Software

Listed below are some essential pieces of software, with links to their sites. Most of them are freeware. Please read the disclaimer, link on left, before downloading anything.

Audio

MediaMonkey
Free media jukebox & music manager for serious music collectors. It has a CD Ripper supporting Freedb, MP3 player (plays CDs, WMA and OGG files), audio converter (for OGG, WMA, & MP3 conversion), tag editor, music playlist editor, file renamer, etc.
QCD
Quintessential Player is a very impressive MP3 and CD player that has all the popular functions combined in a very attractive skin interface. The interface has different size modes, depending on the functions you are using. Quintessential Player supports CDDB, playlists, artist information, plugins, visual effects, a full set of mixer controls and much more. Overall, one of the very best MP3, CD Audio, Ogg Vorbis, WAV, VQF, MP+, Windows Media and streaming audio including SHOUTcast and ICEcast players you will find!.
Shareaza
is the most luxurious and sophisticated file sharing system you’ll find. It can harness the power of up to four separate peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, including EDonkey2000, Gnutella, BitTorrent and Shareaza’s native network, Gnutella2 (G2). Not only that, but Shareaza is completely FREE and won’t show any annoying ads or pop-ups. It won’t install any unwanted third party programs that can wreak havoc with your computer. No spyware, no registration, no “paid version”.

Browsers

Internet Explorer
make sure you have the latest version
Avant
A stand alone application designed to expand services provided by Microsoft Internet Explorer. Avant Browser is a fast, stable, user-friendly, versatile multi-window browser. Avant Browser allows user to browse multiple Web sites simultaneously and block all unwanted pop-up pages and flash ads. All opened pages can be easily stopped, refreshed, closed or arranged with one click. The integrated cleaner helps user to clear all traces and keep privacy. Built-in Yahoo/Google search engine enables user to search for web pages, images, groups, directories, lyrics, software and news in Internet. Program is available in 32 different translations. Now with built in RSS/Atom feeds reader.
Flock - The Social Web Browser
Based on Mozilla’s FireFox Flock is a free web browser that makes it easy to connect with your friends and express yourself online. Upload photos, blog anything, subscribe to RSS, drag’n'drop photos and videos, and get notified when the people you care about update their spaces on the web.

Mozilla’s stripped down standards complient browser is fast and very user friendly, with tabbed browsing, pop-up / ad blocker and the large number of extensions which can be installed to add extra usability.
I’d also suggest the following extensions for FireFox and Flock:
  • Browser Funtion :
  • FasterFox - Performance and network tweaks for Firefox. Fasterfox allows you to tweak many network and rendering settings such as simultaneous connections, pipelining, cache, DNS cache, and initial paint delay.
  • Firefox Extension Backup Extension (FEBE) - FEBE allows you to quickly and easily backup your Firefox extensions. In fact, it goes beyond just backing up — It will actually rebuild your extensions individually into installable .xpi files. Now you can easily synchronize your office and home browsers.
  • Paste & Go 2 - Paste and Go 2 lets you paste text and load/search it immediately.
  • Searchbar Autosizer - Does what its name says. It auto expands (resizes) the searchbar if needed, and shrinks it if you don’t have anything typed in you’d probably want to read.
  • Parent Folder - This extension provides a button and context menu item to view the parent folder.
  • User Agent Switcher - Adds a menu and a toolbar button to switch the user agent of the browser.
  • Auto Forms - Fill out forms automatically with one click.
  • Cookie Culler - Extended Cookie Manager - protect/unprotect selected cookies.
  • Download Status Bar - View and manage downloads from a tidy statusbar - without the download window getting in the way of your web browsing.
  • Foxy Tunes - Do you listen to Music while surfing the Web? FoxyTunes lets you control almost any media player and find lyrics, covers, videos, bios and much more with a click right from your browser.
  • Secure Login - A login extension similar to Opera’s Wand login. One click login to sites.
  • Stylish - Stylish allows easy management of user styles. User styles empower your browsing experience by letting you fix ugly sites, customize the look of your browser or mail client, or just have fun.
  • Tab Mix Plus - Tab Mix Plus enhances Firefox’s tab browsing capabilities. It includes such features as duplicating tabs, controlling tab focus, tab clicking options, undo closed tabs and windows, plus much more. It also includes a full-featured session manager.
  • Web Development :
  • Web Developer - Adds a menu and a toolbar with various web developer tools.
  • IE View - Lets you load pages in IE with a single right-click, or mark certain sites to *always* load in IE. Useful for incompatible pages, or cross-browser testing.
  • IE Tab - This is a great tool for web developers, since you can easily see how your webpage displayed in IE with just one click and then switch back to Firefox.
  • FireBug - Firebug integrates with Firefox to put a wealth of development tools at your fingertips while you browse. You can edit, debug, and monitor CSS, HTML, and JavaScript live in any web page.
  • ScreenGrab - Screengrab saves entire webpages as images

Download Manager

Fresh Download
Free Download Manager, no ads, no spyware, no charges - The fastest accelerator tool for all kinds of download task.

E Mail Client

Popcorn
Lightweight e-mail client for Windows, needs no installation, small enough to carry on any portable media so you can check your mail on the road, ideal for scanning and deleting spam/unwanted mail, immune from mail attachment and HTML viruses/scripts/trojans. Full version is now available FREE, you can send attachments and it has an address book and multiple accounts. Installer download

FTP Client

FileZilla
Fast and reliable FTP client and server with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.

Graphics

GIMP
GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. Used for most of the graphics on this site.

HTML Editor

HTML Kit
A free, full-featured, customizable, multi-purpose editor designed to help HTML, XHTML and XML authors to create and publish web pages. With a huge number of plugins to make editing pages a breeze.

Security

Avast Anti Virus
A full-featured antivirus package designed exclusively for home users, non-commercial users.
Ad-Aware
Designed to provide advanced protection from known Data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components.
SpyBot Search & Destroy
Detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer.
IE Privacy
Automatically clean up all traces of your Internet activity at Windows shutdown, start up or when the last window of Internet Explorer is closed, including those nasty .dat files. The secure wiping option makes it impossible to recover deleted files.

Zip Archive

7-Zip
7Zip is an open-source file archiver, that offers a the highest compression ratio, using the new f 7z format, which delivers compression results that are usually 30-50% better than standard ZIP. We tested it with a server log file, which compressed with ZIP had a file size of 18 MB and using 7-Zip was reduced to 8 MB (results may vary, depending on file type). In addition, 7Zip also supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB formats, so it can be used with all popular archive files as well. The program offers a basic file explorer interface and also integrates into the Windows right-click menu. It can be associated with any of the supported formats and also offers commandline support. Interface and additional features are fairly basic, but the compression ratio is outstanding.
ArcConvert
There as some archive types 7-Zip can’t handle for them there’s ArcConvert which can convert many archive types from one (7-ZIP, LZH, CAB, ZIP, ARJ, ACE, RAR, TAR, TGZ, GZ, Z, BZ2, YZ1, YZ2, GCA, BEL, RPM, DEB, BH, Noa32, HKI, PAQAR,SQX, HA, ZOO, UHARC, LFB, ZLIB, UCL, IMP, RS, SPL, APK, Arc, DZ, MSI, ALZ, PMA, PAQ7, CHM ,UDA ) to another (ZIP, 7-ZIP, CAB, LHA, TAR, TGZ, BZ2, YZ1, BGA, RAR, ACE, NOA32, HKI, PAQAR, UHARC, YZ2, DZ, HA).
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