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Best FREE Desktop Software

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speculawyer said:
Does anyone have a good PDF creator? Or does Adobe pretty much have that locked down?

BTW, why would people make clones of programs given out freely like Acrobat Reader?
Click to expand...
Acrobat can be bloated. Foxit is good business.
 
bigmit3737 said:
This thread is great.

What are some of the better firefox extensions?
Click to expand...
here's what I use

* 1-ClickWeather 1.1.8 - Instant local weather, alerts, radar in motion, satellite maps, and forecasts.
* Adblock Plus 1.0.2 - Ads were yesterday!
* Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper 1.0.5 - Helps you create element hiding rules for Adblock Plus to fight the text ads.
* All-Glass Firefox mod, based on Glasser 2.0.2 - Adds the Windows Vista glass frame to Firefox - mod by Ambroos
* Automatic Save Folder 0.9.2 - Automatically select the destination folder for your download, matching the filename and domain.
* AutoPager 0.5.1.3 - AutoPager is a Firefox/Mozilla extension to autoloading next page at backgrand.And you can also use it an XPath generator.
* BetterPrivacy 1.29 - "Super-Cookie Safeguard"
* British English Dictionary 1.19
* CustomizeGoogle 0.76 - Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam.
* CyberSearch 1.0.7 - Adds advanced Google Search capabilities to the Firefox 3 address bar.
* Download Statusbar 0.9.6.5 - View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar
* DownloadHelper 4.4.1 - Download videos and images from many sites
* Fasterfox Lite 3.0.11 - Performance and network tweaks for Firefox but without the Prefetching.
* FfChrome 1.7 - Firefox Chrome
* Fission 1.0.9 - Progress bar in the address bar (Safari style).
* Foxy URL 1.0 - Shorten long urls right from your favorite browser.
* Greasefire 1.0.3 - Automatically find Greasemonkey scripts on Userscripts.org
* Greasemonkey 0.8.20090123.1 - A User Script Manager for Firefox
* identify 0.1.1 - A extension that can be used to explorer an individuals combined web identity across social network/media sites.
* IE Tab 1.5.20090525 - Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox.
* Image-Show-Hide 0.2 - Creates a toolbar button to quickly turn images on web-pages on and off and optional autoreload current page.
* Java Console 6.0.03
* Java Console 6.0.04
* Java Console 6.0.10
* Java Console 6.0.13
* Linkification 1.3.6 - Converts text links into genuine, clickable links.
* Menu Editor 1.2.6 - Customize application menus
* Move Media Player 1.0.0.071303000006 - Media Player
* MR Tech Toolkit 6.0a29 - MR Tech Toolkit power tools for all users. (en-US)
* Open in Browser 1.4 - Offers the possibility to display documents in browser window.
* Picnik 2.3 - Edit images in Picnik
* Searchbar Autosizer 1.4.1 - Expand the searchbox as you type
* SkipScreen 0.1.05262009 - Skips unnecessary pages on sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload, zShare, Mediafire, and more. Wherever there are unnecessary pages and superfluous links, Skipscreen will be there.
* Smart Bookmarks Bar 1.4.3 - Hides bookmarks' names in the bookmarks bar.
* Split Browser 0.6.2009050101 - Splits browser window as you like.
* StatusbarEx 0.2.19 - Display information on the statusbar, such as memory usage, network speed, web page modify time, and so on.
* Stealther 1.0.6 - Surf the web without leaving a trace in Firefox.
* Tab Mix Plus 0.3.7.3 - Tab browsing with an added boost.
* United States English Dictionary 3.0.3 - English United States (en-US) spellchecking dictionary
* YouTube Comment Snob 1.3 - Filters out undesirable comments from YouTube comment threads.
 
