Important and Essential Free Software

Here are some of my favorite programs.  Most of these I have installed on the second image I made of my hard drive because I know I will want them forever (If you don't know what I'm talking about, read my last post here).



Macrium Reflect
If you couldn't tell from my last post, I really love this program.  It makes backing up any partition or entire hard drives extremely simple and even lets you browse those images without having to restore them.  For instance if you made an image of a hard drive that contains only documents and you needed to get a single file from that image without restoring the whole thing, you can simply mount it as a drive.  It will then appear in My Computer and you can browse the drive for your file.  However, the image file is read-only.  This means you won't be able to put anything on the image or save any changes to a file on the image.  You will only be able to read from it, not write to it.  You can still copy files over to your hard drive and then save changes to them, but you will not be able to change anything in the image file (this also means you can't delete anything from the image either).

Download Macrium Reflect here.


Google Chrome
As far as web browsers go, I think this is the best.  I like it because it is very fast, intuitive, and has a very clean interface.  Before Chrome came out, I was using Mozilla Firefox, which is also an excellent browser.  At the time though, Firefox didn't have as much of a clean interface and it wasn't nearly as fast as Chrome [on my computer, at least].  Here are screenshots of Firefox and Chrome from 2008 (Chrome was released September 2, 2008).

Firefox on June 21, 2008

Google Chrome in 2008

From the pictures, one could tell that the interface of Google Chrome is much cleaner—there isn't a title bar (the blue bar at the top on Firefox), the address box and search box are combined into one omnibox, there is no menu bar (File, Edit, View, etc.), and the tabs are on top of the controls.  Firefox has four rows of stuff (generally more when you have add-ons), whereas Chrome only has two.  The clean interface, along with the incredible speed convinced me to make Chrome my default browser.  Today I use Chrome because I always have since then; it's so simple.  Firefox and Chrome have both come a long way since 2008 though.  I would recommend either browser, but my loyalty and higher recommendation is to Chrome.  If you are using Internet Explorer (IE), I would highly suggest you switch to Chrome or Firefox.  According to the most recent browser speed tests done by Lifehacker (link), Chrome is fastest, but Firefox is better with managing memory.

Download Google Chrome here.
Download Mozilla Firefox here.


TeamViewer
Many people probably don't have much use for a program like this.  This is a program for viewing or controlling a computer from a remote location.  I use this program a lot because I often troubleshoot problems with other peoples' computers.  Whenever I am asked to help with a computer problem and cannot physically go to the computer with the problem, I will often ask the person to install this so I can remotely fix the problem.  This program is also helpful if someone has multiple computers in multiple locations.  An example of this would be of someone who wrote a document at home for his job, but forgot to save it and just left it open on the computer.  At work, he could just open up TeamViewer, connect to his computer, save the file, and then send it to himself (either using email or the TeamViewer file transfer service).  There are many more uses for this program, such as pranks, but I will not go into them now.

Download TeamViewer here.


Dropbox and Copy
Dropbox is an online storage program that automatically syncs files that you put in its folder to the internet and then to your other devices that are linked to your Dropbox.  You can also invite friends or family members to share a Dropbox folder so anything you put in that is synced with their Dropboxes as well.  Here's a short video that explains it:


Dropbox is nice because it just puts a folder on the computer and anything that goes in that folder is automatically synced.

Copy is basically the same thing as Dropbox except it has a different name.  Dropbox's current free plan gives 2 GB of storage, that can be expanded to 18 GB by inviting friends (500 MB per friend*).  You can also earn more space by doing various other tasks like adding an edu email to your account and sharing your referral link to social networks.  I currently have 22 GB of free storage, which I think is the max possible at this time.  Copy has a somewhat better plan though.  For signing up, you automatically get 15 GB of storage, then 2 GB for sharing your referral link on Twitter, and 5 GB for each friend you invite (and they sign up and install Copy) for an umlimitted number of friends (Dropbox lets you have 16 GB worth of friends sign up). You can also get an additional 5 GB of space by signing up using my referral link, this way you start with 20 GB (or 22 GB if you link to Twitter), which is basically the max a person can even get with Dropbox.

You can sign up for and download Dropbox here.
You can sign up for and download Copy here.

*It might only be 250 MB per friend if you have not connected an edu email account.

VirtuaWin
VirtuaWin is a simple program that virtually gives you multiple desktops.  This feature is built into the Mac and Ubuntu operating systems, but Microsoft has yet to do the same.  I use this program all the time and it's especially helpful when you have dozens of windows or programs open.  It's a bit hard to explain what this program does using only words, but I'll do my best.  When you first turn on your computer, you have no programs running and your task bar looks clean.

Then you start to open some programs and you see them in your task bar.

