User Friendly Computers
of Royal Oak
Small Office - Home Office - Computer Consulting
Phone: 248-585-9132
E-mail: Bill Woelk
Recommended Free Downloadable Software from A-Z
Notice to down loaders: All of the software listed on this page is either: freeware, donationware, open source, or trialware to the best of my knowledge. Since I have no control over the quality of the individual software versions listed here, you assume all risks involved in downloading and installing this software on your computer. Be sure to read all user instructions and EULA agreements completely before installing these applications. It is your obligation to understand your rights and responsibilities when using this software.
I have tested all of the programs listed on this page and have never had any adverse consequences as a result of using them on my own, or on any of my client's computers. As a result of my personal testing I can recommend that you try these programs. Please remember to back up your data before installing any new software. Be forewarned that most of these applications require that you have administrator rights in Windows XP, or Windows 2000 Pro, to install them.
Please e-mail me if you find any broken links or factual errors on this page. I hope you find these programs as useful as I do. If there is a good program that you know of that is not listed here, please drop me an email. If it tests out good I will post it here. You can download most of these programs from this file download site: www.filehippo.com/.
Adaware SE
Use Adaware SE to scan, detect and remove adware, cookies and advertising tracking bugs from your PC. Ad-Aware is designed to provide advanced protection from known Data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components.
"With Lavasoft’s all new Code Sequence Identification (CSI) technology, you will not only be protected from known content, but will also have advanced protection against many of their unknown variants. To further protect you, Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition also has the capability to scan and list Alternate Data Streams (ADS) in NTFS enabled volumes. In combination with the new scanning engine, Ad-Aware SE will scan your computer faster and more thoroughly than ever before!" For more information and to download Adaware, please visit this link: www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/
AVG Free 7.0 Antivirus by Grisoft
Grisoft offers an excellent free antivirus program called AVG Free 7.0 antivirus. They are one of the few antivirus vendors to offer both a free Window's and a Linux version of their product. The free version does not offer as many advanced features as their paid version does, but you can't complain, its free and its much better than not having antivirus protection on your computer. If you like the free version consider upgrading to the latest paid version for additional protection. You can download AVG Free from: www.grisoft.com.
Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0
You can download a free copy of the ever popular Adobe Acrobat Reader program from: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/main.html. This Acrobat family site also has information on other Acrobat products and a link to a site where you can create your own online Acrobat documents for a fee.
Better yet you can visit this direct download site at Adobe where you will find download links for both past and present versions of the Adobe Acrobat Reader in both the full and basic versions. I consider Acrobat version 5.0 to be one of their faster, more stable versions. This site also has specialized versions designed to run on the Palm Pilot and Pocket PC: www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/alternate.html#reader70full/
AIDA32
AIDA32 is one of the best system information utilities I have ever come across. I can walk into a customer's site install a copy of AIDA32 on to a client's PC and within seconds have a detailed listing of every vital software and hardware detail. Whereas the Belarc Advisor below is more suitable for creating computer profiles for business record keeping, AIDA32 is more for the hardware technician that wants to avoid having to remove covers to take an inventory of the hardware inside of a PC. Much of the information has hyperlinks that take you directly to the manufacturer's web page for the purpose of downloading updated hardware drivers, or BIOS flash updates.
Unfortunately, Tamas Miklos the author of AIDA32 has taken AIDA32 to his latest employer Lavalys, who have renamed it Everest and converted it into a commercial auditing product. Two versions now exist under the Everest name: Home (freeware) and Professional (paid). The Lavalys download page is located here: www.lavalys.com/products.php?lang=en
The last time I checked, the Major Geeks download site still had a working download link for the original AIDA32 v3.93 Personal Edition at this link. Grab it while you still can: www.majorgeeks.com/download181.html
Belarc Advisor
The Belarc Advisor creates a complete hardware/software inventory profile of your computer and displays it in a well organized fashion using your favorite browser. It will give you a complete hardware inventory of all of the major peripheral devices that make up your computer. It also lists important operating system information including: all installed hot fixes and security updates from Microsoft along with links to MS Tech Net articles, user names, a list of all the applications installed, and installed software licenses, just to name a few. You can download a copy of the free Belarc Advisor from this web page: www.belarc.com/free_download.html
CCleaner
CCleaner formerly known as Crap Cleaner is a safe effective utility for cleaning out the junk that accumulates on your hard drive and in your Windows registry. I would rate the conservative registry cleaner as being fairly conservative as compared to the JV-16 Power Tools and Norton WinDoctor. After two years of using CCleaner on hundreds of different PC's I can 't recall even one instance where it damaged a registry. I can't make this claim for most commercial registry cleaners. With CCleaner you just click analyze and it goes to work and finds all kinds of unused and orphaned registry entries. After completing its scan it prompts you to run the cleaner and removes the dead entries. On a very dirty registry you may need to run it at least three times to remove all of the dead entries. A registry is like an onion. As you peel off the outer layers you expose more layers underneath. CCleaner can also empty your Recycle Bin, remove orphaned Add/Remove Software entries and clean out your Cache/Temp folders for you. Best of all its free.
