Great Free Software
The following is a categorised list of the free/open source software I use.
Many of these programs are the best you can get - even when compared to commercial alternatives. If you like any of them, don't forget to support them and if you can donate to the project.
Database
SQLDeveloper | Oracle SQL Client |
SQLTools++ | Oracle SQL Client |
Statement Tracer for Oracle | Monitor/trace SQL executed by an application |
Tora | Toad like database tool |
Desktop
AutoHotKey | Create custom keyboard macros & shortcut keys |
ClipX | Clipboard Manager/History |
DexPot | Virtual desktops |
FileMenuTools | Explorer Extension - Right-Click Menu Shortcuts |
Find and Run Robot | Application Launcher |
Launchy | Application Launcher |
RocketDock | Mac OSX-like application launcher taskbar |
TaskSwitchXP | Alt-Tab Task Switcher Replacement for XP |
VistaSwitcher | Alt-Tab Task Switcher Replacement for Vista/7 |
Development
Aptana Studio | A fantastic web development IDE with Ruby on Rails support |
AstroGrep | Free/Open Source Portable GREP GUI |
BareTail | Windows Tail GUI (monitor log file changes) |
JDeveloper | Oracle's Java Development IDE |
Joomla | Open Source Content Management System |
Large Text File Viewer | File Viewer supports very large files |
NetBeans IDE | Java IDE (also supports Ruby on Rails) |
NotePad++ | Text Editor |
Notepad2 | Basic Text Editor / Notepad Replacement |
PSPad | Text Editor |
SlikSVN | Windows SVN client |
TortoiseGit | Windows Git GUI |
TortoiseSVN | SVN GUI client for Windows |
WinMerge | File and Directory Comparison |
Graphics
FastStone Capture | Flexible Screenshot Capture Tool |
Inkscape | Vector based (SVG) graphics editor similar to Illustrator |
Paint.NET | Photo/Image Editor (supports layers) |
PhotoFiltre | Photo/Image Editor |
PicPick | Screen capture, Color Picker, and other Tools in One |
Internet
DropBox | Online Storage and File Management |
FileZilla | FTP Client |
Firefox | Web Browser |
Iron | Web Browser (Google Chrome alternative) |
Opera | Web Browser |
Pidgin | Instant Messenging Client |
PuTTY CM | PuTTY Connection Manager |
PuTTY Tray | SSH Client |
SuperPutty | Tabbed PuTTY sessions |
Thunderbird | Email Client |
uTorrent | Bittorrent Client |
WinSCP | FTP/SCP client |
Multimedia
Audacity | Audio Editor |
DVDFlick | DVD Authoring Software |
DVDShrink | Rip DVDs to other formats |
Handbrake | Multimedia Converter (including for portable devices) |
Media JukeBox | MP3 Player/Music Management Software |
VirtualDub | Video capture and processing |
VLC | Multimedia (video/audio) Player |
Office
FreeOCR | OCR tool - works on scanned input, images and PDF documents |
Foxit | PDF Reader |
GNUCash | Accounting and financial management software |
OpenOffice | Office Suite |
PDF Creator | Virtual PDF Printer |
WorkRave | Reminds you to take regular breaks |
Operating Systems
CentOS | Open Source Enterprise Linux |
Xubuntu | Lightweight version of Ubuntu using Xfce |
Productivity
Evernote | Take notes and synchronise them online and with mobile devices |
FreeMind | Mind Mapping Tool |
GeeTeeDee | GeeTeeDee Todo List Manager |
The Guide | Outliner (store hierarchical/tree based notes) |
Wunderlist | Todo list manager that can synchronise online and to mobile devices |
XMind | Excellent Mind Mapping Software - Eclipse Based |
Security
avast! | Antivirus |
AVG Free | Antivirus |
ClamWin | Antivirus |
KeePass | Password Manager |
PeerGuardian | Privacy/P2P IP Blocker |
TrueCrypt | Disk Encryption |
Servers
FileZilla Server | FTP Server for Windows |
FreeSSHd | Simple, free SSH server for Windows |
WAMP | Windows Apache-MySQL-PHP Server |
XAMPP | Portable Apache-MySQL-PHP-Perl Devlopment Server |
System
Autoruns | Startup Manager |
7-zip | File Compression |
CCleaner | System & Windows Registry cleaner |
CPU-Z | CPU/Motherboard/RAM/Graphics Card Identification Tool |
Defraggler | Disk Defragmentation Tool |
Disktective | Disk space reporting tool |
Git for Windows | Git for Windows including Git Bash |
ImgBurn | Burns and Creates ISO Images |
InfraRecorder | CD/DVD Burning Software |
JKDefrag | Disk Defragmentation Tool |
PhotoRec (TestDisk) | Recovers data from unreadable disks (CDs, HDD, USB, Memory Cards etc) |
Process Explorer | Task Manager |
Recuva | Recovers deleted files |
ReNamer | Flexible File/Folder Batch Renaming Tool |
TeraCopy | Speeds up file copying/moving in Windows |
TweakUI | Tweaks Windows System Settings |
UnxUtils | Native Windows binaries of Unix command line tools |
WinCDEmu | Mounts ISO, CUE, BIN, RAW, IMG images as virtual CD/DVD drives |
Virtualization
VirtualBox | Free virtualization software from Sun |