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Software and Freeware

kyuuei

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Anti-virus is what inspired this, but I suppose I want to see all the software you pay for vs what you use for free and any blunders you've come across.

So what do/did ya'll pay for that you love?
And whats free that you love?
What are your software essentials on your computer? Things you have to have?
Anything you paid for/downloaded for free that you hated?

I've been using Microsoft security essentials since it is free and I have that OS, and I've never thought of paying for anti-virus protection after the fiasco that norton and mcafee both were.

Steam is free in and of itself, and the games are super cheap on there all the time. It has helped a TON.

I did, however, pay for language speaking class software and I love the program.. it was worth the money rather than looking things up on youtube and the internet. It's a solid foundation for the price ($30, way cheaper than Rosetta stone).

I also paid for Neat software, a scanning software advertised on TV that I really do love. I suppose I could have old-fashioned scanned everything in by hand and used a free print-to-pdf software for the same thing, but the software is really easy to use, user friendly, and it has saved me space and potential identity risks.

I was considering buying a music-organization system of some kind but I just don't even know where to begin.. much of my music isn't legal, I have scattered music on amazon that IS legal, and I don't use apple products so I have no centralized system for organizing it all together.. I don't even know where to start.

[MENTION=6109]Halla74[/MENTION] and [MENTION=825]ygolo[/MENTION] I expect both of you to answer this thread! :hi:
 

Qlip

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I always load up a new computer with LibreOffice (It's a fork of Open Office), GIMP and Inkscape. GIMP is a free, powerful and more awkward version of Photoshop, and Inkscape is a free, powerful and awkward vector Art program. Audacity, a open source audio program is also very hand to have. Oh, and I use the free version of WinAmp for music, but I don't know if that's the best thing out there. It probably depends on your needs. VLC is a very nice to to have for video playback. Media Center is way bloated.
 

sprinkles

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In addition to WinXP I have Linux Mint 9 which is all about free stuff, and it has a repository with actually a lot of good programs in it.

I've used Inkscape, GIMP, Bluefish, Audacity, Open Office and... I think everything that [MENTION=10714]Qlip[/MENTION] already said oddly enough. :D

Battle for Wesnoth is a pretty cool free game with 'paid for' quality. Open TTD is another one.

Edit: as for stuff I've paid for... I'm not spendy so that isn't much at all. A few Steam games and I have some old games from the 90's that I bought still laying around.

I bought Minecraft which is pretty awesome, and Desktop Dungeons.
 

Qlip

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In addition to WinXP I have Linux Mint 9 which is all about free stuff, and it has a repository with actually a lot of good programs in it.

I've used Inkscape, GIMP, Bluefish, Audacity, Open Office and... I think everything that Qlip already said oddly enough. :D

Battle for Wesnoth is a pretty cool free game with 'paid for' quality. Open TTD is another one.

That's 'cuz we are Linux gurus. :D
 

Randomnity

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I use almost exclusively free software, other than games. Most useful things can be replaced by freeware that does most or all of the important things anyway.

Free that I use - browsers, timer programs, antivirus programs, poweriso (demo I think, but it works), google docs, VLC. I've used GIMP before and if I did photoshop stuff anymore I'd download it, but I've never bothered on my current computer. I use itunes and hate it, but I love my ipod so I guess I can deal with it.
 

Fluffywolf

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Whenever I install a new computer, I follow the following installation procedures:

1. Microsoft Security Essentials (nice compact trustworthy antivirus tool that doesn't clog up your processor.)
2. Google Chrome
4. Winrar (Trusty unzip tool)
5. Notepad++ (Very powerful notepad tool if you enjoy the occasional programming.)
6. Piriform CCleaner (nice adware/malware free tool that helps keep windows clean)

That's all I need, and it is all free!

I have a fraps liscense though, but haven't used the tool in years. On occasion I've bought some software, but nothing that stuck with me.
 

Fluffywolf

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and I've never thought of paying for anti-virus protection after the fiasco that norton and mcafee both were.

Norton is definately the worst of the two. But I agree Mcafee isn't that much better.

Microsoft Security Essentials is powerful enough to get the job done as long as you don't expose yourself too much on shady sites, and it doesn't slow your PC down while it's working. Supah!
 

Owlesque

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Inkscape is great for vectors. I got MacJournal 5 as part of a software bundle a while back, which I mostly use to organise my writing. WriteRoom is also great for writing without distractions, but I haven't bothered to upgrade from the free version. Anki is a decent flashcard application, especially for learning language vocabulary.
 
W

WALMART

Guest
Cool thread.

I used to work at a uhaul, i found a ms office 2010 disk with no registration code in a storage unit.... I called up MS and they sold me a new code for ten bucks. Cool stuff.
 

KDude

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Cool thread.

I used to work at a uhaul, i found a ms office 2010 disk with no registration code in a storage unit.... I called up MS and they sold me a new code for ten bucks. Cool stuff.

I registered at a college and got a discount (I'm in TX too, so it should work with any UTSystem). You don't need to actually register any classes. It wasn't that cheap though..
 
W

WALMART

Guest
I registered at a college and got a discount (I'm in TX too, so it should work with any UTSystem). You don't need to actually register any classes. It wasn't that cheap though..


Yeah, i bought office 2007 once from my school. Pretty good discount.

Did i mention the disk i found was the professional version? =D
 

kyuuei

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Still looking for a decent music system. I'd like to get one where you can put "tags" on music so that they can show up in multiple playlists without being copied a hundred times.. "Beefstickers -- Weasel pop. 'Work out'. 'Techno'. 'Pull up all of my angry music instantly'." If I could tag my songs and just click on the tags and have them show up that'd be more than enough for me.