Then after some time you eventually have many thing open and your task bar looks like this:

What VirtuaWin does is it allows you to virtually have multiple desktops, you can move or open programs in different desktops to keep your task bar clean and help you know what programs are open.  It's also useful for having many different things open for different areas of work.  For instance, if your remodeling a room in your home, you might have many windows dedicated to researching the things that you will need for that, but you also have to work, so maybe you have some work related documents open, then you also want to just do recreational stuff on the computer, like playing games, editing photos, or watching YouTube. You have three subject areas; you could use three desktops.  Throw all the remodeling stuff into one desktop, all your work stuff into another, and all your recreational stuff into a third.  You now have an organized desktop.  This is also useful if you use a shared computer and only use one shared account (like a family computer), then you can keep your stuff separate from other peoples stuff.

Download VituaWin here.


VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is the most amazing media player I've ever used.  Most media players can only play a small number of different file types.  VLC Media Player can play practically every media type that there is.  It is very lightweight and very simple to use.  I do not, however, suggest it for organizing a large library of music.  I tried doing that once and it's just hard to upkeep (maybe because I'm too used to iTunes).  I've never used Windows Media Player for my library of music (mostly because of how confusing it is), but for random Media needs, VLC is the best.  I would suggest iTunes for organizing a large library (iTunes is the only thing you will ever see me recommend that is a Mac product).  Songbird is also pretty good, but the last time I used it, which was about six months ago, it still needed some work.  Once I think Songbird is good enough to manage my music, I will completely switch from iTunes.  Back to VLC, even if you have iTunes already, there will come a time when you have a media file that iTunes and Windows Media Player cannot play.  At some point, you will probably also get annoyed (if you have iTunes as your default media player), that whenever you want to play one simple song or watch a video, that iTunes has to load your library and slow down your computer and eventually play that song or video.  VLC is fast and easy.

Download VLC Media Player here (I highly recommend this).

Clipdiary
Clipdiary is a program that saves your clipboard history.  Unlike every other program in this list, this program is not free.  I got my copy for free from Giveaway of the Day and hope to see it on there again soon.  It is incredibly useful, but probably not worth the $20 that it costs.  The clipboard of your computer is where something goes when it gets copied.  However, as soon as something else gets copied, the first thing is then erased and no longer accessible.  Clipdiary saves everything that is copied so that you can access that stuff later.  For example, if you're writing a report, you could copy five different sections from a source, then go to your report and paste all five things; you don't have to do it one-thing-at-a-time.  I find this tool even more useful when I accidentally copy something and later I absentmindedly copy something else, but need that first thing back and don't want to go searching for it again.  While this program isn't free and you may have to keep checking  Giveaway of the Day for it to be free again, there are always free alternatives.  One that I've heard about is Ditto.  I imagine Ditto is also a pretty good program for this; it's not like there much that could be different (though I could be wrong), but I have always just used Clipdiary, so I am used to that.  However, from what I read in the features, Ditto is more advanced than Clipdiary, but I don't really need that, I just simply want my clipboard history, so I probably won't install it.

Download Clipdairy (trial) here.
Download Ditto here.


Picasa
Picasa is photo library manager from Google.  I don't really know much about other photo managers, but I know that managing and organizing photos on the computer is a pain and usually confusing.  Picasa makes it pretty simple though.  It searches for all of the pictures on your computer and just links them in its library; there is no copying pictures to a separate location leaving a confusing mess of duplicated pictures that you then have to spend hours sorting through to make sure you don't delete any file that's not duplicated.  I'm not really too sure how Windows photo manager works or even if one exists, but I can still say that Picasa is probably many times better than that.  Picasa can also ignore folders, always update other folders (so that any picture you add or remove from that folder is automatically added or removed from Picasa), or just add a folder, but never look at that folder again (once the folder is added, a picture can be added to the folder, but won't show in Picasa).  One of my favorite things that made me want Picasa the most when I heard about it years ago is the tagging of people.  You can add people profiles to your Picasa database and then tag some pictures of that person.  Picasa will go through all of your pictures and once you get enough tags of that person, it will use facial recognition to show you pictures it thinks are of that person and you can either confirm or reject its tag.  You can also view all pictures that have a person in them or pictures that have specified groups of people in them.  Picasa also has a simple photo editor inside and a utility for making photo collages  Picasa allows GeoTagging and tagging normal text tags as well.

Download Picasa here.


Reveal
Reveal is a photo EXIF viewer.  When a picture is taken with a digital camera, EXIF data is automatically attached to that picture, such as the date, time, camera settings for the picture, and sometimes even location. Furthermore, if a picture is edited on the computer, that will also be saved to the EXIF data.  Reveal is a simple enough program, it just reveals the EXIF data.  It also allows you to edit the EXIF data.  Here are some screenshots:

 Download Reveal here.


