Friday, February 18, 2011

A cheer to freeware


Every time I re-setup my computer I realize that more and more freeware is running on it. In former times, setting up a computer meant inserting 20 CD-ROMs one after another -- MS Windows, MS Word, MS Office, Paint Shop Pro, ... --, today setting up means to me: First installing Windows, then downloading the most recent versions of all other programs.

Therefore, a cheer to freeware -- which by the way is according to certain sources in the USA a very communist construct ;) --, thanks to which I by now use hardly any proprietary software any more except for Windows.

Here's a list of great freeware programs (or in some cases shareware or demo versions) that are usually installed on my computers:



Basics:
Acrobat Reader / Foxit Reader
Reading .pdf files

GhostView / GhostScript
Reading .ps files

PDF24 Creator
Creating and editing of .pdf files

pdf995
Creating .pdf files by a printer driver

TortoiseSVN
Version control with SVN

CDBurnerXP
Burning CDs and DVDs

7-Zip
File compression program for (almost) all formats

cygwin
Linux emulator

DOSBox
DOS emulator



Creating and editing of documents:
nodepad++
Text editor and source code editor

LibreOffice
Office programs: Text editing, spreadsheet processing, presentations, ...

MikTeX
Compilation of LaTeX documents

WinShell
LaTeX editor

Asymptote
Programming language and compiler for creation of vector graphics

GeoGebra / Euklid DynaGeo
Creation and editing of interactive geometry sketches



Programming:
eclipse
Development environment

Java JDK
Java (development kit and Virtual Machine)

Visual C++ Express
C++ (development environment and compiler)

Python
Python

SWI Prolog
Prolog (development environment and compiler)



Graphics:
IrfanView
Display of image files

Gimp
Image editing

Paint.net
Image editing

Inkscape
Editor for vector graphics

autostitch
Assembling large images from multiple photos (image stitching)



Music and multimedia:
iTunes
Music playback, download and playback of podcasts, managing of files on an iPod

VLC Media Player
Playback of videos and DVDs

Winamp
Music playback

Amarok
Music playback

VirtualDub
Video recording and editing

NoteWorthy Composer (Demo)
Creation of sheets of music



Internet:
Firefox
Browser

Chrome
Browser

Thunderbird
Email and newsgroup client

IMAPSize
Backup of IMAP email accounts

PuTTY
SSH and Telnet client

WinSCP
FTP and SFTP client with GUI

pidgin / qip
Instant messenger (for ICQ, AIM, ...)

ChatZilla
IRC client

Skype
Skype client (for internet telephony)

Apache
Webserver (for local testing of homepages)

Vuze
client for peer-to-peer filesharing



Antivirus:
Avira AntiVir
Anti-virus software

Spybot
Anti-spyware program



Datenbanken:
MySQL
MySQL data base system

NaviCat Lite
GUI for MySQL



lG Birgit


Edit (2011-02-18): Add Foxit Reader and PDF24 Creator.

Edit (2011-02-24): Update OpenOffice.org to LibreOffice.

3 comments:

  1. You want to change OO.org to LibreOffice (http://www.libreoffice.org/ ).

    ReplyDelete
  2. Never heard of... Is it good? (Or at least better than OOo?)

    ReplyDelete
  3. OOo is corporate again, LibreOffice is actually the free office suite now:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org#Governance
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenOffice.org#LibreOffice

    ReplyDelete