Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Introduction
This really is a "best of the best" list. Most of the produc ts in this
list have been awarded the c oveted "Gizmo's Top" pick award
signifying they are the best free produc t in their class. We've also
inc luded some other outstanding produc ts that have impressed our editors with
their usefulness and professionalism.
We suggest you browse the whole list at your leisure as you may be surprised
what freeware gems you will disc over. The pathologically impatient can use the
Quic k Select Index below.
Caution: Some of these rec ommendations involve advanc ed system tasks like
cleaning the Windows registry so be sure to backup or image your system first.
The Editors' Choice List of the Best Freeware - Quick Select Index
After clicking a link, use your browser's Back icon to return here.
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protection against virus, spyware and rootkit
threats. AntiVir is very light on resources and
the detec tion rate of malware is outstanding,
better than almost every other antivirus
according to tests."
Microsoft Security Essentials: "By far the best choice for average users
bec ause of the minimal user interaction required and clean interface. The
detection rates are very good, in particular the detec tion of zero-day threats
and rootkits. Even more impressive, it has very few false positives and is light
on resourc es."
avast! Free Antivirus: "An exc ellent free antivirus program that many users
prefer. Its detection rates are on par with AntiVir, it's light on resourc es, and
it has the most features: full real-time c apabilities (web, e-mail, IM, P2P and
network shields), boot- time scanning, and a behavioral blocker."
Online Armor Free: "A solid c ontender in proactive protection, with a novel
Run Safer feature that allows the added protection of a limited user ac count
without the annoyanc es. If you can handle the ads and installation nags, it
functions similar to Comodo with a few extra user friendly features."
Firewalls not only filter incoming traffic to your c omputer but they also
inc reasingly help you to control the activities of Internet facing applications on
your PC. The ones that provide the most control and sec urity, typically require
the most user involvement to answer popup alerts. If all the popup alerts are
meaningless to you, then at a minimum remember to enable the windows
firewall. In any case, only install one software firewall.
Emsisoft Anti Malware 5.0: Tied for second and highest as a Trojan
Sc anner/Trojan Remover.
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Additional scanners/removers will often find additional unique threats. Regular
on-demand anti-malware scanning is still a must.
If you use a simple firewall (suc h as the built-in windows firewall), then a HIPS
program provides a potent second layer of defense. But some anti-virus/anti-
spyware programs have a behavioral component too. Learn about HIPS software
here.
Alternatively, you c an isolate your browser and other Internet facing applications
with GesWall. It provides exc ellent security and is a worthy alternative to
Sandboxie" (see the review above).
Browser protection utilities like Sandboxie and GeSWall c an greatly inc rease your
defenses against drive-by downloads and other vulnerabilities. Instead of only
reacting to malware, they use proactive tec hnology to protec t your computer.
It's GUI is very basic . attractive and user-friendly. They have just recently hit
half a million users and are growing fast. I am very pleased with this produc t. It's
well worth a look."
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Best Free Rootkit Scanner -- "Several free applic ations spec ialize in the
detection and removal of rootkits."
Secunia PSI -- Download | Review. Scans for insec ure software and helps
you quic kly update risky products like browsers, PDF readers, Sun Java,
office software, email software, media players, instant messengers, download
managers, P2P clients, etc.. You should also allow Windows to automatically
update with its latest patc hes, for Windows itself often has sec urity flaws
(learn more).
Best Free Site Link Adviser -- WOT -- Download | Review. Quickly rates
sites and links, uses an automatic warning or blocking screen to help you
avoid ac cidentally interacting with potentially bad websites, and provides
informative ratings and user c omments without censoring the visibility of
sites.
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unneeded files that acc umulate from
The Editors' Choice List: Our Sele…
applic ations."
Normal file deletion doesn't prevent a common file rec overy program from
rec overing your files, so eraser utilities are helpful to permanently delete any
personally identifiable or unwanted files to protect your privac y.
The Windows control panel has limited uninstalling capabilities, but freeware
programs like Revo and ZSoft allow for better deletion of programs by removing
many files and registry entries that are usually left behind.
Alternatively, average users could use Starter, CCleaner, Revo Uninstaller, etc.
If you have a system full of programs running in the background that don't do
very much (and a start menu full of near useless tray icons), then startup
managers are espec ially helpful for increasing system performance. Run
programs when you want, not when they decide.
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PDF writers act like a pseudo printer on your system. When you want to create
a PDF document from pretty muc h any application you just choose to print it to
the PDF printer and it c reates a PDF document.
