94 of the Best Free Software Applications that are Better than Purchased Software

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Best Web Browser:
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Firefox is a favourite browser, being safer than IE and highly customizable. Automatic updates, faster browsing, better pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, an integrated search bar, and live bookmarks are just some features of this browser and countless add-ons you can install. Another popular browser is Opera which includes many of the same features as Firefox.

FireFox
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/

Opera
http://www.opera.com/

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Best Torrent Client:
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Azureus is a java bittorrent client offering multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority systems (on torrents and files), start/stop seeding options and instant access to numerous pieces of information about your torrents. Azureus now features an embedded tracker easily set up and ready to use. uTorrent is a lightweight (Very) and efficient BitTorrent client that includes bandwidth prioritization, scheduling, RSS auto-downloading and Mainline DHT.

Azureus
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

µTorrent
http://www.utorrent.com/

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Best Multi Platform File Transfer Utility:
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Shareaza is a great program that connect to 4 P2P networks, EDonkey2000, Gnutella, BitTorrent and Gnutella2 (G2).

Shareaza
http://www.shareaza.com/

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Best IP Blacklist/Blocker:
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A must for anyone using P2P. PeerGaurdian integrates support for multiple lists, list editing, automatic updates, and blocking all of IPv4, TCP, UDP, ICMP, etc, making it the safest and easiest way to protect your privacy on P2P. Lite version is made to consume as little CPU and RAM as possible. It has no UI or options and consists of a single tray icon.

PeerGaurdian
http://phoenixlabs.org/pg2/

PeerGuardian Lite
http://phoenixlabs.org/pglite/

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Best FTP Client:
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Two amazing FTP clients that each include a great deal of features are FileZilla and SmartFTP.

FileZilla
http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

SmartFTP
http://www.smartftp.com/

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Best Chat Program:
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Two that stand out are Gaim/Pidgin and Trillian, both are multi-platform. Gaim is compatible with AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks. While Trillain is a skinnable chat client that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger, and IRC. Trillain also includes many features not included in those chat programs.

Gaim/Pidgin
http://pidgin.im/pidgin/home/

Trillian
http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/

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Best AIM Virus Remover:
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AIM Fix was created to remove all known AIM viruses in one consolidated removal tool.

AIM Fix
http://www.jayloden.com/software.htm

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Best Phone Voice Software:
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These programs allow you to call people for free and talk with them, all you need are headphones and a microphone. Skype adds encryption and has excellent sound quality. An alternative to Skype is the Gizmo Project.

Skype
http://www.skype.com/

Gizmo Project
http://www.sipphone.com/

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Best Download Manager:
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The ones that work great are FlashGet, GetRight, and Free Download Manager. All split up files and increase the download by 100-600%, they can also resume broken downloads.

FlashGet
http://www.flashget.com/index_en.htm

GetRight
http://www.getright.com/

Free Download Manager
http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

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Best Gmail File transfer:
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There is a good program that allows you to use your Gmail space to upload your files and make backups of them.

Gmail Drive
http://www.viksoe.dk/code/gmail.htm

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Best Email Client:
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Another from Mozilla, Thunderbird, is a full-featured email client, that includes a spam filter, anti-phishing protection, enchanced security, and auto updates and tons of add-ons you can download to further enhance it.

Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

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Best Blogging Poster:
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w.bloggar is a great blogging tool that includes a template and post editor that works with many blogging sites, including Blogger. Unlike other blogging tools, it doesn't require you to have your blog on an ftp site, but can log in and post.

w.bloggar
http://wbloggar.com/

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Best IRC Client:
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Other than the popular mIRC some outstanding IRC clients are IceChat and HydraIRC.

HydraIRC
http://www.hydrairc.com/

IceChat
http://www.icechat.net/site/

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Best IRC Add-on:
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NoNameScript is an amazing addon that's definitely worth installing over normal mIRC.

NoNameScript
http://www.nnscript.de/index.php?section=download

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Best Anti-Spyware:
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Some of the best are Spybot, Ad-Aware, Windows Defender, and Spyware Blaster. The first three are scanners each with their own special tools including realtime scanning, encrypted file deletion, and history eraser. Spyware Guard is more of a realtime scanner (Like Anti-Virus) of spyware while you're downloading. Spyware Blaster is not a scanner, but prevents spyware from installing on your computer, (Spybot includes a robust version of this). All four programs are recommended since each is not 100% efficient solution.

