. Works in conjunction with DOSBox, of course.

Web:
EvolvEd : Useful tool for editing website coding offline.

Damnation, I hear thunder again! Time to turn the computer off... again.... Hell, this has been the rainiest summer I remember having to endure in my entire life.

[Bedwyr]

Eclipse. Great Java IDE.


Eye Candy:

Object Dock. Neat program launcher. Paid version is somewhat more powerful. Look into Object Desktop for a complete suite of stuff. Some free, some trial-ware.

LiteStep. Barely still limping along. Once one of the coolest window management programs out there. Sort of an anti-windows windows.

[Iane]

Please make this a Sticky

[Sslaxx]

Another BASIC language: http://www.freebasic.net/