What are some of your favorite programs and utilities?

Revo Uninstaller
EaseUS Partition Manager
Macrium Reflect
Crystal Disk Info
Dashcam Viewer
Photofiltre
Irfanview 64
Inpaint
Eset Internet Security
Adobe Acrobat
Teamviewer
WinRAR
Calibre 64bit
SnagIt
Fences
VLC
Frigate 3
PowerISO

photoshop, 7-zip, mariadb, Ms Office 2021 LTSC, Macrium free, vlc, sky go, firefox, filezilla, command prompt (yes I use a lot) . heidisql, apache web server (easier to use than ITS), Putty.

cheers
jimbo

kelper said:

It might be a good idea if people explained what these utilities do.

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We have seen these types of posts many times and they always degenerate into a endless random list of people's personal preferences.

Worse you get lots of repetition.

Unless somebody kept a master list of all utilities and some description as you say, then replying to the post quickly becomes pointless as it does not really fulfill the OP's intent.

Don't see PatchMyPC listed...

The picture says all.. only free, and clean software. Install and keep them updated

Been using Quicken for well over 20 years now....

One of my favorite (online) ultilities, among all the normal ones, is...





It main offering is that it will convert almost any video to a GIF.
But I discovered a teeny, unintended ability.

If you have a broken GIF... like it won't open in whatever GIF editor you have.
You can upload it to ezgif and convert it to mp4, then convert it back to GIF... to fix it.

For all my video editing needs: FFmpeg

It's arcane command line stuff but it's used by a lot of professionals. There is nothing more powerful, once you get to grips with it.
You wouldn't believe just how many video editor GUI's have it as their processing engine, there's a long list here:

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dbartenstein said:

Been using Quicken for well over 20 years now....

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I used Quicken years ago until I switched to Linux Mandrake an there wasn't a Linux version. I found a program called Moneydance and started using it. When I came back to Windows I was thinking about installing Quicken again. That is until I found out it went to a yearly subscription. Moneydance has a windows version so I decided to stayed with it. I like the buy it once and use it as long as you want option. The only time I have to pay again is if I want to upgrade to a new version. I tried Microsoft Money but I didn't care for it.

Steve C said:

Microsoft Money 2005 (UK version) for managing my finances. Nothing since has beaten it.

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My son-in-law would second Microsoft Money if he were here. Last time I was at a Microsoft MVP event, I got the latest Microsoft Money and gave it to him. He was most happy to get an update . . . not sure there were any more updates after that.

cereberus said:

We have seen these types of posts many times and they always degenerate into a endless random list of people's personal preferences.

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True, but it's still helpful to me. I'm going to go through and try a bunch of these.

One of my favourite apps is HOMEDALE which is useful to see other wireless networks in my area and helps me plan where to tune my wi-fi routers.

I keep these tools on a second drive folder. They have survived all OS reinstallations so far. I tried to divide them in categories.
Almost Everything is portable, small and free.

;---- tool packs ----
NirLauncher: Lots of tools.
SysinternalsSuite: Lots of tools.


;---- system info ----
Core Temp: To check system temperature.
cpu-z_2.08-en : Cpu info.
CrystalDiskInfo : Disk info
fastfetch: Show system specs on command prompt.
GFXplorer3: System Info.
GPU-Z: GPU info.
GPU_Caps_Viewer: GPU info and tester.
CUDA-Z: GPU Cuda Info.
dxcapsviewer: DirextX Info.
GLZ_0.5.0_win64: OpenGL Info.
Hardware Read and Write Utility: System Info.
Homedale: View Wifi hotspots around you.
HWiNFO64: System Info.
CPUID hwmonitor: Temperatures info.
MemInfo: View used memory on tray.
Open Hardware Monitor: Temperature and system info.
PCI-Z: PCI Info.
PEAnatomist: EXE files Info.
perfmonitor2: CPU Performance monitor.
pestudio: EXE Files Info.
Process Monitor: Process Monitor.
Professional PE Explorer: EXE Files info.
Read and Write Utility: System info.
siv_v5.73: System Information viewer.
Svchost Viewer: Svchost Services viewer.
USB Device Tree Viewer: USB Info Viewer.
vmPing: Visual ping. Ping many sites at the same time.
WizTree: Fast Free Disk Space viewer.
WMI Explorer: WMI Viewer.