SpeedingUptoStop said:
here's what I use

* 1-ClickWeather 1.1.8 - Instant local weather, alerts, radar in motion, satellite maps, and forecasts.
* Adblock Plus 1.0.2 - Ads were yesterday!
* Adblock Plus: Element Hiding Helper 1.0.5 - Helps you create element hiding rules for Adblock Plus to fight the text ads.
* All-Glass Firefox mod, based on Glasser 2.0.2 - Adds the Windows Vista glass frame to Firefox - mod by Ambroos
* Automatic Save Folder 0.9.2 - Automatically select the destination folder for your download, matching the filename and domain.
* AutoPager 0.5.1.3 - AutoPager is a Firefox/Mozilla extension to autoloading next page at backgrand.And you can also use it an XPath generator.
* BetterPrivacy 1.29 - "Super-Cookie Safeguard"
* British English Dictionary 1.19
* CustomizeGoogle 0.76 - Enhance Google search results and remove ads and spam.
* CyberSearch 1.0.7 - Adds advanced Google Search capabilities to the Firefox 3 address bar.
* Download Statusbar 0.9.6.5 - View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar
* DownloadHelper 4.4.1 - Download videos and images from many sites
* Fasterfox Lite 3.0.11 - Performance and network tweaks for Firefox but without the Prefetching.
* FfChrome 1.7 - Firefox Chrome
* Fission 1.0.9 - Progress bar in the address bar (Safari style).
* Foxy URL 1.0 - Shorten long urls right from your favorite browser.
* Greasefire 1.0.3 - Automatically find Greasemonkey scripts on Userscripts.org
* Greasemonkey 0.8.20090123.1 - A User Script Manager for Firefox
* identify 0.1.1 - A extension that can be used to explorer an individuals combined web identity across social network/media sites.
* IE Tab 1.5.20090525 - Enables you to use the embedded IE engine within Mozilla/Firefox.
* Image-Show-Hide 0.2 - Creates a toolbar button to quickly turn images on web-pages on and off and optional autoreload current page.
* Java Console 6.0.03
* Java Console 6.0.04
* Java Console 6.0.10
* Java Console 6.0.13
* Linkification 1.3.6 - Converts text links into genuine, clickable links.
* Menu Editor 1.2.6 - Customize application menus
* Move Media Player 1.0.0.071303000006 - Media Player
* MR Tech Toolkit 6.0a29 - MR Tech Toolkit power tools for all users. (en-US)
* Open in Browser 1.4 - Offers the possibility to display documents in browser window.
* Picnik 2.3 - Edit images in Picnik
* Searchbar Autosizer 1.4.1 - Expand the searchbox as you type
* SkipScreen 0.1.05262009 - Skips unnecessary pages on sites like Rapidshare, Megaupload, zShare, Mediafire, and more. Wherever there are unnecessary pages and superfluous links, Skipscreen will be there.
* Smart Bookmarks Bar 1.4.3 - Hides bookmarks' names in the bookmarks bar.
* Split Browser 0.6.2009050101 - Splits browser window as you like.
* StatusbarEx 0.2.19 - Display information on the statusbar, such as memory usage, network speed, web page modify time, and so on.
* Stealther 1.0.6 - Surf the web without leaving a trace in Firefox.
* Tab Mix Plus 0.3.7.3 - Tab browsing with an added boost.
* United States English Dictionary 3.0.3 - English United States (en-US) spellchecking dictionary
* YouTube Comment Snob 1.3 - Filters out undesirable comments from YouTube comment threads.
Click to expand...


LOL. I love the youtube one. Thanks for this, going to check out these.
 
Firebug and the Web Developer Toolbar and YSlow and HTML Validator if you're doing professional web stuff.
 
Something has bothered me forever with VLC...it's minor but mad annoying. While watching a movie, i always have to right click -> exit full screen to see the bottom control panel that tells you how much time left and allows to move the bar

how come it doesn't just automatically open when you hover to the bottom? is there any way to turn this on? it's absolutely ridic
 
This thread rocks. Someone mentioned Filezilla for an FTP client. There's also Filezilla FTP server if you want to run your own FTP server. Works well
 
kbear said:
Something has bothered me forever with VLC...it's minor but mad annoying. While watching a movie, i always have to right click -> exit full screen to see the bottom control panel that tells you how much time left and allows to move the bar

how come it doesn't just automatically open when you hover to the bottom? is there any way to turn this on? it's absolutely ridic
Click to expand...
Works for me, just gotta run it across the middle of the bottom.
 
kbear said:
how come it doesn't just automatically open when you hover to the bottom? is there any way to turn this on?
Click to expand...
Huh? For as long as I can remember there is some sort of fullscreen command overlay that appears as soon as you move the mouse. You may have deactivated it somehow...
34ynz8z.jpg

(Just ignore the stupid always-on-top iTunes miniwindow.)
 
what version are you guys running? i'm on 0.8.6c

nvm i downloaded the latest .9.9 and it works fine now...all these years
 
Kibbles said:
KMPlayer > VLC. VLC lags for me, and it's just an ugly player.
Click to expand...
At first I thought that KMPlayer was just the KDE hook for MPlayer (which it is) but I guess they're two separate things. I really like it though, it does play h.264 (720p at least in this crap PC) pretty well, though I'm not sure if it utilizes the AVC CoreCodec.




