Doctor Frog's Dead Serious Freeware Roundup, '06

doctorfrog on 7/11/2006 at 19:21

I recently decided to wipe and re-install Windows. As I re-installed every piece of software, I took some extra time to seek out some improved versions of software I was already using on a regular basis.

The following list is the result of a good many hours of careful research and tweaking. I thought I'd share these free gems with TTLG, and since I took the trouble to write up this list, you jolly well better take the time to read it.

Note: These programs are all free, legal, and devoid of malware or malicious intent. However, just because I have found success with these doesn't mean you will. Use at your own risk!

(http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/) Comodo Firewall
[INDENT]A tight and tough firewall. Nonexistent pricetag is due to friendly corporate sponsorship, which includes a 'lifetime' license (no re-registering!), and a lively internet community. It is clean of evil: the daddy corporation issues secure certificates and counts on its free firewall and other apps for a halo effect to draw in more business. On the downside, it has a steep learning curve, and the firewall can be a bit chatty at first, but is reportedly as (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1969207,00.asp) iron-clad as some of the best for-pay firewalls.
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(http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php) Grisoft AVG 7 Antivirus
[INDENT]I started out replacing AVG with Avast, but switched back after a month. AVG won out for thousands of very important reasons: bytes. I have an aging machine, and it moans under the weight of Avast's stellar, but resource-gobbling protection. I may as well have a virus. AVG, in the interim, had released a new version of its software which uses a mere fraction of what it used previously, a mere fraction of what Avast demanded. As of right now, my machine has been running for about 16 hours, and the antivirus software and all related services take up less than THREE MEGABYTES. Online reviews I read rate the two competitors at about the same, occasionally with Avast gaining a slight edge. AVG is good enough for me.
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(http://vertigosity.benpbrown.com/) Tango Icon Pack
[INDENT]Replace the candy-coated stock XP icons with something sharper, more serious, and more current. Icons are from the admirable (http://tango-project.org/Tango_Desktop_Project) Tango project, an icon development initiative sharply focused on icon design that is not only attractive, but meaningful and universal. The Windows pack is based on (http://xpero.msfn.org/) XPize, which simply takes Microsoft's icon theme and applies it more thoroughly and consistently throughout your system. Test both packages on VirtualPC first, to see which you like better (and then pick Tango). The install program <i>will</i> make a number of changes to Windows sytem files' icons, though it does so wisely and harmlessly.
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(http://www.essentialpim.com/?r=download) EssentialPIM Free
[INDENT]I just want popups to remind me to do things. I was stunned at the difficulty in finding such a basic piece of software. There exists on the web a mountain of productivity software, so much of it with stupid skins, dependencies on bulky runtimes, or nags to upgrade to the full product. Although EPIM does provide a slim, easily-ignored nagbanner, the rest of the product is so thoughtfully designed this vestige is easy to overlook. Provides basic PIM functionality present in Outlook with a comparatively anorexic resource requirement. Damned admirable. A simpler, but less interesting alternative exists in Palm Desktop, available freely, whether you use a Palm handheld or not ((http://www.download.com/3001-2363_4-10153379.html)).[/INDENT]
(http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx) VirtualPC
[INDENT]An absolute godsend for testing new apps without endangering your current system. Load it with Linux. Mount a CD Image of a Live Linux distro, and surf for prawn and other sordid carp. Load it with DOS for old-school games. You could probably safely infect it with a virus for added fun. With Virtual Machine Additions installed, you can practically use it as your own desktop system, leaving your real XP system untouched underneath. Naysayers might insist upon a non-MS system emulator, but I'm having too much fun with this one to pay them much mind.
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(http://www.nliteos.com/) nLite
[INDENT]A fantastic, but complex, utility to automate and reduce the size of a Windows XP install. Install Windows automatically, pre-disable or remove outright annoying 'features' and services. Test the disc image on VirtualPC to make sure it works right. (Requires .NET runtime.)
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(http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay) Startup Delayer
[INDENT]Even with a fresh XP install, I have 8 programs running at startup, some cruicial, some important, some merely preferred. By default, Windows launches all your startup programs simulaneously, similar to the way in which all Three Stooges try to pass through the same doorway at once. Startup Delayer not only allows you to manage which applications are permitted to launch on startup, but lets you select which ones get to go first (Firewall, Antivirus), and which get postponed until several seconds later (Volume Control App, uTorrent). This will not necessarily speed up your boot time, but it may help make it smoother. Startup Delayer graciously shoots itself in the head once all your startup tasks are complete, leaving no stains in your RAM.
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Military-Grade Security
[INDENT]Make secure text files with (http://www.donationcoder.com/Software/Other/fSekrit/) fsekrit. Encrypt any file, or number of files, on your PC or on the go with (http://members.ozemail.com.au/~nulifetv/freezip/freeware/) dscrypt. Conveniently secure files of any kind, including secure deletion, using (http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/) Axcrypt, which runs handily from the right-click menu. fsekrit and dscrypt will run reliably from a USB drive with no admin rights necessary, whereas AxCrypt requires installation.
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(http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=1207) Diskeeper 7 Lite
[INDENT]You mean I didn't have to re-install my Diskeeper 8 warez edition? Crap, I was *this* close to being 98% legal. There have got to be only a few ways to properly defrag a drive, and they were figured out years ago. Yet Diskeeper is up to version 10. Never mind, you can use version 7 for free, as long as you don't mind manually defragging your drives once in a while (paid versions offer 'intelligent' automatic defragging). Better, supposedly, than the default defragger included with Windows XP. And free!
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= Bonus Section: Firefox Extensions =
I see no reason to assist the adcloud in collecting my surfing habits, no matter how anonymous and innocuous they may claim to be. The following extensions tighten things up a bit and lead to cleaner, happier browsing:

(http://adblockplus.org/en/) Adblock Plus: Never see ads again. Not often, anyway. The web is so much more... quiet. Now, comes with built-in filters by someone who actually knows how to use regular expressions.