One word of warning. Newer versions of CCleaner including v1.27 and above automatically install a Yahoo Toolbar into your Internet Explorer web browser. I don't care for programs that perform drive-by installs without any warning. The Yahoo Toolbar is a fairly innocuous utility, although it does open up some privacy concerns. It can be easily removed by going into the Add/Remove software icon in the Windows control panel and clicking on the remove button. www.filehippo.com/.com has pre-v1.27 downloadable versions listed underneath the latest version. I personally like version 1.26. I have not tested the latest version 1.28 yet. You can uncheck a "Check for Updates" box under options if you don't want to be prompted for a new update every time you open the program. I recommend you download CCleaner from: www.filehippo.com/
Direct-X End-User Runtime Download Site
Direct-X is the Microsoft software technology that enables multimedia games and graphics intensive software to write directly to your video and audio hardware. This allows modern games to display fast moving action on your PC while at the same time playing high quality sound. To get the most out of your new games and your PC graphics system, its important to keep your computer updated to the latest version of Direct-X.
The normal download method is to use the automated installer link. The automated installer only downloads the new components that you need to upgrade to the latest version of Direct-X. If you have several machines to update and a fast Internet connection, I would recommend using the manual download link. Warning the full manual Direct-X download can exceed 120 Megabytes in size! This link takes you directly to the Microsoft Direct-X download web page: www.microsoft.com/downloads/
ERUNT and NTREGOPT
I typically install a copy of both ERUNT (Emergency Recovery Utility for NT and NTREGOPT (NT Registry Optimizer) for Windows NT, 2K, & XP, on to the systems that I build for my clients. Although the System Restore feature in Windows XP has largely supplanted the need for ERUNT, I still like the idea that I have a complete registry backup on the hard drive that I can access from the recovery console whenever Windows refuses to boot-up due to blue screen errors.
ERUNT has saved my bacon more than once. It compresses the backups it creates so that they require little hard drive space as compared to System Restore. I still recommend that you use System Restore with Windows XP, but it is always nice to have another ace in the hole for those days when things don't go right. For computers using Windows NT, or 2000 Pro that lack a System Restore feature, ERUNT is indispensable as a recovery aid.
NT Registry Optimizer which is normally packaged with the ERUNT download, is similar to a defragmenter program for your hard drive, only its designed for your Registry. With time and use the Windows registry hives can grow in size and become fragmented. This slows down access to the registry which can over time slow down your entire PC. Monthly use of NTREGOPT will keep your registry fully optimized. You can download either program via this link. www.home.t-online.de/home/lars.hederer/erunt/
Firefox, Mozilla, Netscape 7.2 and SeaMonkey Browsers
Believe it or not, all of the above named browsers originated from the same open source browser project first started by Netscape Corporation back in 1998. SeaMonkey is now the latest free browser spawn from that earlier open source project. Today Firefox is taking the Internet by storm. Mozilla.org has recorded over 15 million downloads of Firefox since the new version 1.0 public release was first made available on November 9th, through the end of December 2004.
The Firefox browser resulted from a multi-year open source project Netscape Corporation embarked on back in 1998 to rewrite the original aging Netscape Communicator 4.x browser suite from the ground up using coeval Sun Java programming technology. The first results of the Netscape sponsored open source project was a browser suite called Mozilla. The Mozilla suite is still available for download and includes: a web browser, e-mail client, address book, web page composer, Internet chat and desktop calendar applications.