Some programs in this review are designed to c ombine merging, splitting and
other c apabilities in a single application (like PDFill), but some perform a more
specific task (see the Specific Tools section in the review).
Third party readers like PDF-XChange help you to replace the slow and bulky
Adobe PDF Reader.
Free substitutes for MS Offic e like this go a long way to meeting the needs of
home users, small businesses, and many others.
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Related Home/Office Top Picks and Hot Items
Best Free Word Processor -- Jarte -- Download | Review. "A clean, light,
and task oriented word processor. It provides outlining functions, basic spell
checking, sc reenshot capturing, and PDF exporting. Additionally, it has extra
interface layouts/skins, a wealth of formatting options, and support for Rich
Text Files (RTF) and Word documents (DOC, DOCX)."
Abiword -- Download | Review. "A popular, free word proc essor with an
interface similar to Word & WordPerfec t. It reads many document types
(OpenOffice, MS Word, WordPerfec t, RTF, HTML) and you will be pleased
with its layout capabilities. Includes spell checking, annotations, common
formatting tools, and support for many plugins."
Best Free Text Editor - - "General purpose text editors that have more
features than Notepad, such as tabbed interfaces and block func tions."
Best Free World Clock -- Wim's World Clock -- Download | Review. "A
light world cloc k with a c hoice of virtually any number of time zones."
Basic editors like Lightbox allow you to quic kly make small adjustments to the
overall lighting, c olors, and tones of your images (along with other tools:
cropping, sharpening, red eye c orrec tion). But editors like Paint.net offer more
advanc ed tools (layers, c aptions, shapes, selec tive adjustments, artistic
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effects, etc.). See the review for editors comparable to professional programs.
XnView: "It's probably the most versatile of all viewers because it c an read
nearly 400 types of graphic files and c onvert any of these to more than 50
formats."
Apart from the basic viewing and browsing functions, digital image viewers offer
loads of features like editing, filtering, batch processing, organizing, publishing,
etc .
As an alternative to the utilities that come with windows, free sc reen c apture
products like Pic Pick cover many useful features and functions: c apture full or
selected areas, auto detect windows, snap sc rolling windows, allow delayed
captures, etc .
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Best Free Digital Image Stitcher -- Microsoft Image Composite Editor
(ICE) -- Download | Review. "If you have taken a series of photographs of
a scene that you would like to piec e together as one pic ture, then this is
what you're looking for." ICE also rec ently made Gizmo go "Wow!" (here).
Best Free Internet & Email and Networking & File Transfer Software
To setup or backup Firefox, see Gizmo's guides: How to Install Firefox, How to
Back up Mozilla Firefox (and Thunderbird), Best Firefox Add-ons.
SRWare Iron: "Looks and acts almost exac tly like Google Chrome, but
without sending any information bac k to Google's servers. Amazingly fast at
loading pages, minimalist interface, with impressive features suc h as an
Inc ognito Mode for privacy."
Bittorrent quickly bec ame an important download format for its speed,
effic iency, and c heapness in distributing content over the Internet. Learn more
about Bittorrent here.
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support for various browsers suc h as Internet
Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, Opera and Safari."
Best Free FTP Client -- Fire FTP -- Download | Review. "With a robust
feature set, ease of use, and browser integration, FireFTP should serve the
needs of all but the heaviest power user. FTP c lients enable fast bulk file
transfers; essential for website management."
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"Most powerful burning applic ation with
advanc ed features, support for every modern
optical disc from CD to Blu-Ray, more than 10
image formats, authoring rewritable disc s, etc ."
Capable of playing multiple types of media files, including various digital audio
and video formats, CDs, and DVDs.
If you need more music managing features all in one program, try MusicBee."
Music players like Jaangle and MusicBee serve as exc ellent MP3 players and play
most popular audio formats. As music centric programs, they may inspire you
to rip or download music, organize your music collection, or learn more about
your favorite artists or songs.
Useful for when you need to playback audio files with their tag information
shown c orrec tly or to organize a large music c ollec tion based on tag
information.
Despite its name, it converts a huge number of both video and audio formats,
and as a nic e extra also provides some video editing.
Converters like iWisoft make many different audio and video formats c ompatible
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for use with common devic es or programs. Most devic es will only take a few
specific formats; for example, a DVD movie will not play on an iPod without
being c onverted into an MP4 file.
Video editing is becoming ever more prevalent and crucial; both to the aspiring
young direc tor and to the mom who just wants to save old memories.