Spybot
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/

Ad-Aware SE Personal
http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/

Windows Defender
http://tinyurl.com/dyvaw

SpywareGuard
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareguard.html

Spyware Blaster
http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html

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Best Anti-Virus:
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A favourite is AVG from Grisoft, which includes updates, real time scanner, and an email scanner. Another good one is AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic which includes many of the same features. Do keep in mind that free anti virus clients are not up to par with paid ones according to testings. ClamWin is also one of the best, it's a port of the great Open Source ClamAV.

AVG
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

AntiVir PersonalEdition Classic
http://www.free-av.com/

ClamWin
http://www.clamwin.com/

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Best Firewall:
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The best is ZoneAlarm which is simple for begginers and provides lots of features for more advanced users.

ZoneAlarm Free
http://www.zonealarm.com/store/content/catalog/products/sku_list_za.jsp

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Best Anti-Rootkit:
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AVG Anti-Rootkit really helps stop find and remove those evil root kits from your system.

AVG Ant-Rootkit
http://free.grisoft.com/doc/1

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Best Diagnostic Tool:
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Ultimate Boot CD is an amazing bootable CD to restore a crashed computer and can fix it. I've used it on many different PC's and Laptops!

Ultimate Boot CD
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

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Best Disk Cleaner:
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CCleaner, removed about 1.5 Gigs in unused application data and internet cache (which I thought was removed by the disk cleaner). This utility cleans out your PC's hard drive safely and even scans and removes obselete registry data, speeding up your system. You might want to turn off cookie deletion if you save your passwords for sites.

CCleaner
http://www.ccleaner.com/

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Best File Deleter:
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Eraser is an advanced security tool (for Windows), which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns.

Eraser
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/

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Best File Encrypter:
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Three stand out, GNU Privacy Gaurd, TrueCrypt, and Blowfish Advanced CS. GNU is a full replacement of PGP that is command line based, and not for beginnners. However, Blowfish Advanced CS offers multiple algorithms, efficient data compression, and safe key handling for content protection. TrueCrypt can create virtual encrypted disks, can encrypt an entire hard disk partition or a device, such as USB flash drive, and provides two levels of plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password.

Blowfish Advanced CS
http://www.hotpixel.net/software.html

TrueCrypt
http://www.truecrypt.org/

GNU Privacy Gaurd
http://www.gnupg.org/

Guide to GNU Privacy Gaurd
http://www.dewinter.com/gnupg_howto/english/GPGMiniHowto.html

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Best Md5 Checksum Creator/Checker:
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This open source utility is used to calculate the MD5 checksum of a file using L. Peter Deutsch's MD5 code. One of the most common uses is to make sure that a file that you have downloaded is not corrupt. Some websites post the MD5 checksum of a file on their download page. Once you have downloaded the file, use winMd5Sum to get the MD5 checksum of the file on your computer. Then make sure that the MD5 checksum from the web site is the same. If they are the same, then your file is exactly the same as the file on the website.

winMD5Sum
http://www.nullriver.com/index/products/winmd5sum

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Best File Unlocker:
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Unlocker is an Windows Explorer extension allowing you with a simple right-click on a file or folder to get rid of error message such as error deleting file or folder, cannot delete folder: it's being used by another person or program.

Unlocker
http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

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Best Image Editor:
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The GIMP and Paint.NET are the best. GIMP is more like Photoshop and there is a seperate version that make the GIMP interface appear more like Photoshop (to make it easier to use). Piant.NET replaces the simple MS Paint program and adds tons of features and includes some of the things Photoshop has.

The GIMP
http://www.gimp.org/

GIMP Shop
http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294

Paint.NET
http://www.getpaint.net/index2.html

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Best Vector Image Editor:
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Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, Freehand, CorelDraw, or Xara X using the W3C standard Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.

INKSCAPE
http://www.inkscape.org/

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Best Image Viewer/Editor:
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IrfanView supports many formats of images and includes some plugins that allow it to view many other formats such as videos, flash, and some audio formats. Picasa, on the other hand, differs in being able to edit photos and searches your computer for photos. Another good one is FastStone Image Viewer which is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor.

IrfanView
http://www.irfanview.com/

IrfanView Plugin/Addons
http://www.tucows.com/preview/415586

Picasa
http://picasa.google.com/

FastStone Image Viewer
http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm

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Best Digital Album Creator:
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InAlbum Lite is an easy you can use program to turn your digital photos into a great photo album slideshow. InAlbum Lite helps you turn your digital photos into stunning photo albums.