I do use Microsoft Security Essentials now, even though last year I would have never thought of replacing AVG it started to slow down my computer and irritate me. MSE is more pleasent.

VLC is the best media player I've ever come across, I'm never going back. Almost everything I do I use google for now-a-days. If they offer it, I probably use it or plan on using it when I get home. I do use open office occasionally, its awesome for being free and MSO compatible.

Skype is my only home phone I'll ever need. I don't know how people pay more than $8 a month to call anywhere in the US and Europe. And I got to pick a customized number :D My lucky number is in my phone number three times.
 

ygolo

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To be honest, I am not a big fan of any piece of software. I just kinda use stuff. I eventually find annoying aspects of everything. As far as things that I "loved", I am likely to spout off a lot of really old pieces of software because they make me feel nostalgic.

As far as OS's, I suppose Ubuntu is "good". It has basically all the Linux stuff with the ease of installation and use of Windows. But there is no such thing as a good OS. I've never written one myself, but I have wanted to, ever since one of my friends did it. I worked for a group, for a short time, that used custom written OS's and I thought that I may get an excuse to write one, but it turned out the one my boss wrote was good enough for long enough, that I did not need to do it.

As far as browsers, Opera is fast, but there are many sites that look weird on it. Firefox and IE are really slow. Chrome is a good middle ground.

As annoying as the MS Office stuff is, that is what I have gotten accustomed to using. It is difficult to do work without those types of tools. I use Open Office when I can, but there are a lot of nice features in the Microsoft Version (especially in Word and eXcel) that you just cannot find easily in Open Office (for instance trend lines that explicitly have zero intercept). I am favoring TeX for "word processing" these days (I use TeXworks and TeXmaker). I remember using Word Perfect as a kid. That was a nice middle ground. But these days it is either TeX or Word (sometimes Writer).

A basic text editor is an absolute must. So far Notepad++ seems pretty good. But emacs still seems more powerful. vim and vile are what I use when I don't really have access to windowing system.

I like having a unix-style command line even under windows (even if I have a dual boot setup). So I usually get cygwin before too long.

I am not much of a gamer. Though, I have fond memories of some games. There was this freeware game called Raptor that I really liked. This was a game where you flew an outfitted F22 to blow up enemy ships. There was also this RPG called Castles of the Wind that was shareware. Also, I used to sign into Prodigy to play games they had on there (there were murder mysteries, a CEO game, science games,...). There was a maze based game on there that I used to play regularly. I don't really remember the name but after some google searching, I believe it was MadMaze. Wolfenstein 3D was my first FPS. I remember playing that a lot. Oh, and of course the incredibly modifiable qbasic games: nibbles, gorilla, donkey. We use do play each others hacked versions to see if we could exploit the "upgraded" features. Along the same lines were the TI-85 games that floated around.

I suppose my favorite use of computers is to actually just to program stuff on them. Believe it or not, my first programming language was gwbasic, I used it to program my own version of the asteroids game using a book I checked out from the public library. My first regularly used IDE was Delphi (it made use of object Pascal and it blew the doors of Visual Basic). I used it to make a two person space-ship game, and it only took me a half-hour or so(most of which was spent on the "art work")...I made a space background using the most diffuse setting of the spray paint tool in Paintbrush, spaceship foregrounds using two ellipses each, and circles for the targeting sights. After that, I just bound keys for moving the spaceships and sights. Incredibly simple, but also, a lot of fun to play. Since then, I have learned a lot of programming languages (C/C++, Java, Fortran, x86 assembler, Motorola HC11 assembler, perl, python, TCL, M4,...). I have even made my own interpreted and compiled languages, and compilers for languages someone else specified (both in school and at work).
 

spirilis

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Almost all free software, including OpenOffice (too lazy to ditch it for LibreOffice) on my personal machines.

The only commercial software I've got an itch to pay for is DipTrace, a PCB CAD suite, but the free 300-point version has been good enough so far. I should get into KiCad (supposedly mature open-source software) and port over all my patterns/component libraries but I am lazy.
 

Eckhart

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Besides games (and indirectly drivers for hardware) all the software on my computer is for free or I didn't have to pay for it (Windows I get for free from Dreamspark).

Some useful free stuff I didn't see mentioned here yet and that comes into my mind:

7zip (Winrar alternative)
foobar2000 (music player)
Mozilla Thunderbird (email client, alternative to MS Outlook)
Foxit Reader (Adobe Acrobat Reader alternative)
IrfanView (image viewer with some basic functions)
Pidgin (alternative for ICQ etc., can be used for many things)
XChat-WDK (alternative IRC client to mIRC)
 

BlueScreen

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Not sure where all of these are at now, but my most used freeware would be:

itunes (music)
Foxit Reader (PDFs)
VLC (video files and DVDs)
Firefox (browser)
Thunderbird (mail)
virtualdub (movie editing)
7-zip (compression)
Openoffice draw (like old mac draw for diagrams)
virtualbox (virtual machines)

I'll probably remember more...
 

Halla74

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kyuuei said:
Halla74 and I expect you to answer this thread! :hi:

Your EXPECTATIONS are my ASPIRATIONS. :worthy:

For a MS Windows OS, my favorite freeware is:

1. AVG FREE EDITION (anti-virus)
2. SpyBot Search & Destroy (anti-malware)
3. Www.Openoffice.org (free, awesome, never pay for MS Office again)

To kill a MS OS and get a free awesome OS insread?

Linux Mint (version 10 or above)
Will make a single core pentium W/ 1 GB of RAM a relatively fast, stable, & functional machine.

For FREE VSTi instruments/FX go to www.kvr.org

Great free/cheap audio/MIDI sequencer = Cantabile OR Reaper

So much more to tell later... :evilgenius:

:hug:

-Halla74
 
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