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Free and legal software!

Here is a list of software that I use. Tell me if the links do not work anymore as the respective authors may make their amendments.

My software recommendations
Anti-virus software
Ad-aware
I highly recommend this anti-spyware, anti-virus program. You can manually download the updates here
Avast
This is good, but you have to email them to get a one year free code on computers not connected to the internet or you have to do it within the program itself. You can get the code here for computers not on the internet. You can manually download the updates here.
Avg
Free virus killer, pretty good but there's a version that they want money for. If you want to get the free version, be careful where you click. You can download the update files separately for a computer that isn't on the internet by clicking here.
Sophos Anti-rootkit
This is a good program to search for rootkits on your computer. You don't know what a rootkit is? You can read about them here.
VirusTotal
Although this is not a program, I thought I should include it here. You can upload a program that you suspect and VirusTotal will analyse it with multiple virus checkers. You can also give it a link too
Encryption
Axcrypt
This does single file encryption. It can be useful for the occasional file on a memory stick, for instance (but install the portable version of Axcrypt on to it also)
Gpg4win
This is a public key encription program similar to PGP. I would advise you to carefully read the manual as the program has many features.
Truecrypt
Do you keep backup files on external hard drives? This impressive program will encrypt them for you. You could make a huge file that is as big as the drive, mount it and you have an encrypted drive. It works in the background so you don't have to do much once things have been set up. It does so many other things too. It really is an impressive piece of software. It also makes use of different technologies of you computer (if available) to speed up encryption and decryption. Make sure you read the pdf document in order to understand how to use it. It is not difficult to use.
Other programs I know of are CrossCrypt and FreeOTFE which is a significantly more advanced disk encryption program from the same author as CrossCryptGUI
CD and DVD
DVDSmith Movie Backup
This can make a backup of any DVD film. It can copy just the main feature. You can save it complete to a hard-drive and play it with the VLC media player from your hard-drive as if it were a DVD.
ImgBurn
Not only can this make ISO files (not of protected DVDs) but it can backup Playstation 2 disks.
Hard-drive monitoring
Diskcheck
Reboot after you have installed the program. This is a very good program for checking S.M.A.R.T. enabled hard-drives.