InAlbum Lite
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Authoring-tools/Digital-Album/InAlbum-Lite.shtml

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Best 3-D Modelling/Animation/Rendering:
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Blender is the open source software for 3D modeling, animation, rendering, post-production, interactive creation and playback.

Blender
http://www.blender.org/

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Best Color Capturer:
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Color Schemer ColorPix is a useful little color picker that grabs the pixel under your mouse and transforms it into a number of different color formats. You can use the built-in magnifier to zoom in on your screen, click on a color value to copy it directly to the clipboard, and even keep ColorPix on top of all other apps and out of the way. Also, it doesn't require installation and is a tiny program.

Color Schemer ColorPix
http://www.colorschemer.com/colorpix_info.php

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Best Virtual Drive:
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If you ever wanted to run that .iso or any other CD image without having the CD or DVD in the drive just use DAEMON Tools. Do not install the adware toolbar!

DAEMON Tools
http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php

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Best DVD Descrambler:
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Well the name says it all, DVD Decrypter allows you to copy DVDs to your hard drive and re-encode them to MPEG1 (VCD) or DivX. DVD Decrypter can also write most types of CD / DVD images via its 'ISO Write' mode. Also there's DVDFab HD Decrypter which copies entire DVD movie to hard disk, and removes all the protections (CSS, RC, RCE, APS, UOPs and Sony ARccOS) while copying. It also comes with full HD-DVD and Blu-Ray support (Removes AACS).

DVD Decryptor
http://www.filehippo.com/download_dvd_decrypter/

DVDFab HD Decrypter
http://www.dvdfab.com/free.htm

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Best DVD Compressor:
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ratDVD takes a full featured DVD-9 movie and puts it into a highly compressed .ratDVD container format file of about 1.x GB in size - while preserving all the features of the original DVD.

ratDVD
http://ratdvd.ca/

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Best CD/DVD Burner:
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CDBurnerXP Pro is a fully featured DVD/CD burner and can create .iso's from them. It is very fast and meet all your needs.

CDBurnerXP Pro
http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

For you Ubuntu and Linux fans, without a doubt... K3b! (http://k3b.plainblack.com/)

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Best MPEG to DVD Converter:
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Got those mpegs from your digital video camera, off the web, etc. but always wanted to convert them into DVD's? Well DVDBuilder does exactly that, efficiently and painlessly for free.

DVDBuilder
http://www.keronsoft.com/dvdbuilder.html

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Best Video Player/Codec Pack:
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The K-Lite Mega Codec Pack will play every video file on this planet. Also GSpot is a video codec identification utility - identifies which video codec and audio compression method is used on .avi files, whether the matching codec is installed, so you can direct download only the ones you need.

K-Lite Mega Codec Pack
http://www.codecguide.com/about_mega.htm

K-Lite Codec Pack Full (Less features)
http://codecguide.com/features_full.htm#full

GSpot
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/GSpot.htm

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Best Video Player/Streaming Server:
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VLC is a portable cross-platform, multimedia player that also streams audio/video across your network. MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, etc. And DVDs, VCDs. It can stream unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.

VLC media player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

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Best Audio Player:
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Winamp and foobar2000 comes out on top as the best audio players. ml_ipod is a plugin that uses Winamp to support your iPod. Winamp DSP Enhancer increases the quality and depth of your bass and treble, but not just making them louder but by filtering out any distortions and other bad stuff. foobar 2000 s an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats. Not to mention it's tiny size.

Winamp
http://www.winamp.com/

ml_ipod (Version 5.2 of Winamp alreday has had iPod support built in.)
http://mlipod.sourceforge.net/

DSP Enchancer
http://download.nullsoft.com/customize/component/2001/10/8/P/Enhancer.exe

foobar2000
http://www.foobar2000.org/

For you Ubuntu/Linux fans my all time favourite is Amarok! (http://amarok.kde.org/)

Audacity is a free and gull featured audio editor and recorder. As for grabbing audio from CDs , Exact Audio Copy is the solution, although it's not for beginners.

Audacity
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Exact Audio Copy
http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/

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Best Audio Converter:
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Often called the Swiss army knife of audio, dBpowerAMP is able to convert between audio formats whilst preserving ID Tags.

dBpowerAMP Music Converter
http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm

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Best XviD/DivX Converter:
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AutoGK is an amazing program that converts Xvid and DivX formats of video to many others, at the same time compressing them and it includes many other features.

