Best FREE Software (Used and Rated by Loungers)

[Rudi]

New Index And Search Tool: Lookeen - Lookeen is a commercial product, but if you only want to index your local PC drives rather than any network or server drives then there's a free-forever version available that should do everything you want. It runs on Windows 7, 8 and 10, and the program is malware-free according to VirusTotal and Web of Trust.

Find what you need, when you need it: Lookeen Free Desktop Search is an award winning Windows search tool that enables you to find data saved anywhere on your local hard drives. Lookeen is designed to find results, regardless of the way they’re organized – never mind if you’ve forgotten the name of a document, or where you’ve saved a file. Never waste another moment looking for that one elusive document. Lookeen Free quickly finds what you need, giving you the freedom to get on with your day.

Search through an unlimited number of files from the easy to use interface. Narrow down your search with simple filter options. View your files as they would appear in their native format. Edit text files in the preview.

[Rudi]

AstroGrep Search Utility

I use Everything every day of my life, but sometimes I need to search for a word within a file, not just the file name. I have been using FileSearchy for a while now to do this, but have just come across another search app that seems to be a great app for this sort of thing: AstroGrep. See the home page above and determine if this can be useful for you. The download is only 800KB's and is clean (no junkware, malware or ads), and the app works quite fast. It looks decent and works seemingly well after a few runs...

AstroGrep is a Microsoft Windows grep utility. Grep is a UNIX command-line program which searches within files for keywords. AstroGrep supports regular expressions, versatile printing options, stores most recently used paths and has a "context" feature which is very nice for looking at source code.

[Rudi]

Thanks to a recommendation from Jay Freeman (from this post), here is a tried and tested freeware app that provides remote access to another PC. Hope you don't mind the recommendation Jay.

TightTNC. See info and download page here.

What is TightVNC?

TightVNC is a free remote control software package. With TightVNC, you can see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard, just like you would do it sitting in the front of that computer. TightVNC is:

free for both personal and commercial usage, with full source code available,
useful in administration, tech support, education, and for many other purposes,
cross-platform, available for Windows and Unix, with Java client included,
compatible with standard VNC software, conforming to RFB protocol specifications.
With TightVNC, you can:

cut your expenses and save your time on traveling,
help your friends and family to solve problems with their computers remotely,
make sure nothing wrong is happening on your computers when you are away.

[StuartR]

...
TrueCrypt 6.2
TrueCrypt is an open-source encryption software that enables you to create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a virtual disk, that can be accessed via a drive letter. Any file that is stored on this virtual drive is automatically encrypted on-the-fly, and can only be accessed while the drive is mounted with the correct password or key.
Download:TrueCrypt 6.2

Truecrypt is no longer being maintained by the developers. If you visit the Truecrypt web site you will see that it says.
WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues

I recommend that people use Veracrypt instead. This product started with the published Truecrypt code base, and improved some of the weaker security features. It is fully supported, but is still free.

[Rudi]

TX Stuart.

I actually removed TrueCrypt from the spreadsheet page in the OP; but should have thought about modifying the post about it within this thread. I think I will cody your recommendation into that post.

[PJ_in_FL]

Truecrypt is no longer being maintained by the developers. If you visit the Truecrypt web site you will see that it says.
WARNING: Using TrueCrypt is not secure as it may contain unfixed security issues

I recommend that people use Veracrypt instead. This product started with the published Truecrypt code base, and improved some of the weaker security features. It is fully supported, but is still free.

Greatly overstated risk to say the least!

The "rest of the story" behind the demise of TrueCrypt is interesting and puzzling at the same time. The developer team decided to create a neutered version of TrueCrypt as the last update, but version 7.1a is still available from reliable sources.

The last "real" release of TrueCrypt, 7.1a, is quite secure for general use, as the independent audit confirmed. There were no security risks and only a few "glitches" as described by the auditors. Gibson also has a lot of behind-the-scenes info about the attempt to kill TrueCrypt by the developers.

Because of the added user discomfort with VeraCrypt (much longer time to initiate and open a secure container) with no change in the effective risk-level from this users' perspective for my home/personal use, I've opted to stay with TrueCrypt as long as version 7.1a works.

I'd be concerned if my secure containers were of interest to parties with the resources to load the container onto a few thousand PCs and simultaneously execute brute-force/dictionary attacks vs. typical hackers with a single PC or two. Given TryeCrypt's relatively short time to open a secure archive, they might successfully crack a reasonable password in a few months instead of years.