Get Podcasts, video on demand, reruns of past shows, and live video streams.
Many TV stations make their over-the-air broadcasts available as Live streams,
but quality c an vary. You may also find independent and international networks
that aren't c arried by cable companies.
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A good option for most users is to use a free
web servic e to record streaming media (suc h
as ZamZar, SplanDoo and YouConvertIt), and if
that fails, simply rec ord the streaming media
while it is playing on your PC.
Best Free DVD Ripper -- "Copy the audio and video content of a DVD to a
file in MP4, MPEG, or other video formats. Edit, bac kup, share, or playbac k
without the need to load a DVD."
Best Free System Tools, Disk & File, Desktop & GUI Software
See here for related online apps and services. Online backup services allow you
to share your data, ac cess it when traveling, or arc hive it in yet another extra
storage location.
Backup software like GFI has wizards and step by step guides to make the
process painless, giving you confidence that it will c ontinue to work behind the
sc enes to protec t your data. They include support for sc heduling and bac king
up to local and online storage locations, verification of backup archives, and
easy to use restore functions.
For guidance on drive imaging, see Gizmo's three part article, encouragingly
named "Never Re-install Windows Again" -- Part 1, Part 2, Part 3.
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Disk Imaging has rapidly bec ome a must have tool for most users because of
its c onvenience, speed, and ease of use. It nearly eliminates any reason at all
for going through the painful proc ess of c ompletely reinstalling, re-updating,
and re-customizing Windows. A user can quickly rec over from a system crash
or a bad virus infection by simply restoring to a bac kup image.
If you have many sc attered programs and programs that don't automatically
chec k for updates, then an update monitor lets you know when new versions
come out. They also allow you to scan c ustom folders to inc lude portable apps.
You c an then update old software to get the latest features or security fixes.
Sync hronization utilities are important in helping you keep identical versions of
your files or folders, say, on both your home computer and offic e computer.
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"Intuitive and user-friendly interfac e, features
inc lude resize, move, copy, c reate, delete,
hide, unhide, c onvert, explore and format
partitions with a single step."
Security Advic e Wizard: Get personalized results from our sec urity team.
Safe Computing in Under an Hour: Sec ure your PC by following these simple
guidelines.
Secure Your PC: Provides an overview of safe computing prac tic es. Then it
details four novel ways to block the majority of malware from getting a
foothold.
Probably the Best Security List in the World: Antti Koponen's must read
mega sec urity list.
How to Bloc k Bad Websites: Three different ways to prevent your PC from
being infected by ac cidentally visiting a malic ious or compromised website.
Related System Top Picks and Hot Items -- Disk & File
Best Free Data Recovery Utility -- Mini Tool Power Data Recovery --
Download | Review. Recover data after accidentally deleting it.
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GUI
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Related Tags
best freeware free software must have free programs top pic ks windows pc xp
vista 7 freeware download sites
Article type: Cleanup & Tuning, Softw are list, Desktop & GUI, Disk & File Utilities,
Home & Office, Educational, Games and Diversions, Image View and Edit, PC
Freeware, Internet, Email & Messaging, Multimedia (CD, DVD, Video, Audio),
Netw orking & File Transfer, Programming & Engineering, Reference & Cataloging,
Security, System and Performance Info, System Utilities
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COMMENTS
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techsupportalert.com/…/top-free… 17/22
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bodis
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bodis
techsupportalert.com/…/top-free… 18/22
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Many Thanks
bodis
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techsupportalert.com/…/top-free… 19/22
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:)
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existed !
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Index: Search the Best of Gizmo's Freeware -- The Top Freeware for PC
List
Quick Selec t Links (After c licking a link, use your browser's Back icon to
return here.)]
Cheers
reply
That said, it's true that I can Middle-clic k or Ctrl + Left- click all the
links I need in one go so that they will open up in separate tabs in the
background, provided that I don't have to open up too many tabs and
close them thereafter :>)
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1. After you click a link in the index it changes the url of the
page; for example, clic k to jump down to the Antivirus top pic k
and the page c hanges to:
www.techsupportalert.c om/c ontent/top-freeware-picks-
category-editors.htm#best-free-antivirus
2. So you can click the back button to return to the original url,
which also helpfully jumps you back to the Index. This is why it
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says "after c licking a link...". It won't work if you don't jump
down to a product from the index first. Maybe it should read
"after clicking a link in the index, then...".
You can navigate the Editor's List with the use of the Index and
the back button. It prevents you from having to do as much
rolling with the c enter mouse.
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Regards
bodis
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