AutoGK
http://www.autogk.me.uk/

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Best Movie Cover Searcher:
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Have those "back up" DVDs but no covers? Well, no fear, iCover searches its 6 databases and the internet for over 13,000 movie covers that you can download for free.

iCover
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Other-VIDEO-Tools/i-Covers.shtml

iCover Site (French)
http://www.i-covers.net/

(Google translate: http://www.google.com/translate_t)

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Best iPod Utility:
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Forget iTunes, YamiPod gives you full control of your iPod and offers many other features to you.

YamiPod
http://www.yamipod.com/main/modules/home/

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Best Hard Drive Analyser:
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JDiskReport is an amazing program that provides many different graphs and information on what's stored on your computer.

JDiskReport
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/jdiskreport/index.html

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Best Software Collection:
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TheOpenCD includes many freeware programs and open source programs that are essential to anyone.

TheOpenCD
http://theopencd.org/

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Best HTML Editor:
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NVU, is a great HTML editor similar to Dreamweaver and Frontpage. Also, BlueFish editer is a very stable robust solution that focuses on editing dynamic and interactive web sites.

NVU
http://www.nvu.com/

BlueFish
http://bluefish.openoffice.nl/

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Best CSS Menu Designer:
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CSS Menu Designer is a good tool to automatically create beautiful CSS menus that you can customize to your needs.

Best CSS Menu Designer
http://www.highdots.com/css-tab-designer/

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Compression Tool:
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Although there's many, a few stand out, mainly 7-Zip and IZArc. 7-Zip supports: 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM and DEB. IZArc supports many files including: 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3, RAR, RPM, TAR, TAZ, TBZ, TGZ, TZ, UUE, WAR, XXE, YZ1, Z, ZIP, ZOO. Both also include many other features.

7-Zip
http://www.7-zip.org/

IZArc
http://www.izarc.org/

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Best Benchmarking Tool:
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EVEREST Home Edition is a freeware hardware diagnostics and memory benchmarking solution for home PC users. It offers the world's most accurate hardware information and diagnostics capabilities, including online features, memory benchmarks, hardware monitoring, and low-level hardware information. Sadly, this free version has been discontinued, since they want to make some money on their corporate version (Which is understandable).

EVEREST Home Edition
http://www.filehippo.com/download_everest_home/

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Best Office Suite:
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The best by far is OpenOffice.org. It includes many of the same features as MS Office and then some!

OpenOffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org/

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Best Multi-Coding Tool:
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For those computer programmers, PHP Designer 2005 and Notepad++ are great programs that include syntax highlighting and syntax folding. PHP Designer supports: PHP, HTML, XML, CSS, JavaScript, Java, Perl, JavaScript, VB, C#, Java & SQL. Notepad++ supports C, C++, Java, C#, XML, HTML, PHP, Javascript, RC resource file, makefile, ASCII art file (extension .nfo), doxygen, ini file, batch file, ASP, VB/VBS source files, SQL, Objective-C, CSS, Pascal, Perl, Python, Lua, TCL, Assembler, Ruby, Lisp, Scheme, Properties, Diff, Smalltalk, Postscript and VHDL. And that's the tip of the iceberg for both programs, they contain tons of features.

Notepad++
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm

PHP Designer 2005
http://www.download.com/PHP-Designer-2005/3000-7957-10353130.html

PSPad
http://www.pspad.com/en/

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Best AutoIt Editor:
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This custom made version of SciTE has syntax highlighting and syntax folding, autocompleting, and intellisense.

SciTE
http://www.autoitscript.com/

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Best PDF Reader:
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Foxit Reader is small (1.5MB), so it downloads quickly. It doesn't need any installation, so you can start to run it as soon as you've downloaded it.

Foxit Reader
http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php

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Best Linux:
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Ubuntu and Kubuntu are two of best and most well known linux distros out there and include a barrage of programs. Another good one is Damn Small Linux, which is 50mb and can run off your USB flash drive.

Ubuntu
http://www.ubuntu.com/

Kubuntu
http://www.kubuntu.org/

Damn Small Linux
http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

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Best Tutorial/Presentation Creation:
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Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, mouse movements, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.

Wink
http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

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Best Windows CD Creator:
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AutoStreamer works as a totally automated slipstreamer. Basically, all it really needs is a source that being an original Windows CD or a local share and a Service Pack file. Using this you can create another Windows CD that includes the newest service pack and all the hotfixes.

AutoPatcher
http://mhtools.knoware.nl/raptor/autopatcher.html

AutoStreamer
http://mhtools.knoware.nl/raptor/autostreamer/AutoStreamer.exe

via digg, google cache