#1

Below are links to some brilliant Freeware, most of which I can never be without. I thought this list may be of some use to you all, so posting it here.

Media

Image
GIMP: A brilliant image editor.
Inkscape: A vector graphics editor.

Video
Freemake Video Converter: A great free video format converter that handles almost anything you throw at it. 
HandBrake: Another superb video converter.
OBS (Open Broadcaster Software): Used to record game footage and also stream it to sites such as Twitch.
Shotcut - Open source video editing package, like Windows Movie maker.
VirtualDub: Freeware video editing software.
VLC Media Player: A media player capable of playing almost any video file without the need for additional codecs.

Audio
Audacity: Audio editor for recording, slicing, and mixing audio.
Metatogger: Brilliant tool for fixing, renaming and adding all kinds of stuff related to audio files.
MP3 Tag: Similar to the above - another tool for MP3 file tag management.

Office
Notepad ++: A Notepad replacement with syntax highlighting and a ton of features.
Open Office: A powerful and feature-rich replacement for Microsoft Office.

Other
Blender: Freeware 3D suite.

Utility

Troubleshooting / Fixing / Maintenance
ADA64: Similar to Speccy (below). Computer hardware info / scanner.
CCleaner: A temporary files cleaner.
Driver Verifier: For finding driver issues.
File Copier: Powerful file copier for getting hold of files on corrupted media or that are corrupted themselves.
HWInfo: Diagnostic software to check fan speeds, temperatures and all manor of other such functions to poll various sensors in your machine.
Ping Plotter: A ping and trace-route utility.
Sidebar Diagnostics: A hardware information sidebar for Windows.
Speccy: Computer hardware information for all components, including chipset, RAM, HDD's and pretty much everything.
SysInternals: A suite of programs to do all manor of useful things in Windows, including a process manager, startup program manager and so much more.
WhoCrashed: Find the cause of BSOD crashes.

Backup
Gamesave Manager: A great utility for backing up and restoring game saves. Works with pretty much every game.
Macrium Reflect: An excellent full-featured backup program.

Developer
AutoHotkey: Excellent automation program that uses scripts/macros to perform virtually anything you can imagine.
Inno Setup: A setup wizard creation tool. Powerful and very useful for developers.
HxD: A freeware Hex editor.
NSIS: A feature-rich setup wizard and package creation tool - similar to Inno Setup.

Customisation
Rainmeter: A beautiful and highly configurable desktop customisation program. I also recommend getting the Enigma skin, along with Arcs.
Windows Layout Manager: Allows you to save position and size of all open windows and then restore them. Multiple profiles as well. 

Other
7-Zip: A file archiver which works with practically every compressed file type there is.
Advanced Renamer: Utility to batch rename files and folders based on a multitude of attributes such as date, mp3 tag, image tag etc.
Bit Meter: An internet/line speed monitoring utility. 
Bullzip: A brilliant PDF printer.
dnGrep: A file search utility that finds text inside a multitude of different file-types, including compressed documents, text files, PDFs and more.
FreeCommander: A dual-pane Windows Explorer replacement with a ton of features such as folder comparison and sync, FTP/SFTP, multi-rename and file preview. Extremely customisable.
ImgBurn: Complete set of tools for burning CD's, DVD's and Blu-Ray's.
Rufas: USB drive formatter with ISO and boot options, including UEFI GPT bootable drives.
SpeedCrunch: A fast, feature-rich replacement for the Windows calculator.
WinSCP: A FTP client.

Last edited 4 Aug 2020 at 11:10.

#2

ninite - Application Installer / silent updater - Installs a package of programs you choose and silently updated them saying no to all the additional bollocks often prompted to install. In it's infancy but expanding

driver-booster - Complete driver installer / updater - Absolutely, completely and utterly invaluable. Sorts out your entire set of drivers for the whole of windows - Greg, this is your magic bullet for keeping you machine alive (can't help random cats from getting dragged into the fans though.) EDIT - Also gives option to download and install Microsoft/AMD patch for the Meltdown / Spectre CPU issue

backblaze - Unlimited BACKUP cloud storage - Upload a complete PC backup ISO image for example for free

Last edited 7 Apr 2018 at 16:07.

#3

bmpwrap - Ever needed to email a file but it keeps on bouncing because it's an illegal attachment? Renaming the file or storing it in a ZIP archive sometimes works, but many ISP can detect that low-tech obfuscation. You need BMP Wrap. BMP Wrap temporarily hides a file inside a valid .BMP image. Once hidden, you can send the BMP file to anybody you wish and they can then extract that file from the BMP image using BMP Wrap. Now you can send EXEs, DLLs, or whatever file format you want, and the destination mail server will never be the wiser.

You just drag and drop a file onto the .exe icon in windows explorer - no installing, no other files, just literally that one .exe. great program and its 20kb!

Last edited 1 Nov 2019 at 08:42.