;---- benchmarks, stress tests ----
ATTO Disk Benchmark: Disk Benchmark.
CrystalDiskMark: Disk benchmark.
FluidMark: GPU Benchmark.
FurMark: GPU Benchmark.
MadShaders_0.4.1_win64: GPU Benchmark.
MSI Kombustor 4 x64: GPU Benchmark for msi cards.
OpenCL-Benchmark-Windows: OpenCL Command line Benchmark.
IntelBurnTest: CPU Stress Test.
MaxxMEM2: Memory benchmark.
precisestress: RAM and CPU Stress test.
Prime95: CPU Stress test.


;---- browser ----
Browser librewolf: Good privacy browser.
Browser Tamer: To get rid of edge when click on a link outside the browser. (defender false positive)
chrlauncher-win64-stable-ungoogled: With proper configuration and plugins, good privacy browser launcher.
Tor Browser: Tor Browser.


;---- system tools ----
4gb_patch: patches x86 exe to let them have 4GB of virtual memory on x64 platforms.
BinText: Find text inside any binary file. Any consecutive string actually.
BleachBit: Like OpenSource version of ccleaner.
CleanAfterMe: Simple way to clean files.
DDU: Remove any gpu driver completely.
Dependency Walker: Debuguer, Can be useful in find why a program crashes.
devcon64: useful for restartig devices.
DotNet_Checker: View installed .Net framework and visual c++ versions.
DPC Latrency Checker: Check if device drivers cause system lag.
FixWin 11.1: Fix many windows 11 issues.
Gamma Panel: Fast way to change gamma color.
LatencyMon: Another driver device latency tester.
NVIDIA Inspector: Easy way to overclock nvidia cards.
NVIDIA Profile Inspector: Settings for games on nvidia cards.
Partition Wizard: Partition tool.
RapidEEx64: Edit environment variables.
Reshade: Shaders for games.
RisohEditor: EXE Resource Editor.
Rufus: Create bootable usb drives.
Screen Ruler: Screen measure tool.
TrID: Identify unknown files.
uGet: URL File downloader.
UniExtract: Universal extractor.
Unlocker: Unlock files in use (free debloated version).
Winaero Tweaker: Tweaker for windows.
WinMerge: Compare two files.
WinSetupFromUSB: Create bootable usb drives.


;---- misc stuff ----
AllDupPortable: To get rid of duplicated files.
Ant Renamer: To rename files in bulk.
Balabolka: Read things aloud. It's free. But some TTS Engines are not.
FlashPlayer StandAlone: To open old flash sites. You have to dig in the Wayback Machine for it.
FFMPEG: some programs use it as 3rd party to convert media files.
gifski: gif compression tool. used by ScreenToGif as 3rd party .
Greenfish Icon Editor Pro 4.0: Icon editor.
IPFilter: Block dangerous IP's and Trackers for QBittorrent.
json beautifier: To tidy up json files.
Just Color Picker: Just Color Picker.
Large Text File Viewer: Large Text File Viewer.
LabChirp: Generate your own sounds.
notepad3: Replace windows notepad.
PhotoFiltre7: Light Image editor with layer support. Free Version.
ScreenToGif: Screen to GIF.
Screamer_Radio: Radio online.
youtube_dl: Download youtube videos.


;---- useful links ----
PortableApps: Portable App Directory (over 400 free) - PortableApps.com
Portable Software: Latest entries - The Portable Freeware Collection
System and gaming tools: TechPowerUp
System and gaming tools: Downloads - freewares, applications, utilities, drivers | Geeks3D
System and gaming tools: oZone3D.Net - Free Softwares: graphics card utilities, system utilities, GPU stress test, benchmarks
Download .NET: .NET Downloads (Linux, macOS, and Windows)
Visual C++ Runtimes: GitHub - abbodi1406/vcredist: AIO Repack for latest Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable Runtimes

cereberus said:

We have seen these types of posts many times and they always degenerate into a endless random list of people's personal preferences.

Worse you get lots of repetition.

Unless somebody kept a master list of all utilities and some description as you say, then replying to the post quickly becomes pointless as it does not really fulfill the OP's intent.

Click to expand...

What's up -- getting a grumpy old man are we !!!! Seem you are having a go at a load of people these days.

Let people post this stuff if they want to -- if it doesn't meet your standards just ignore it.

I'm sure there might be one or two things on these lists that could be useful that people possibly haven't heard about and could use.

If you really are concerned about this - duplication etc then : - just copy into an EXCEL spreadsheet, remove duplicates and when the list is decently lengthy just publish the spreadsheet. Positive criticism is fine, Negative criticism never solves anything and is usually ignored.