Netscape, now owned by AOL/Time Warner, also introduced their new browser based on the Mozilla project around 2001. Netscape offers a complete suite similar to Mozilla's which includes: a web browser, e-mail client, address book, bookmark manager, web page composer and built-in AOL Instant Messaging software. It also includes several nice tools: built-in pop-up blocker, cookie manager, web form filler, Bayesian SPAM filtering, IM and ICQ instant messengers. Although Netscape/AOL has come out with a newer 8.x version of the Netscape browser, its busy complicated user interface turned me off. It also tended to crash a lot when I tried it. Netscape also has an exact replica of Netscape 7.2 that will run under Linux. Its so close to the Windows version that you may forget you are even using Linux. You can download the free Netscape 7.2 browser suite from: www.netscape.com (Look under the archived versions link for the older version 7.2)
Back in 1998, Netscape viewed going open-source as their last chance to regain market share back from Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser. I. E. has had a huge market following, not because it was necessarily a better browser, but because it has been integrated into every new version of the Windows operating system since Windows 95. It is still built-in to every copy of Windows XP to this day. For most new users, the first browser they are introduced to when they purchase a new computer is I. E. Once people become accustomed to a particular program they are usually loath to switch to something else later on. Most experts feel that this has given I. E. an unfair marketing advantage over the other newer competing Java based browsers.
To better compete with today's Internet Explorer browser the Mozilla project came out with a simplified browser-only version of the Mozilla Suite called Firefox. Firefox is a lean, yet full function, free standing browser application that has less than a 10 megabyte sized footprint. Compare this with I. E. at over 25-35 megabytes. Once installed Firefox is very fast and features an advanced tabbed browser interface. It also has a built-in pop-up window blocker and meets the latest WC3 World Wide Web HTML 4.01 standards for rendering web pages.
SeaMonkey was just released in late 2005 and although its supposed to be based on the Mozilla code fork, its looks and acts a lot more like my favorite Netscape 7.2 version. SeaMonkey is available from: www.mozilla.org/
Firefox has so far proven to be a much more secure browser than Internet Explorer. Firefox is based on Sun Micro Systems Java Programming Technology. Java was developed from the start to be a secure programming language to be used to support Internet commerce. Some analysts think that because I. E. is embedded directly into the Windows operating system, it actually makes it more difficult for Microsoft to patch and secure it against new hacking and phishing exploits that arise.
I personally recommend to my consulting customers for security reasons that they stop using I. E. ASAP and instead switch to one of the many newer, more secure Java based browsers. For more in-depth explanations on why you should make the switch away from I. E. visit my Security News page to the left. There you will find links to several articles explaining why it is better to stop using I. E. Note there are some websites that are exclusively coded to only work with I. E. These sites typically make use of Microsoft's proprietary Active-X, or ,.NET programming features. Active-X has repeatedly been implicated some of the more serious security problems plaguing I.E. WWW.MICROSOFT.COM by no surprise is one of these I. E. only hard core Active-X web sites. So you need to keep I. E. around for routine MS-Office/Windows web updates and patches.
A good first Java based browser to start out with is Firefox. You can download a free copy of Firefox by visiting: www.mozilla.com/
If you prefer a more full featured browser that includes an e-mail client, then you might want to consider downloading either the Mozilla, SeaMonkey, or Netscape suites. Be careful though about mixing both of these suites on the same computer. They are so similar underneath their skins that they even share some common hard drive folders and registry values. This can create havoc on your system with one browser over-writing or taking over another browser's file settings.
Google Earth (Beta)
This is a screen shot from the new Google Earth software from Google and yes its free. This image shows a portion of the Ford Motor test track in Dearborn, Michigan. I always wondered what it looked like. They have trees and bushes planted all around it so you can't see it from the public roads. Note the detail in that you can clearly make out the Ford logo on the roof of one of the buildings. Cars can also be seen parked in the various parking lots. Cool eh!
Previously known as Google Keyhole, Google Earth allows you to zoom in on any location in the world and view it via graphical images. The images presented vary in the quality of the detail that they display. Most major US, Canadian and European cities are displayed in very fine detail. A professional paid version is also available with detail down to one meter These images come from a collection of sources including: satellite and airplane photographs. Unfortunately they are not in real-time, so you can't spy on what your neighbors are doing. Google guarantees that the images are all taken in the past three years. They are continuously updated on a rotating basis. I would expect that they will keep improving over time.
To run Google Earth you need to have a high speed broadband connection. Google also recommends that you use Google Earth with one of the following graphics cards. My guess would be that these graphics cards need to be less than three years old to work good. My guess is onboard graphics controllers would probably be too slow due to the amount of 3D graphics being presented. Here are the recommended system specs from Google:
"The 3D graphics capabilities of your machine have a lot to do with how well Google Earth performs. Google Earth will work on most graphics cards from the following manufacturers:
- NVIDIA
- ATI*
- 3D Labs
- Intel**
- Matrox
- S3
* The following ATI cards are not supported: ATI Rage Mobility, ATI Xpert, ATI 3D Rage.