Might as well post it here, anyone have a clipboard manager like KDE does, and other WM's for Linux?

I've tried this one recently, but it seems to be unstable at times http://www.xneat.com/clipboard-manager/

It's idiotic that Windows doesn't let you copy more than one thing (without having to use the Office Clipboard). The M8 one started bugging me with it's upgrade thing, so I dumped it, but I can't find anything better for some reason.
 
I have a 1.1 GB video that I want to compress, but I still want above average quality (I don't need to compress it to 10 MB; maybe to around 300 MB).

I'm trying to compress some .avi using VirtualDub, but I need codec packs. I use Vista 64. As far as I can see, most codec packs don't have a stable x64 build including ffdshow, Koepi's Xvid and K-Lite codec pack didn't show up in VirtualDub.

Any suggestions?
 
ltse1 said:
I have a 1.1 GB video that I want to compress, but I still want above average quality (I don't need to compress it to 10 MB; maybe to around 300 MB).

I'm trying to compress some .avi using VirtualDub, but I need codec packs. I use Vista 64. As far as I can see, most codec packs don't have a stable x64 build including ffdshow, Koepi's Xvid and K-Lite codec pack didn't show up in VirtualDub.

Any suggestions?
Click to expand...
It's almost never a good idea to use codec packs. Also, trying to use 64 bit anything related to video is a hassle especially if you're trying to use DirectShow codecs. The whole path has to be 64 bit. Splitter, Decoder, Encoder, Application, Renderer, etc. The support just isn't quite there yet.

You'd probably be better off just using Handbrake.

What's the resolution and format of the video? Use MediaInfo to determine this: http://mediainfo.sf.net/
 
Schrade said:
It's almost never a good idea to use codec packs. Also, trying to use 64 bit anything related to video is a hassle especially if you're trying to use DirectShow codecs. The whole path has to be 64 bit. Splitter, Decoder, Encoder, Application, Renderer, etc. The support just isn't quite there yet.

You'd probably be better off just using Handbrake.

What's the resolution and format of the video? Use MediaInfo to determine this: http://mediainfo.sf.net/
Click to expand...

Will do, thanks for the speedy response!
 
If you're using Media Player Classic - Home Cinema, have a relatively new video card and are using a codec pack. UNINSTALL THE CODEC PACK.

Codec packs have been unnecessary for years and being that MPC-HC supports GPU decoding of movies, a codec pack will make your system less efficient since the codec packs will take decoding priority away from MPC, forcing your CPU to decode everything even if your GPU is capable of offloading some of the work.


Also, VLC isn't a bad player if you need to stream video through a network (it's original purpose). Otherwise, it's an ugly player that hacks it's way around decoding movies. Use MPC-HD.
 
George said:
since installing this firefox has been crashing a hell of a lot.
are you having the same problem?
Click to expand...
I uninstalled it. :lol the new FF starts up fast enough for me. But I don't think I noticed many crashing when i had it running.
 
I asked in the Junior thread but I guess I'll ask here as well.

Looking for programs that do any of the following:

-Make a clip of a specific part of a video.
-Capture screen from a video

I already tried Virtual Dub but it doesn't accept .flv, I would prefer a program/media player which can read .flv as I don't want to have to bother converting the video file. The main reason I want to be able to cut small clips is because of HD video's which make it hard to take screens in the first place. So you can also strike out VLC player as it bogs down hard when taking screens. Alternatively if someone can help me figure out why Gom Player isn't capturing screens that would be great.
 
Plywood said:
I asked in the Junior thread but I guess I'll ask here as well.

Looking for programs that do any of the following:

-Make a clip of a specific part of a video.
-Capture screen from a video.
Click to expand...
I believe vlc's record feature can do just that.
 
Just used this thread religiously today (got a new HDD), so I want to keep it alive. Count another recommendation for these:

Video converter/compressor: Handbrake
Video codec information: GSpot
Disk cleanup: CCleaner
PDF: Foxit
Desktop recording: Camstudio
Word processing: OpenOffice
 
I have a ton of mp3's have that an APEv2 tag and I want to convert them in batch to ID3v2.3. Anyone know of a free mp3 tagging software that'll let me just scan an entire directory and replace tags on the fly from one to the other?
 
text editor: notepad++
archive: 7-zip
image viewer: faststone (it's similar to acdsee. it has limited image editing functions and batch file conversion / renaming. i also like that it previews my newer canon cr2 raw files. it's not the greatest, but it works well for me.)
mp3 converter: exact audio copy, lame
mp3 tagger: mp3tag
media player: media player classic
video converters: autoGK, handbrake

thanks to the poster who recommended katmouse. i never realized how much i needed this.
 
neight said:
Unlocker, for the pesky files that won't fuck off.
7zip, no need to pirate Winrar.
Click to expand...
There's also FileASSASSIN which is made by the same developers of Malwarebytes Anti-Malware, and it pretty much does the same thing; delete any file or folder at all costs. Saved me from some naggy trojan that was incredibly annoying.

