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Most useful PC applications?
- Thread starter Blablurn
- Start date
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Awful Falafel
Banned
Pretty much everything I use has been mentioned but what's with the lack of password managers around here? For me using one has been freaking life changing. I personally use LastPass but really any of them is a massive step up from being a filthy caveman doing things the old fashioned way.
Also first I've heard of Kawaii Codec Pack, is there any real difference in using that versus the Combined Community Codec Pack?
Okay there was that one dude using Keepass but the rest of ya need to get with the times!
Also first I've heard of Kawaii Codec Pack, is there any real difference in using that versus the Combined Community Codec Pack?
Only in late nights
It's called turning the lights on.
Atraveller
Banned
Dorm shuts off the light at 12.
terrisus
Member
What the heck?
Do they come around and check on you to make sure you ate your vegetables and washed behind your ears too?
Add that to the long list of reasons why I'm glad I never lived on-campus during my time in college.
uTorrent - Legal stuff
Daemon Tools Lite - Using iso's
FBreader - Reading epubs etc
Fraps/Dxtory - Record video
Foobar2000 - Audio
ImgBurn - Burn discs
Media Player Classic Home Cinema - Watch porn (part of CCCP if you need codecs and stuff)
MangaMeeya - Reading comics
Paint.NET/Photoshop - Editing images
Skype/Mumble - Voice chat
Steam - Games/chat
Waterfox - Web browser
WinRAR/7zip - Extracting archive files
WinDirStat - Remembering where you hid your porn
X-Chat - IRC client
For Foobar2000 go to configure, then at the bottom make sure the Library Viewer boxes are checked, then go to playlist view in the same window, Custom Columns -> Add new -> and create a new column for use with the pattern as %last_modified% and OK. Make the column visible and use it to order music by the date of the file, click "All Music" at the top left to refresh for any new files it should find in directories you have specified. All you need.
Daemon Tools Lite - Using iso's
FBreader - Reading epubs etc
Fraps/Dxtory - Record video
Foobar2000 - Audio
ImgBurn - Burn discs
Media Player Classic Home Cinema - Watch porn (part of CCCP if you need codecs and stuff)
MangaMeeya - Reading comics
Paint.NET/Photoshop - Editing images
Skype/Mumble - Voice chat
Steam - Games/chat
Waterfox - Web browser
WinRAR/7zip - Extracting archive files
WinDirStat - Remembering where you hid your porn
X-Chat - IRC client
For Foobar2000 go to configure, then at the bottom make sure the Library Viewer boxes are checked, then go to playlist view in the same window, Custom Columns -> Add new -> and create a new column for use with the pattern as %last_modified% and OK. Make the column visible and use it to order music by the date of the file, click "All Music" at the top left to refresh for any new files it should find in directories you have specified. All you need.
FormallyMegadrive
Member
I really like Quassel as an irc client. I use it on Windows.
BetterTTV for better Twitch.
BetterTTV for better Twitch.
Filezilla?
terrisus
Member
What does it do that WS_FTP95 doesn't do?
I've never used WS_FTP95, but by looking at it on the first link I find it looks to be lacking features and a modern user interface.
terrisus
Member
But, again - what features?
It uploads files, downloads files, and navigates through directories...
What else is an FTP client supposed to do?
Treesize is a godsend. It easily points out where your largest directories are.
I'm sure some things have changed in 20 years....
A modern client isn't appealing?
Edit: It appears the consensus on the internet is that Filezilla is much faster than WS_FTP95 too
Coreda
Member
I wonder how many people actually try out recommendations for alternate apps in threads like these
The most useful apps obviously are those used regularly, although there are so many other superb utilities on hand for once-off tasks that deserve praise as well.
Video player: PotPlayer
Music player: Foobar2000
Image editing: Photoshop
Code/text editing: Sublime Text
Browser: Firefox (w/ a gazillion tweaks) or Opera 12
Other useful apps:
The most useful apps obviously are those used regularly, although there are so many other superb utilities on hand for once-off tasks that deserve praise as well.
Video player: PotPlayer
Music player: Foobar2000
Image editing: Photoshop
Code/text editing: Sublime Text
Browser: Firefox (w/ a gazillion tweaks) or Opera 12
Other useful apps:
"Notepad can edit and save text files, what else is a text editor supposed to do?"
HUELEN10
Member
Sometimes the simplest applications are the best there are so many out there. You know, I should post some...
What the fuck has Opera been doing with v15-20? Such a terrible drop off.
The KMPlayer - My favorite video player. VLC is probably a bit more stable, but KMPlayer's interface is so much better. It plays every video file I've thrown at it, and it has convenient options for bookmarking, resuming playback from last position, and re-syncing audio.
Everything - Instantaneous file searching. I never use the built-in Windows search anymore because Everything is so gloriously fast.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro - Great malware protection with no bloat.
Everything - Instantaneous file searching. I never use the built-in Windows search anymore because Everything is so gloriously fast.
Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Pro - Great malware protection with no bloat.
Coreda
Member
Opera 15+ is based on Blink, Chrome's rendering engine. Since the change the company has dramatically changed it's focus - leaving many great features behind, not to mention the shutting of it's own My Opera community.