(http://www.noscript.net/whats) NoScript: This extension needs a little babysitting for certain sites. It functions as a whitelist, by default keeping sites from using JavaScript, Flash, and other annoyances from functioning, until you give the all-clear.

(http://www.customizegoogle.com/) CustomizeGoogle: Puts privacy back into search by 'anonymizing' the Google cookie, removing Google ads from all their services, and providing unobtrusive links to other search engines in your results.

(https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/2497/) CookieSafe: Similar to NoScript, functions as a whitelist for site cookies instead of scripts. A little confusing to configure. A less effective version of this is to simply deny any 3rd party cookies in Firefox's preferences > privacy > cookies dialog. There is no reason to ever, ever, EVER allow 3rd parties to place cookies. (Note: FFox 2.0's config dialog no longer offers this option; just use CookieSafe!)

(http://www.torrify.com/) TorPark: Rather than seek the specific onion routing extensions, download the whole browser (it's just a standalone version of Firefox with a custom skin and some plugins), unzip and run from any directory. And remember your modem days: both in terms of speed, and not worrying so damn much about your every move being tracked.

Oneiroscope on 7/11/2006 at 20:10

Cool! Thanks for the list doc. I must admit I am just barely computer literate enough to turn mine on, though. The firewall program is probably the most important info you provided, for me. Coz holy crap I dont got one.:eek:

I am also interested in the Virtual PC program. I have thought about switching to a free version of Linux but have been worried that my games might not work any more.

Startup delayer might also be worth looking into. Every so often the Stooges thing makes me gasp in non hilarity. Anyway, my thanks again.:thumb:

Sluggs on 7/11/2006 at 20:40

You forgot to add (http://www.ccleaner.com/) this great program! :D

Oh, and (http://www.mailwasher.net/) this!

Crikey, how could i forget (http://www.lavasoftusa.com/products/ad-aware_se_personal.php) this?

dj_ivocha on 7/11/2006 at 20:43

That's a nice list and some interesting programs I'll take a look at.

Out of curiosity, why aren't you using the rest of Comodo's not-too-shabby list of programs?

derfy on 7/11/2006 at 22:56

Quote:

Adblock Plus: Never see ads again. Not often, anyway. The web is so much more... quiet. Now, comes with built-in filters by someone who actually knows how to use regular expressions.

Awesome choice, but I'm surprised you didn't include (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/1136/) Filterset.G to auto update your adblock rules.

doctorfrog on 7/11/2006 at 22:59

Thanks for the additions, Sluggs. I hadn't added those because I wanted to focus on 'new' software I hadn't heard of. I do use CCleaner regularly. However, there are reports that both Spybot and AdAware are increasingly outdated. Grisoft recently acquired a more modern anti-spyware engine called Ewido; it has since been re-branded (http://www.ewido.net/en/) AVG Anti-Spyware. It is also free, though its resident scanner only works for 21 days. Manual scans and updates continue to be free, however.

dj_ivocha: I haven't used Comodo's other programs because what I have already works fine, and Comodo Firewall already sucks up 20 megabytes of RAM. (I repeat, AVG takes up only three megabytes on my system!) Their antivirus (still in beta) hasn't been tested online as extensively as AVG and I have little interest in their other proggies. This is not to say they aren't worth the time investment.

derfy: the current version of AdBlock Plus automatically includes the filterset.g ruleset.

The Alchemist on 8/11/2006 at 00:32

The Tango project is really nice. :thumb:

Marecki on 8/11/2006 at 00:51

Quote Posted by doctorfrog

(http://www.r2.com.au/software.php?page=2&show=startdelay) Startup Delayer

Myself I hardly ever use Windows nowadays, but I happen to double as unofficial tech support for a bunch of people - and this proggy is exactly what I've been looking for lately

<img src="http://images.dpchallenge.com/images_challenge/133/36215.jpg">
"Thank you, Doctor!"

<small>Umm... you wouldn't be Daxim in disguise, would you</small> ;)

Mortal Monkey on 8/11/2006 at 00:55

Quote Posted by doctorfrog

(http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/) Comodo Firewall
[INDENT][...] On the downside, it has a steep learning curve, and the firewall can be a bit chatty at first, but is reportedly as (http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1969207,00.asp) iron-clad as some of the best for-pay firewalls.
[/INDENT]

Indeed, Jones has compared my firewall to nazism on several occasions.
So far it's detected spywarez is Steam (the support guy claims that it's a bug) and the NFS Carbon demo (it tried to inject a DLL into the SWAT4 process). It does generate false positives at times though, so take it with a grain of salt.

derfy on 8/11/2006 at 07:07

Damn. Here I was thinking I was being useful, too. ;( <g>