Cheers
jimbo

FireFox - as a web browser and anything web related. Since i find it mature and highly modular (even tho add-ons/extension became a thing - for most browsers... "removing" features you dislike - is still something easy to do only in FF)

MPV - as a video player. Have a thing for tweaking settings - till a given video looks good to me (since no two videos are alike or rarely - which is particularly noticeable at movies.... some videos are to bright - while others really need some extra brightness, other have weird colors tones, some to saturated - others not enough, etc). And MPV proved to be the most capable in this regard - not to mention very lite (since most of the settings/tweaks are done in a text configuration file).

Gimp - for image editing (almost the same capabilities as Photoshop - minus the modern A.I. features)

IrfanView - image viewer (really lite and simplistic).

Notepad++ for text files (it's far more versatile than Notepad - yet, still lite on resources)

ShareX - for screenshots/screen-recording (useful features, does the job and the image quality is good too).

XnConvert - for image conversion (batch image converter - to be more exact).

PrivaZer - for deep-cleaning

DriverStore Explorer - for cleaning rogue or old drivers (rarely use it this days)

BCUninstaller - self-explanatory

Display Driver Uninstaller - self-explanatory

Defraggler - have a portable HDD and this is what i use for de-fragmenting (once a month).

NVCleanstall - a cleaner and lite way of installing nVidia drivers (by removing all the unnecessary bloatware from the installer)

DisplayCal - display calibration (Hardware based - so you need a colorimeter to create a personalized color profile) and setting/loading the calibrated profile (does a better job compared to Windows).

WizTree - a Disk Space analyzer (helps at figuring out what takes up to much space on a partition).

HWiNFO64 - hardware info & monitoring (good enough for what it's meant)

Autoruns - advanced start-up manager

WhoCrashed / WinDbg - blue screen report analizer

Equalizer APO (Audio Processing Object) - is a parametric / graphic equalizer implemented as an Audio Processing Object for the system effect infrastructure introduced with Windows Vista (fine tuning the audio output).

To name a few (well, favorites for their specific use).

hsehestedt said:

We've had a bit of a discussion here recently about the use of various utilities vs attempting to perform many tasks using only native Windows tools and utilities.

Click to expand...

Oh, goody! More new tools I might need.

Rufus - For creating bootable flash drives to install Windows, etc.
Unchecky - For unchecking PUPs, like Adobe's Mcafee hanger oner.
Macrium Reflect - Paid version for backing up my PCs
Revo free - For getting rid of unwanted files and programs
Aomei Backupper Free - For backing up my PCs and teaching my students since Macrium no longer has a free version
Rootsmagic 9 - Genealogy program for organizing ancestors
Adobe Acrobat - For reading PDF files
Duplicate Finder
Firefox Browser
Google Earth Pro
Irfanview
Kindle
Screenpresso
Speccy - Computer specs

I didn't realize I had so many third party apps!

thecaretaker said:

One of my favourite apps is HOMEDALE which is useful to see other wireless networks in my area and helps me plan where to tune my wi-fi routers.

View attachment 74321

Click to expand...

One evening, I saw a car parked on the road outside my house. I thought he might have trouble, so I went out and asked if he needed help. He said, No, just tapping into WiFi.

I immediately went inside and secured my WiFi. It was slow enough out in that rural area without someone else competing with me for my own WiFi!

Nope, I never expected anyone to steal my signal, since I was in such a rural area, so had never passworded it.

It's a different story when businesses open their WiFi up for clients . . . our Senior Activity Center has a guest WiFi, so does the River Center. I can even get it at Carti (where I get my chemo treatments).

Wynona said:

It's a different story when businesses open their WiFi up for clients . . . our Senior Activity Center has a guest WiFi, so does the River Center. I can even get it at Carti (where I get my chemo treatments).

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Our hospitals have free wifi and it’s pretty decent. Our hospitals are huge, gardens etc. You can often find Uni students outside studying. Especially at the massive Gold Cost University Hospital. Generally, most shopping complexes and businesses have free wifi here.

Edwin said:

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Click to expand...

Okay..., if we're including Programs...

Edwin said:

Okay..., if we're including Programs...

View attachment 74366

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Ummm, Word, Power Point, Excel, Publisher, and Calculator aren't third party . . . they be Microsoft Office . . . I'm subscribed to Microsoft 365.