A number of features remain such as basic single key shortcuts, and custom searches have been implemented, but it's nothing like the feature-rich Opera Presto versions.
For OSX (Snow Leopard at least), that I've found useful:
Other tools:
The Dutch Slayer
Member
YES! 100% Total Commander is FANTASTIC been using it for over 10 years now and its still fantastic.
What about if you have a Mac?
FormallyMegadrive
Member
My list. All are free or have free versions! Mostly Windows
- Spotify - music
- Clover - tabbed windows explorer
- Everything - indexed searching
- Open Broadcaster Software - streaming and recording software, supports scenes
- LiveSplit - timesplitting program, speedrunning
- Git - version control
- Unity3D - game dev
- FlashDevelop - flash/haxe/html/javascript/whatever ide
- Tiled Map Editor - tile-based map editor, supports isometric, diagonal and orthographic
- Sublime Text 2 or 3 - code/text editor, amazing
- PyxelEdit - pixel tilesheet editor
- TexturePacker - atlas-maker, compiles to many different formats, including unity
- kDiff - check differences between text files
- Steam - moneysink
- NzbDrone - tv show indexer, includes nzb and torrent support
- Quassel - really good irc client
- Auslogics Disk Defrag - disk defragmenting
- Bulk Rename Utility - renames multiple files at a time based on regular expressions,
- including support for numbering
- TreeSize - find where your storage went
- TeraCopy - very fast file copying/moving, works amazingly over multiple volumes too!
nature boy
Member
Foobar2000 + Facets = Best audio manager and player
Pdf X-Change Viewer - Best pdf reader
Sandboxie (not free) - Helps mitigate malware infecting your pc. Sandbox for applications
Keepass - Best password manager
Mp3tag - For tagging mp3, flac, m4a audio files
Notepad++ - Text editor
Pdf X-Change Viewer - Best pdf reader
Sandboxie (not free) - Helps mitigate malware infecting your pc. Sandbox for applications
Keepass - Best password manager
Mp3tag - For tagging mp3, flac, m4a audio files
Notepad++ - Text editor
No need to reiterate what everyone else is saying in this thread, since a lot of them are spot on
, so I'll just say XNView for image viewing.
Only downside to it I can see is that it can't open anything that doesn't have latin characters in it. If anyone knows a way to fix that please tell me!
except people saying VLC over MPC-HC
Only downside to it I can see is that it can't open anything that doesn't have latin characters in it. If anyone knows a way to fix that please tell me!
undu
Member
What I use on Windows:
- Foobar - for organizing and listening to music
- MPC-HC - for video playback, I use it along LAV Filters and madvr
- Firefox - A web browser
- Sublime text - for code editing
- Paint.net - for image editiong and retouching
- SumatraPDF - For reading pdf and ebooks
- Virtualbox - For virtualizing sane coding envirenments, mainly linux. I use it with VmSServiceTray to run machines in headless mode.
- WinSCP - For remote upload download and editing files through SSH
- FuTTY - for logging in in remote systems, my raspberry pi and VMs, for example
- µTorrent - for torrenting, it's still ok if you disable all the crap.
- WinCDEmu - for virtualized DVD drives
- Icaros thumbnailer - for thumbnailing all sort of video files and some audio ones
Why are you using Three real time protection software? One is enough.
A software firewall is really unnecessary. Are you experiencing slowdowns from time to time?
Some solid recommendations in here though.
My list:
HwMonitor - For temperature monitoring.
CPU-Z - CPU information.
GPU-Z - GPU information.
D3doverrider - the definite tool for forcing triple buffering and v-sync in any game.
SumatraPDF - lightweight pdf reader.
foobar2000 - audio player.
XBMC - video player.
iTunesfolderwatch - automatically add new songs to itunes for phone.
PuTTY - ssh client.
Defraggler - freeware defragmentation software.
CCleaner - maintenance.
Notepad++ - a better notepad.
Microsoft Security Essentials - antivirus.
Malwarebytes Anti-malware - only installed for scanning, never active. have it set to 'manual' in "services.msc".
Superantimalware - stupid name and not super reliable but i use it in combination of the other two in case they missed something. Same deal there, only installed for scanning, real time protection OFF (you don't need three real time protection). Services set to manual.
uTorrent - self explanatory.
Virtual Clonedrive - for handling isos and such.
WinRAR/7zip - for zipping/unzipping.
TikiOne Steam Cleaner - keeping your steam folder clean.
TFC - Temp File Cleaner by OldTimer.
WOL Magic Packet Sender - for sending a magic packet to my htpc in the living room and start it from my bedroom. Useful if you wanna remote connect to it and configure something.
WinDirStat - Finding out which folder is taking up all the space. Useful for small SSD's.
AIDA64 - Hardware information.
TotalCMD - File Management. It's been a life saver, especially on lanparties when connection between computers could fail from time to time.
http://ninite.com - Your favourite site for a fresh windows install.
http://www.blackviper.com/ - for keeping services running to a minimum. Not really worth it these days with 16gb ram but i still like to keep my system as efficient as possible.