[StuartR]

Those are all fair comments PJ.

I know a number of Truecrypt users who still use version 7.1a, and I still keep a copy of the kit in case I need it, but I wouldn't recommend Truecrypt to a new user at this stage in its lifecycle, since it is no longer maintained.

[geecee]

Might I suggest Gadwin PrintScreen.

I have been using Gadwin PrintScreen for many years now and I find it a very simple to use programme. You can read about it at http://www.gadwin.com/printscreen/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
The UI shown on this page is for the latest version, of which I am not particularly fond.

ScreenShot001.jpg

I use version 4.6 (2012), which can be downloaded from http://gadwin-printscreen.en.uptodown.com/old" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;. The following is a screenshot of the version 4.0 UI which is the same as for version 4.6.

Gadwin PrintScreen 4.0.jpg

[Rudi]

Thanks George.

Strangely, I found that the version you refer to: 4.6 (2012) is cleaner and more accurate than the latest (freeware) version 5.4 from their home page. The magnifier on the newest version that helps one to capture from an accurate position was way off base. It was magnifying portions of the screen that was not under my mouse cursor. The older 4.6 version operated much better.

The only criticism I have is that both your version (4.6) and the latest free version have very few capture options as well as zero post capture editing. (I'd expect it to be available in the paid versions), but for others reading this, please note that the freeware options are very scant.

Do you need to open it in Paint (or some other image editor) to do annotations?

I will update the spreadsheet with this app soon.
TX for your contribution.

[Rudi]

Updates made to the spreadsheet.
Download and update list found in the 1st post of this thread.

[Rudi]

The Privacy Badger is a new, free browser extension that aims to make your web surfing experience faster and safer. It is available for both Chrome and Firefox, and allows you to control the way that websites use trackers, cookies and other techniques to gather personal data about you and your internet usage.

This helps to reduce your overall bandwidth usage, as well as improving your online privacy. It should hopefully also reduce the number of ads you see which are spookily relevant to information you've been browsing recently.

Around 250,000 people have already started using the Badger since it was released in alpha test form by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The software is now officially at version 1.0 and ready for everyone to try.

Source: Behold The Privacy Badger!

Please note: I have NOT yet tested this software. I do plan to however soon.

Now why am I thinking of John Gray???

SC366.jpg

[BobH]

Thanks for the tip, Rudi!

I installed it and already have the report of one blocked tracker. Haven't tried to determine what it was yet, but the badger seems to be doing its job.

[viking33]

The Privacy Badger is a new, free browser extension that aims to make your web surfing experience faster and safer. It is available for both Chrome and Firefox, and allows you to control the way that websites use trackers, cookies and other techniques to gather personal data about you and your internet usage.

This helps to reduce your overall bandwidth usage, as well as improving your online privacy. It should hopefully also reduce the number of ads you see which are spookily relevant to information you've been browsing recently.

Around 250,000 people have already started using the Badger since it was released in alpha test form by the Electronic Frontier Foundation. The software is now officially at version 1.0 and ready for everyone to try.

Source: Behold The Privacy Badger!

Please note: I have NOT yet tested this software. I do plan to however soon.

Now why am I thinking of John Gray???

SC366.jpg

John gets royalty payments for use of his logo.

[Rudi]

More updates and changes made to the spreadsheet.
Download and updated list found in the 1st post of this thread.

[stuck]

I recently came across a freebie from Microsoft, Mouse Without Borders:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/download ... x?id=35460

I installed it on my (ancient) XPMCE desktop and my little Win 7 Starter netbook, since they frequently sit next to each other in my study. Now I can slide the mouse from one machine to the other. I'm used to seeing a mouse slide between dual monitors but even so it's spooky to see the same effect across two monitors on completely separate machines.

Ken

[HansV]

Fascinating! Thanks!

[stuck]

Fascinating! Thanks!

You mean I've actually posted something that you didn't know already? If so WOW!

Ken
PS Mouse Without Borders also allows you to use one keyboard across two machines

[HansV]

I hadn't heard of Mouse Without Borders.

I initially wondered if it was something like Doctors Without Borders (Médecins Sans Frontières)...

[stuck]

It's clever but it's not as good as Jeux Sans Frontieres

Ken

[Rudi]

TX Ken...
I'll make a note to add it to the spreadsheet.