For specific hard-drives, here are some checkers for certain types:
Fujitsu
This has a quick test tool and a more advanced one which could take over 100 minutes to analyse.
Hitachi
They have a selection, including disk fitness testers and SM'ART analysis tool.
Samsung
HUTIL diagnosis and analysis tools.
Seagate's SeaTools
Numerous tools
Western Digital
From there, select your drive and then click 'Data Lifeguard'
HTML page editing
Bluegriffon (WYSIWYG)
This is an updated version to the excellent Kompozer. I have included a link here. Although the program is free, the plugins are not (not even the CSS editor is free but you can just use a text editor instead). The program handles the new HTML5 tags.
Kompozer (WYSIWYG)
An excellent web page editor that has been discontinued unfortunately. In fact, it's what I use to edit these pages. You can flick to your source code and do some editing there and view HTML tags. It also has a preview screen and support for CSS. This is the best web-page editor I have ever used. An updated version of this program is being worked on called BlueGriffon. There is quite an annoying bug though which may manifest itself if you have a number of tabs open at once. Sometimes you try to copy from another tab and it will not work or you paste something and it does not work. In this instance, it is pasting to a different tab so look at the first one and see if it has been changed. You can undo the action, close the program down and open it again. I've yet to try opening up the pages in different windows instead.
Bluefish
This is pretty good but is not WYSIWYG. Installing it is a little tricky. Click here for the link to the installation page.
Acento - Type foreign letters easily
This is my own text editor for typing in accents above letters. I wrote this because I can't be bothered with the ALT key codes. You need Java on your system to run it.
Audacity - Sound editor
An excellent sound editor program. It can record sounds off anything, CD, microphone etc. and manipulate them. It can load and save as MP3 but you need a plugin for that. If you load an MP3 in to the program and you want to edit it, you must first save it as a project file.
Autostitch - Gigapixel photos
This takes numerous photos and puts them together for one huge photo.
Calibre - E-Book reader and converter
This is a brilliant E-book reader. It also converts one type of book to another
Eusing registry cleaner
Pretty good registry cleaner. Note you don't need the code at the start, you can click "skip".
ExplorerXP
It's like normal explorer but I use this to automatically look at the sizes of folders without needing to click "properties".
Firefox - An excellent web browser
This is my favourite web browser. It seems to handle some pages that Internet Explorer can't. Internet Explorer has been difficult to make web pages for because it didn't support certain standards for some reason. Firefox has lots of extensions to use with it too.
Freeware photo resize (by Visualizer group)
Good (and basic) photo resize for resizing lots of photos at once for the web or a DVD player etc.
Frhed
This is a pretty good hex editor. Unfortunately if you want to look through the entire file, you have to load the whole file in to RAM although there is an option to load a part of the file but that means you need to already know the location of the part that you want to examine. Overall, it is a pretty good hex editor. It has numerous options within the menus.
Gimp - Art package
This is an art package. It has lots of features and is very powerful.
Handbrake - video file converter
This may be a complicated program but it does allow you to edit high definition video and tweak all sorts of settings.
Hypercam2 - records what you see
This captures what you see on the screen as an .avi file. You can use it to show someone how to use a program in a demonstration, for example or your favourite Mugen characters in a game. You can record your voice along with it if you wish but you may have to modify the sound and audio settings in the Control Panel of Windows. I suggest you try Hypercam2 because it is free and it works very well. If you want to go straight to the downloads page, click here. Once you have set it recording, stop it with F2 (you can't click on the window). I notice that VLC couldn't render the colours correctly for some reason but Windows Media Player could. I'm sure VLC will correct this issue in time but Hypercam does record correctly. There is a WikiPedia page comparing screen casting software. If you have a problem with the video and audio being out of sync, it is probably because it recorded fewer frames so just lower the frame rate. I had to set it to 5 frames per second for one video I did.
IZarc - file compressor / decompressor
This can decompress/compress many different types of files but it can be slow because it seems to decompress things more than once sometimes.
Jpeg lossless rotator
I wasn't aware it was possible to rotate them and re-save them without loosing quality before I heard about this program. It's good for right-clicking on a photo and rotating it from the menu (or many of them by selecting lots at a time). It is a bit slow at rotating sometimes.
LightWorksBeta - video editing software
This is quite an extensive piece of software. You have to register to download it. I have not used it yet.
Maxima - mathematics program, CAS software (I am using wxMaxima)
This is a really good computer algebra software. It can do calculus, set theory, simplify expressions etc. The manual is around 1000 pages! If you have not got Mathematica or Mathcad, it is an excellent substitute but you have to enter the equations differently. You have to write it in a text format as opposed to 'drawing' them with other software. Maybe you find that easier if you are a programmer. Here's a quick example. I load it up and immediately type 2*x+sin(x), hold shift and tap enter to tell the program that I've finished typing and it displays the equation sin(x)+2x which also tells me I've entered it in correctly. I select calculus from the menu and click integrate (leaving % in the box because % means 'use the last result') which gives me x2-cos(x) (it leaves out the constant of integration). If there is an equation higher up the page, I can use that instead of typing it in again for example, I click differentiate from the calculus menu and enter %i2 in the box to tell the program that I want to differentiate the equation that I typed in at %i2.
Memtest86
This is fantastic for testing your memory to see if it has any errors.
Mugen - fighting game engine
This is a customizable fighting game. Don't ask me how to use it because I can only do the basics myself. I can't remember how I changed the screenmode but I recommend that you do. This is a game engine where people program characters for it and you add them by decompressing the folder and putting it in the chars directory. Go in to the data and put the name of the folder in the select.def file. People have been copying sprites off all sorts of games or drawing their own to add to this. Look at the wikipedia page at the bottom for links to various sites. Have a look on Youtube too. I have found that some characters do not work just because the .def file hasn't the same name as the directory. Usually a rename sorts this problem out. Add stages by putting the .def files and .sff files in to the stages folder and take the sound file (if there is one) and put it in to the sound folder. Edit the select.def file at the bottom with your stage.
Netbeans - a FANTASTIC programming Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
This is a very powerful Java IDE to program and compile your Java programs. It lets you design in a visual way by dragging buttons, text boxes etc. to where you want them. You can download different versions. The Standard Edition enables you to make Java applications but you want the EE version for web applets. There is also a C++ compiler too. I downloaded the file that lets me have everything. It also supports PHP, JavaScript and Ajax, Groovy and Grails. It's very good. I'm surprised that it is free. Note that you need the Java SE Development Kit which can be downloaded here. Also, you can download all the online Java tutorials from Oracle (along with ebooks) by clicking here. You can also download all the class descriptions again, from Oracle by clicking here. A couple of tips: reduce typing by typing the start of a word and pressing ctrl+k will fill in the rest or if it's wrong, press it again to get the next guess and ctrl+shift+i resolves imports. This is useful when you insert  new code without importing. When it complains, press ctrl+shift+i and it should fill in the imports and remove unused ones.
Notepad++
This is like Notepad but with lots more features. If you program in C++ or languages like it, you may also find this useful as it is a text editor that is geared toward programmers. I use it to edit my JavaScript programs for this website, amongst other things. One particularly useful feature is the find and replace function for all opened documents. I can open multiple pages and change one part on my web pages.
OpenOffice
A good alternative to Microsoft Word and can open/save in word format (which can be set as a default in the preferences). You can save in PDF format too.
Photoscape
This is a photo editing program that handles batch operations and even raw formats. It does all sorts of things.
RenameMaster
This is the best program I've ever seen for renaming lots of files at once. It also lets you preview your changes before you rename the files. It is an excellent program, but it may be tricky at first to use, until you have become familiar with the layout.
Stellar Phoenix deleted file recovery
You know what this does. Note that if a deleted file is overwritten by a new file, it can't be recovered (unless you have an electron microscope and a lot of patience). 
Ufraw - raw picture converter
If you use an DSLR (may be bridge cameras too) then Ufraw is a useful program for basic editing / converting of RAW formats. I suggest that you save in the Ping format and not Tiff as I had a lot of problems with 48 bit colour images when I just wanted it to save in 24 bit colour.
Unlocker
If you try to delete a file or you want to remove a memory stick but something has opened it, this will tell you what is keeping it open and you can force it to 'unlock' the file if you wish
Vlc media player - video / audio player
This is my favourite media player. It plays many types of video and audio files, including Flash video from such places as YouTube. It can even convert files to other formats too but it isn't easy.
WhatsRunning
This lets you examine the little background programs that are running. An excellent feature is to look at the programs that are loaded at start-up. You can just uncheck the box next to it and it stops it loading when you boot the computer up. If you change your mind, click the box back again. You don't need to edit the registry for doing this anymore.




[ENGLISH]Have you found an error or do you want to add more information to these pages?
You can contact me at the bottom of the home page.

[ESPAÑOL] ¿Ha encontrado un error o tiene información adicional?
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