Atraveller
Banned
So I tried kawaii codec pack with MPC, pretty good I must say.
terrisus
Member
What things?
Not really.
Faster in what way?
Depending on what one is doing, Notepad may be the ideal text editor.
There are purposes for other text editors, which can do different fonts, formats, styles, tables, sorting, formulae, etc. as well though.
So, there are some reasons for other text editors. What are the things that other FTP clients do?
For some reason for the whole time I used Vista and 7 I had to have Unlocker installed if I wanted to move files between folders or delete files.
Always got a dialog saying the file was in use in an other program and couldn't be moved. Unlocker puts an option in the right click menu to Unlock a file from the processes running it.
No clue why this happened, and I haven't been using 8.1 for more than a week or so, so I don't know if I'll have to install it on this too.
Anyone else have this problem with Vista and 7?
Always got a dialog saying the file was in use in an other program and couldn't be moved. Unlocker puts an option in the right click menu to Unlock a file from the processes running it.
No clue why this happened, and I haven't been using 8.1 for more than a week or so, so I don't know if I'll have to install it on this too.
Anyone else have this problem with Vista and 7?
Guess Who's analogy was correct. Notepad is plain bad. If it didn't come with Windows, no one would ever touch it for any reason.
I think his argument was, if someone needs a program to simply write/read unformatted text (and nothing else), why should he choose another, superior (feature-wise) program.
terrisus
Member
WS_FTP95 didn't come with Windows though.
I don't really understand what the issue is here - I keep asking what other FTP programs are doing (other than "Updated interface!," but as far as actual different functions) that WS_FTP95 isn't doing. And yet it keeps going unanswered.
EDIT: To be clear, it's not like I've spent much time over the past 15+ years checking out other FTP programs and comparing them or anything - because WS_FTP95 does everything I want and need of it, and I haven't thought of anything that I could need another one for.
MikeHattsu
Member
Long time since I used WS_FTP95, but I think some of the newer programs can do FXP. Not FileZilla though. I like FileZilla since I can queue up files, set priority, do multiple transfers at the same time and I use the FileZilla Server sometimes to transfer files between my computers.
Nothing wrong with WS_FTP95 though. If you like it and it does everything you need it to do then just continue using it.
Cannon Goose
Member
RadeonPro and Nvidia Inspector are great for PC gaming.
For those of you in Australia using ISPs that count Steam downloads as unmetered content, this utility will make sure your downloads always come from a local unmetered server.
As far as VLC vs MPC-HC goes, I've found that these days VLC and MPC-HC (properly set up with madVR and all that jazz) are comparable in image quality when it comes to live action, but madVR looks much better when dealing with 2D animated shows.
For those of you in Australia using ISPs that count Steam downloads as unmetered content, this utility will make sure your downloads always come from a local unmetered server.
As far as VLC vs MPC-HC goes, I've found that these days VLC and MPC-HC (properly set up with madVR and all that jazz) are comparable in image quality when it comes to live action, but madVR looks much better when dealing with 2D animated shows.
Stitch
Member
DerpButter
Member
Just about any virtualization suite, though I'm more preferential to VMWare Workstation/Player
You can:
-Run a bunch of apps that might normally interfere with gaming in a VM.
-Keep all in-application macros and customizations you've made for projects/production even if you upgrade hardware or reformat, just dump the VM back in.
-Dick around with, and test projects on alternate/older OS without having to waste your time with janky bootloaders or a lack of drivers.
Pretty much I build a VM for every major workflow I've got to deal with - downloading/media tagging, office productivity, product demos, photography, linux projects.
So that the only things I keep installed on the base machine are Chrome, Skype, Teamviewer, Steam/Origin/gaming apps, and media players.
You can:
-Run a bunch of apps that might normally interfere with gaming in a VM.
-Keep all in-application macros and customizations you've made for projects/production even if you upgrade hardware or reformat, just dump the VM back in.
-Dick around with, and test projects on alternate/older OS without having to waste your time with janky bootloaders or a lack of drivers.
Pretty much I build a VM for every major workflow I've got to deal with - downloading/media tagging, office productivity, product demos, photography, linux projects.
So that the only things I keep installed on the base machine are Chrome, Skype, Teamviewer, Steam/Origin/gaming apps, and media players.
Mineshaft_Gap
4077th
Plex - ready made media server. No fuss no muss. Want to stream all your stuff off of your PC and into your smart phone? This is the best solution I've found by far.
XBMC - Gives your PC a media interface better suited for comfy couch media consumption. Wish it could play Netflix and HBO Go without tweaking. It can at least so Netflix, but it takes some set up.
AVG/Malwarebytes - Self explanatory.
Start8 - Don't need it as much now that I'm used to the various shortcut keys but some would see this as essential. Gives you back traditional start menu in W8.1.
XBMC - Gives your PC a media interface better suited for comfy couch media consumption. Wish it could play Netflix and HBO Go without tweaking. It can at least so Netflix, but it takes some set up.
AVG/Malwarebytes - Self explanatory.
Start8 - Don't need it as much now that I'm used to the various shortcut keys but some would see this as essential. Gives you back traditional start menu in W8.1.
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