Trillian
Trillian is a chat client.  It is helpful for chatting with people across different networks.  When you make a Trillian account, you can sign in to multiple account types, including gmail, Facebook, Twitter, and Skype.  Trillian then puts all of your chat clients into one place, so if someone was talking to some friends on gmail chat, Facebook, and Skype all at the same, they wouldn't have to switch back and forth between those places, everything is in a separate chat window.  Below is a screenshot that lists all the account types available to add at this time.

Download Trillian here.


PrtScr
PrtScr is a great screenshot program.  It's very simple to use.  A screenshot can be taken by pressing the Print Screen (usually written PrtScr, Prt Sc, or PS) button at the top of the keyboard, usually located after the F12 key and near the Pause Break key.  However, when you do that, the screenshot is just saved to the clipboard and in order to do anything with it, you have open a program like paint and paste it, then save it.  PrtScr makes it very simple though; press the Print Screen button, then your screen gets tinted.  You can then right click to draw on the screen (in red), then use the left-mouse-button (LMB) to select the area you want (or simply click to select the whole screen) in free form, or hold control and the LMB to select a rectangular area.  When you are done, you get the option to save or edit it and name and add comments to it.  For all the screenshots in this post, my last post, and all future posts, this program was and will be used.
Helpful hint, pressing Alt + Print Screen will capture only the current active window (you don't need PrtScr installed to do this).

Download PrtScr here.


Notepad++
Notepad++ is a simple text editor, but is more heavy duty than the classic Notepad that comes with Windows.  Notepad++ has many options and appearance settings.  It allows for tabbed documents so there only needs to be one window open for all files.  A great feature about this program, especially for people who code, is that it colors keywords based on the file extension.  If your file extension is just the general txt, then there will be no colored words.  Notepad++ recognizes many different programming languages and will even let you define your own language.

Download Notepad++ here.


7-Zip
7-Zip is an excellent file compression/decompression program.  It supports many file types including RAR and ZIP files.  Windows now has a pretty decent alternative to this built in to Windows, so if you only ever deal with ZIP files and no other types, then you probably don't need this.  However, if you're like me and you download tons of stuff and don't always know what the file type will be, 7-Zip will probably be able to help you out.  One of the main reasons I stopped using the Windows built-in utility (besides unsupported file types like RAR) is because a few years ago (on Windows Vista I think it was), the built-in utility stopped working and I couldn't even unpack a normal ZIP file.

Download 7-Zip here.

DimScreen
DimScreen is a program that dims your screen.  This is helpful for bright laptop screens (like mine), where even the lowest brightness setting is sometimes too bright.  It dims the screen in 10% increments.  Here's a comparison of my screen dimmed 90% and then normally:

Dimmed 90%

      Not Dimmed

Download DimScreen here (direct link).

TrueCrypt

TrueCrypt is one of the best encryption software and probably the best when it comes to free software.  Be careful with this though, because if you forget your password, there's very little hope of recovering what you encrypted.  In 2010 an article on Techworld told about how even the FBI could not crack a TrueCrypt container.  If you have incredibly important documents or are worried someone might try to steal stuff from your computer, this program will be able to help you.  

Download TrueCrypt here.

Eraser

Eraser is a secure deletion program.  When you delete a file, it just goes to the recycle bin.  When you delete a file from the recycle bin, it just turns invisible; you can still recover the file using a program like Recuva.  Eraser is for securely deleting any file into non-existence, so there isn't even a hope of recovering the file.  It has several different deletion methods ranging from 1 pass to the Gutmann standard of 35 passes.  The number of passes is basically the number of time the file's data gets overwritten or the number of times the file is deleted.  Most files are still recoverable after 1 pass, but virtually nothing can survive 35 passes.  The US Army standard uses 3 passes and the US Department of Defense standard uses 7.

Download Eraser here.

Recuva

Recuva is a data recovery program, the opposite of Eraser.  If you ever accidentally delete a file or empty the recycle bin by accident, but need some of the files that were in there, you can still get them back using a recovery program like Recuva.  Recuva will search your hard drive for deleted files and show you everything it found.  You can then find the files you needed and recover them.

Download Recuva here.

OpenOffice
OpenOffice is a free alternative to Microsoft Office.  The package includes 6 programs, Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Base, and Math.  Writer is comparable to MS Word, Calc is comparable to Excel, Impress is comparable to PowerPoint, and Base is Comparable to Access.  I've never used Draw, but I think it's comparable to Publisher and I don't even think Math is comparable to anything in MS Office (correct me if I'm wrong, please).  Math is an equation editor; make your computer math look professional. If you want a program comparable to Outlook, use Thunderbird.

Download OpenOffice here.

Download Thunderbird here.

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition

MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition is probably the best free partition managing software.  It does everything you could need a partition managing program to do and even lets you preview all of your changes before it does anything.  This is an excellent program for managing many hard drives and partitions.

Download MiniTool Partition Wizard Home Edition here.