Edit: By the way, this thread is incredible. Looking forward to more.
 
sw33tclyde said:
Does Katmouse work in Windows 7?
Click to expand...

i just installed it on my windows 7 professional 64 bit machine and it's not working consistently. :(

i haven't used it for very long so maybe i'm missing something.
 
Manics said:
I have a ton of mp3's have that an APEv2 tag and I want to convert them in batch to ID3v2.3. Anyone know of a free mp3 tagging software that'll let me just scan an entire directory and replace tags on the fly from one to the other?
Click to expand...
Try MP3Tag: http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

It's my favorite tagger. It really can handle just about everything.
 
Schrade said:
Not sure why that wasn't user friendly but no matter, there's a decent selection of these tools:

ISODisk: http://www.isodisk.com/
WinCDEmu: http://wincdemu.sysprogs.org/
TotalMounter: http://www.kernsafe.com/Product.aspx?id=7
Click to expand...


I looked at all three, 1st and 3rd aren't compatible with win7x64 and the WinCDEmu makes you go into driver test mode or some shit.. so I just went with Daemon Tools Lite. Its free and works like a charm, and I've never had any trouble figuring it out. This isn't my first time mounting something though. ;P

http://www.disk-tools.com/download/daemon

Thanks to everyone in this thread, lots of great software.
 
Is there a free WYSIWYG HTML editor for Windows that anyone would recommend? I'm leaving this job before too much longer and no one left here will be able manually edit the existing code for our site and they don't want to drop the cash on Dreamweaver. A low-cost solution would be fine if no freeware is recommendable.

I'm also considering moving our site contents into WordPress, but I don't really want to mess with setting it up.
 
zesty said:
Is there a free WYSIWYG HTML editor for Windows that anyone would recommend? I'm leaving this job before too much longer and no one left here will be able manually edit the existing code for our site and they don't want to drop the cash on Dreamweaver. A low-cost solution would be fine if no freeware is recommendable.

I'm also considering moving our site contents into WordPress, but I don't really want to mess with setting it up.
Click to expand...
You could try Kompozer: http://www.kompozer.net/

Used to be called nVU. It's made using the Mozilla platform and stuff.

If that isn't good enough you could try some of the alternatives at Alternativeto.net:

http://alternativeto.net/desktop/kompozer/
 
Does anyone know of a good program for Win7 that emulates Mac's Spaces (multiple desktops)? I never needed it on my home PC, but I think it would really help on my laptop.
 
prodystopian said:
Does anyone know of a good program for Win7 that emulates Mac's Spaces (multiple desktops)? I never needed it on my home PC, but I think it would really help on my laptop.
Click to expand...

Not sure if this is what you want, but CubeDesktop might help.
Just saw it's only a free trial. I'll try to find something else
 
Anyone know anything better than CDburnerxp or Burnaware free. I have ImgBurn for most of needs but need a simple app to burn MP3 to Audio CD.
 
prodystopian said:
Does anyone know of a good program for Win7 that emulates Mac's Spaces (multiple desktops)? I never needed it on my home PC, but I think it would really help on my laptop.
Click to expand...
If you mean Virtual Desktops (the feature that's been in Unix windows managers for ages) it's been available for Windows for a long as time as well.

Here's just one: http://virtuawin.sourceforge.net/

If you want more just search for "Virtual Desktop Windows" or something similar.

Hell, Microsoft even has a PowerToy for it:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/Downloads/powertoys/Xppowertoys.mspx

"Virtual Desktop Manager" on that page.
 
Anyone got a program that allows you to view and/or change .ART files? I have a ton of old AOL .art files on floppy disks and CDs and I can't find anything for free that lets me view them, so I have no idea what they all are. I'd love to convert them to a modern format (.jpg, or whatever) but I'd settle for just seeing what the heck they are!

Irfanview won't do .art files and I haven't found another program that will either. Any help would be much appreciated Gaffers.
 
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