** Intel 3D graphics machines can use the default OpenGL version, but work better in DirectX (choose Start > Programs > Google Earth > Start Google Earth in DirectX).
Matrox card users must use
the OpenGL version. S3 cards must use the DirectX version.
The Google Earth client requires certain system configurations in order to run smoothly.
I ran Google Earth on my AMD XP-64 3200+ system under Windows 2000 Professional with an Nvidia FX-5500 graphics card and had no problems running it. I did notice one minor problem. After playing with it for several hours, I noticed that the screen updates gradually became slower and slower. For some reason my cable Internet connection slowed down to a crawl. Rebooting my system did not help. However, rebooting my cable modem did solve the issue. I have noticed this problem before, so I don't think it was a problem with the Google Earth. It could be in my cable modem, or the server I was connected to may have become bogged down. Rebooting the cable modem forces it to obtain a new IP lease from the cable company's server farm. I will have to do more testing when time permits.Minimum configuration:
- Operating system: Windows 2000, Windows XP
- CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® PIII 500 MHz
- System memory (RAM): 128MB
- 200MB hard-disk space
- 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 16MB VRAM
- 1024x768, 32-bit true color screen
- Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")
Recommended configuration:
- Operating system: Windows XP
- CPU speed: Intel® Pentium® P4 2.4GHz+ or AMD 2400xp+
- System memory (RAM): 512MB
- 2GB hard-disk space
- 3D graphics card: 3D-capable video card with 32MB VRAM or greater
- 1280x1024, 32-bit true color screen
- Network speed: 128 kbps ("Broadband/Cable Internet")"
Please be aware that this is beta software and it may contain some unpatched bugs. You can read more about it and or download Google Earth from here: http://earth.google.com
Java Runtime Environment (JRE)
If you decide to run any of the above Sun Micro Systems Java programming language based browsers, or browser suites on your PC, you should occasionally check the site link below for the latest release of the Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Java applications require what is called a runtime environment be installed on your Windows or Linux based PC before they can be used. Most if not all of the above browsers include an older version of the JRE in their initial downloaded versions. The Open Office listed below also requires a copy of the JRE be installed on your system for it to work.
Sun Micro Systems is continually patching, adding new features, upgrading the security and otherwise improving the JRE. As a result of this ongoing improvement process, Sun releases updated versions of the JRE from time to time. Since these updates are often released to patch newly discovered security flaws or bug fixes, its a good idea to always keep your JRE version up to date.
After you download and install the latest JRE version you can go into the Add/Remove icon in the Windows Control Panel and remove any older versions still remaining on your hard drive. Be careful not to remove the new version you just installed. Visit the site link below to download the latest version of the JRE: www.java.com/en/download/index.jsp
Open Office v.2.02
Open Office is a complete open source code suite of office applications. The main applications include: a word processor, a spread sheet, a drawing program and a slide show creator/presenter. The neat thing about open office is that it has a similar look and feel to Microsoft Office. It can also open and save documents created by MS-Office versions '97 through XP. For a more complete product description please see this page: www.openoffice.org/product/
Please note Open Office may warn you when saving in one of the proprietary Microsoft formats such as .DOC, or XLS, that some advance formatting features maybe lost. Its a good idea to first save an original copy in the native Starwriter 5.0 format. You can then try saving a second copy in one of the supported proprietary Microsoft formats. Open Office can also save text documents in Adobe Acrobat, HTML, and RTF (Rich Text) formats. A new beta version 2.0 will save documents in the new international XML format supported by MS Office 2003.
Open Office was originally derived from Sun Micro Systems Star Office Suite v5.2. Unlike Star Office, Open Office is free for use by end-users. Here is the mission statement from the Open Office web site: "To create, as a community, the leading international office suite that will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file format."
If you can't afford to purchase a retail copy of Microsoft Office, I suggest you give the free Open Office Suite a try. You can download a free copy of Open Office from this web site: www.openoffice.org/
Picassa by Google
Google Picassa is a great digital photo organizer, editing, viewing and printing utility. I was frankly amazed by what this new software from Google was able to do with the maze of pictures I have stored on my hard drive.
