Everybody likes free stuff isn’t it? There are a few stuff that is a normal routine to a computer user these days. Such as blogging, downloading, reading eBooks etc. Well there are zillions of free applications out there that could serve those needs. After some usage I’ve settled for these apps for the daily things I do. And the most important two things are it must be free and the user experience shouldn’t be compromised. I wouldn’t go into a browser war or talking about Premium products but tell you guys about these apps I am comfortable with. It’s up to you guys to add more apps I have missed, comment for or against the apps here. So let’s get into the apps..
Downloading – JDownloader (Download Now!)
Basically JDownloader is a download manager. But it has some twists of its own. It has the normal download management, monitoring download speeds; but it has more. One neat feature is once you are running JDownloader, and you copy a download link to the clipboard JDownloader will automatically recognize that download. And also if you are a heavy downloader from file sharing webs, you can drag n’ drop the links to the JDownloader window, and JDownloader will do the rest (captcha handling too ).
Photo Editing – Paint.net (Download Now!)
Basic photo editing is a need to every one. Every now and then you take a photo from a camera and want to upload it to a social networking site, but before that the photo needs a dose of color, brightness or contrast adjustment or a caption in the photo. I found out that using Photoshop to do this basic task is too heavy weight. If you need a quick fix to photos Paint.net is highly recommended. Of course it’s no Photoshop, but it got it layers, some nice effects and you can import images from a scanner or a camera. And the plus side is, it opens up really quickly so you can get your artistic hat on.
Torrents – µTorrent (Download Now!)
Torrents are quintessential thing for the modern internet user. Whether it may be a latest movie or a TV series torrents are the way to get hands on them. Why i use µTorrent is it is installation free, and it is very very light weight on the system resources. And it has a special feature where you can command it to download stuff from a pre-configured RSS feed. You can instruct it to shutdown/seep or hibernate after the downloads are done (Very handy for overnight downloads). There’s a feature to check whether µTorrent is working fine. And for the power user there are a galore of tweaks to do that can significantly increase the download speed.
eBook Reading – Foxit Reader (Download Now!)
What comes to your mind when you think of a PDF reader? Most of the persons i have asked that question replied by saying Adobe Reader. Sure it is free too, but believe me when viewing a heavy eBook with lots of images Adobe Reader uses the process like nothing. In these gloomy situation I searched for a resource friendly PDF viewer. Foxit reader really uses a lot less than Adobe Reader. And one great feature i found was bookmarks.
Disk Cleaner – CCleaner (Download Now!)
May I ask you a question from you guys? How do you clean windows? Mostly would answer using in built Disk Cleanup. Hmmmm… but wait there’s a better way that you can clean the registry too. CCleaner has a intuitive interface to clean both Windows and its’ registry. And it’ adds context menu items to run CCleaner to the recycle bin context menu. That’s like 2 click cleaning. And it as all the tools here it loads really quickly. You can manage startup programs and installed programs too. I highly recommend this over the default Disk Cleaner.
Memory Cleaner – Memory Cleaner (Download Now!)
How much Bill gates talks Windows still needs to reach the memory optimization of linux. It’s better since Windows Vista & Windows 7; but still sometimes windows doesn’t release memory it has already used. After running some applications for some time we can see how much memory was not returned by running Memory Cleaner. You can also clear the system cache. This tool is highly recommend for people that have system RAM usage that goes sky high.
Virtual Drive – PowerISO ( Download Now!)
Virtual Drives.. be it the latest Action Game or a software collection, you can make those DVD’s to an ISO file then mount it and protect the disks and experiencing better reading speed. One of the biggest issues i had with Windows 7 when it released was, there was no 64bit virtual drive except Nero. And Nero package costing a hell lot of money and the installation was very bulky I waited one week and turned towards PowerIso. PowerIso free version is no DVD/CD authoring tool (limited functionality). But it provides a hassle free way to mount a virtual drive. It supports a large number of virtual drive formats such as .iso, .nrg, .daa, .mdf etc.
Multi Chat Client – Digsby (Download Now!)
There is gtalk, yahoo messsenger, msn messenger etc.. But won’t it be lovely to have all your chats, yes yes including Facebook chat in one chat client. That’s where Digsby comes in. It is the best multi chat client I’ve come across. You can configure multiples of eg gtalk, yahoo too. And also you can see the incoming mail. One thing missing from Digsby is integration of Skype. You could set your status for your all your chat services with one status. Option for recording chats is also provided. Do not forget voice and video chats as well.
Programmer’s Text Editor – Notepad2 (Download Now!)
If you are from the Windows world you must be really upset that in non of the Windows releases they have upgraded notepad. IT provides no usefulness to a programmer at all. That’s when I came across Notepad2. Not only it is portable (able to run from a thumb drive) it is light weight as well as the notepad. IT provides language highlighting for a myriad of languages. It is frankly loads better than Linux gedit too. With indentation, bracket highlighting.
Change Windows Notepad to Notepad2.
Blog Writer – Windows Live Writer (Download Now!)
Writing blogs has never been easier with Microsoft Live Writer. I could use any blogging site to my hearts content. Adding media and articles is a snap. It is much much better than the inbuilt html editor in the blogging sites. There is plug-in called Source Code that will highlight the source code. Adding categories and tags is a snap. You could preview a written blog as it is actually viewed. And of course publishing is there as well.
So I have given some insight into 10 free applications I use everyday. Guys & Gals fire your comments on this. Cheers~
Thanks your article is help full to me. Keep going
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