<p>Let's start a thread to make a list of really useful, free computer programs. I'll add a few to start:</p>
<p>Open Office - practically the same as Microsoft Office, except free
Flash Get - good download accelerator, has the ability to download everything on a web page (with just 1 click) including all the images, pdf files etc</p>
<p>VLC - Hands down the BEST media player. Plays EVERYTHING.
GIMP - Open source equivalent to Photoshop. Very useful if you dont want to blow 300 bucks on Adobe products.</p>
<p>Not all open source, but free, and as far as I'm concerned essential.</p>
<p>Pidgin - formerly GAIM, open source multi-protocol instant messaging program.</p>
<p>ZoneAlarm - Free firewall protection</p>
<p>Winzip/Winrar/7-zip - all free archiving utilities (though they may have annoying beginning "you need to register" dialogs.</p>
<p>Bittorrent - All variations.</p>
<p>Adaware/Spybot S&D - keep your computer free of spyware and other bad crap.</p>
<p>VirtualDub - basic video editing/encoding</p>
<p>Irfanview - Really simple and basic image editing.</p>
<p>Prime95 - One of many distributed computing projects which puts your CPUs idle cycles to good use. Also fairly standard for running CPU/memory tests.</p>
<p>Winamp - Plays my music, and doesn't suck like WMP or Itunes.</p>
<p>Linux Multimedia Studio - Digital audio recording and mixing program. Alternative to Fruity Loops Studio</p>
<p>Exact Audio Copy - The best CD ripping program</p>
<p>CDex - Ripping program. Open source alternative to EAC. (I prefer EAC)</p>
<p>foobar2000 - Audio player with a minimalist interface but lots of 3rd party features</p>
<p>Notebook Hardware Control - Program for monitoring CPU speeds and temps, HDD temps, battery life, etc.. Useful for undervolting your CPU, controlling your CPU speeds, and overclocking your graphics card.</p>
<p>Speedfan - Program that allows you to monitor and change your computer's fan speeds</p>
<p>Blender - 3D modelling and animation program. Alternative to Maya</p>
<p>Audacity - Sound editing program, with a lot of advanced or useful features.</p>
<p>CCleaner - Finds and deletes unnecessary files on your computer (logs, temp files, etc) to free up space. Also has a registry cleaner.</p>
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foobar2000 - Audio player with a minimalist interface but lots of 3rd party features
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</p>
<p>I was going to say that - it's not open source but it's definitely free and by far the best audio player on any operating system (it's only a Windows program though). same thing with VLC (the video player), which has the added bonus of being available on all operating systems.</p>
<p>others -</p>
<p>Mozilla Firefox (obviously) - a better browser than Internet Explorer in every way, except for the few sites that don't know how to use HTML and don't work in Firefox (those are declining rapidly)</p>
<p>Gaim - an instant messaging program that has AIM, Yahoo Messenger, MSN, etc. all-in-one. very easy to use.</p>
<p>IrfanView - it's a free image editing program (not open source). for Windows, it's better than The GIMP in my opinion. has all the obvious features but doesn't run really slowly (like Photoshop) or cost millions of bucks (like Photoshop).</p>
<p>GAIM no longer runs under that name, due to threatened lawsuit from AOL, and the project is now called Pidgin (<a href="http://www.pidgin.im%5B/url%5D">www.pidgin.im</a>)</p>
<p>Maxima - a good computer Algebra system, very similar to maple</p>
<p>Mozilla Thunderbird to replace outlook</p>
<p>VLC?! i've had issues with VLC like you couldn't believe. it does not handle weird codecs well at all and i can't even get some really standard ones to work some of the time (e.g. matroska, ogm). </p>
<p>media player classic for the win: <a href="http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358%5B/url%5D">http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=82303&package_id=84358</a></p>
<p>also, the cccp project is good for video in general: <a href="http://www.cccp-project.net/%5B/url%5D">http://www.cccp-project.net/</a></p>
<p>VLC is the only decent player I've found that can play .flv files, which is useful because of the VideoDownloader extension I have for firefox which allows you to save videos from youtube and googlevid in .flv format.</p>
<p>GOM can play .flv files (I also use the videodownloader extension) and practically everything else. It was a korean made program but I think it was purchased by someone...everything is in english now. And, of course, it's free :)</p>
<p>Yamipod is a great program to substitute for iTunes.</p>
<p>Basically it allows you to copy/add/remove music to and from ANY iPod. This means you can copy music from your friends' iPods to your computer, then copy music from your computer to any iPod you plug in. It's free, and it's really easy to use as well!</p>
<p>I second the recommendation of CCleaner - it quickly cleans up the gunk on your computer.</p>
<p>SpywareBlaster - Great free program that keeps spyware from being installed, I run it along with both Spybot S & D and Adaware. Those programs are mostly for scanning your computer to clean off spyware although Spybot does have a resident function that when enabled helps to actively guard against certain malware.</p>
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Maxima - a good computer Algebra system, very similar to maple
[/quote]
</p>
<p>And use the open source octave to do your matlab-like jobs.</p>
<p>TheSage Dictionary & Thesaurus (on download.com) -- I use it all the time to look up words I don't know. When you open the program it automatically takes the word on your clipboard and looks it up.</p>
<p>WINAMP -- Already been said.</p>
<p>
[quote]
VLC?! i've had issues with VLC like you couldn't believe. it does not handle weird codecs well at all and i can't even get some really standard ones to work some of the time (e.g. matroska, ogm).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>download ffdshow (although watch out - it conflicts with some programs, like Nero). VLC players runs absolutely everything for me, ranging from normal AVI/MPEG files to files encoded in H.264, x264, Matroska, etc. etc.</p>
<p>the only thing it can't run is H.264 encoded NSV files... but then again I think Winamp is the only program that can physically run those :)</p>
<p>VLC player always worked great for me with windows. I just got installed with Ubuntu, and it is not working properly.</p>
<p>did you install the plugins? </p>
<p>sudo apt-get install vlc-plugins</p>
<p>or better yet, just get everything:</p>
<p>sudo apt-get install vlc-*
(assuming that you are using the default repos)</p>
<p>MP3 Gain - Synchronize decibel levels of your music files.</p>