After you install Picassa you basically turn it loose and let it do its own thing. Picassa on its own in the background quietly explores your hard drive(s) and finds all and I mean all picture files stored on your drives. It then organizes them into album sets sorted by folder names and dates. These are displayed on a scroll-able screen allowing you to scroll by date through your entire photo collection. Each album contains thumb nail sized samples of all of your photos.
Picassa automatically date stamps the albums it creates based on the file dates it finds inside. My hard drive was actually already pretty well organized which made Picassa's job much easier and the end results more professional looking. It also allows you to view and save your photos into slide shows and time lines.
Besides its cataloging function, Picassa allows you to resize, rotate, remove red eye, adjust color and many other attributes of your photos. It also assists you with printing them yourself, or sending your photos to a professional on-line finishing service to have them printed out.
While I could go on for pages about the neat things Picassa does for you, the space on this web page is limited to brief descriptions only. You can download Picassa and try it yourself from the Google search site, or by following this direct link: www.picasa.com/index.php
Spybot Search & Destroy
In addition to Adaware SE I also recommend that my client's always keep an up to date copy of Spybot Search & Destroy on their computers. Spybot is a free program that scans your PC for spy software. See my security news page for more information on what Spyware is. Its a good idea to run Spybot at least once per week to remove accumulated Spyware. Spybot can scan and check your machine for over 23,000 different "bot" programs at the time of this writing. New detection updates are released weekly. A new verson 1.4 was released at the beginning of June 2005.
I have found from experience that Adaware and Spybot both seem to compliment each other. One program will tend to find items the other one misses and visa versa. You can check for and download new versions of Spybot Search & Destroy here: www.spybot.info/en/index.html
WordWeb Dictionary/Thesaurus
The latest version 3.03 of the WordWeb dictionary and thesaurus lists over 140,000 root words and over 115,000 synonym sets. Word Web is based on Princeton University's vast Wordnet database (copyright 2003). Word Web is one of the fastest most powerful dictionary/thesaurus applications of its kind and best of all its free for non-commercial use. Highly recommended for all grade school through college level students and serious writers.
With WordWeb all you have to do to lookup the spelling of a word, or for a suggested replacement, is to highlight the word in your Windows document, then click the small red "W" on your tray bar. WordWeb immediately opens up with a short definition and a list of synonyms. You can also view: noun, verb, adjective and adverb versions of the word in question by clicking the appropriate buttons. In the above example I highlighted the word "light". If you misspelled the word, Word Web will offer suggestions.
"WordWeb is a cut-down version of the WordWeb Pro that is free for personal use. It includes a comprehensive English thesaurus and dictionary, and can be used to look up words from within most programs. Millions of people from all over the world use this top-rated software. The Pro version also has about 7000 more entries, plus word finding, anagram, editing, vocabulary building and customization features."
WordWeb
3.03 for Windows 95/98/2000/NT/ME/XP
No SpyWare. No AdWare. No viruses. Works off-line.
Free for personal non-commercial use.
www.wordweb.info/free/
ZoneAlarm Firewall
I have read many reviews on software firewalls over the years and ZoneAlarm consistently comes across as a winner. Steve Gibson a noted computer security expert also recommends ZoneAlarm on his web site at www.grc.com. ZoneAlarm has earned Editor's Choice awards from both C|Net and PC Magazine. ZA is available in several versions including a complete Security Suite, Pro version, Enterprise version and a free Basic version.
In my experience the basic version is all I generally recommend for most end-users. Even if you still use a modem to access the Internet you should have a firewall enabled at all times to protect your system from outside intruders. ZA is now compatible with Windows XP SP2. Be sure to disable the built-in firewall in Windows XP if you install ZA on your computer.
Pros:
Easy-to-use firewall blocks hackers and other unknown threats.
- Intrusion Blocking systematically identifies hackers and blocks access attempts.
- Stealth Mode automatically makes your computer invisible to anyone on the Internet.
- Stateful Packet Inspection
of both inbound and outbound packets
- ZA can add a lot of packet overhead especially on the later
5.x and 6.x versions via the packet inspection processes it uses to
control the Internet packets entering and exiting your PC. The problem
was first pointed out to me by my ISP, Wide Open West, when I
complained about paying for a 4.0 Mbit/Sec Internet connection and was
only receiving 2.1 MBits per second download rates. Uninstalling ZA
v5.094 quickly restored my download speeds back up to 4.1 Mb/Sec.
Emails to Zonelabs the parent company of ZA regarding this problem went
unanswered. Your mileage may vary.
www.zonelabs.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp
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