Top Free Software you should be using!

Here are free software that you should try using tme if you are not already.

 Operating Systems (OS)

Ubuntu (Free user friendly Linux Operating System for the desktop + it comes with almost all the applications you may need such as word processors, media players, image editors, text editors, CD burning tools and load of other applications)

Ubuntu Server Edition (Free and fast powerful enterprise server)

Windows ($$ This is not free Microsoft Windows has discounted priced Operating Systems and Applications for schools)

 Anti-Virus Software

AVG (Provides free Anti-Virus edition) -Linux and Windows versions available

Avast! (Provides free Anti-Virus edition as well)

Microsoft Security Essentials (This is free Windows security tools from Microsoft. This enough for protecting your home windows based PC. Remember to update frequently)

Spybot-S&D (free Spybot Search & Destroy is one of the best anti-spyware software available today.)

Encryption

T r u e C r y p t (Free disk encryption software for Linux, Windows and Mac OS X)

Internet Browsers

Firefox (Mozila Firefox is one of the best free internet browsers available)

Chrome (Chrome is free internet browser from Google)

 Internet Explorer  ($$ comes with Windows operating Systems which is not free)

Document Processors

OpenOffice (free word processing applications similar to Word, Excel and PowerPoint)

Notepad++ (Free text editor similar to notepad)

7-Zip (Free File Archive and compression tool)

Sumatra (Windows Only)  free, open-source PDF reader for Windows.

 Email Systems

Local : Thunderbird is a free email system offering intelligent spam filters, built-in RSS reader, quick search, and more. It is a local (rather than a web-based) email application that is powerful yet easy-to-use.

 Web based : Gmail (free web based email account accessible from any computer with internet connection)

Yahoo! (free unlimited web based email account accessible from any computer with internet connection)

 Instant Messengers

Pidgin (Free (Linux, Windows, Unix) chat application that lets you chat with all your friends on AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, and many others)

Media Players

VLC (free multimedia framework, player and server)

Image Editors

Paint.NET (Free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. A good alternative to Photoshop.)

Gimp  Cross platform graphic software for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.

Graphic Converter Graphics software that allows users to open, view, resize, and edit in multiple images formats.

 Downloading/Uploading Stuff

Free Download Manager: The FDM accelerates downloads by splitting files into sections and then downloading them simultaneously. As a result download speed increases many folds. If you lose connection you can continue where you left off saving valuable time and money for people with low quality connectivity and expensive internet such as common in Africa.

 BitTorrent (peer-to-peer)

µTorrent (Linux, Windows, Mac) A free tiny BitTorrent for peer-to-peer download and upload.

FileZilla (free FTP software solution software (Client & Server) is available.)

 Software Utilities

Gparted (A free graphical partition editor for creating, reorganizing and deleting disk partitions)

VirtualBox (VirtualBox lets you create virtual machines for enterprise as well as home use)

 Education Management Software

Content Management Software: Drupal is an open source content management platform powering millions of websites and applications. It’s built, used, and supported by an active and diverse community of people around the world. Use Drupal to build everything from personal blogs to enterprise applications. Thousands of add-on modules and designs let you build any site you can imagine.

Library Management: Koha Library circulation, cataloging, and acquisitions system

Course Management System: Moodle Course Manegement System (CMS), it is a free web application that educators can use to create effective online courses.

Open Office database tutorials for novices

“Open Office database (“Base”) tutorials for novices. A new venture, but maybe it can help you not waste time that I had to! Contains links to other Open Office tutorials, too. These tutorials are for the HSQL variant supplied with OpenOffice version 2… which is a potential Access slayer. (I didn’t like Adabas, which came with the commercial version of OO version 1)”

Free Mallware Removal Tools from TREND MICRO

Trend Micro is one of the top messaging, network and web security companies around and many fortune 500 companies go to Trend Micro for securing their mission critical endpoints, messaging and web. What many people don’t know is, they offer many free tools for the little guy the home user. Here are some of their goodies:

CLEAN UP TOOLS

 HijackThis

 ” Scan your computer to find settings changed by spyware, malware or other unwanted programs. Trend Micro HijackThis generates an in-depth report to enable you to analyze and fix your infected computer.”

HOUSE CALL

“Scan your PC for a wide range of Internet security threats including viruses, worms, Trojans, and spyware. HouseCall identifies and fixes vulnerabilities to help prevent re-infection.”

RUBotted

“Scan and monitor your computer for potential infection and suspicious activities associated with Bots. Upon discovering a potential infection, RUBotted prompts you to clean your computer.”

CWShredder

“Clean your computer of CoolWebSearch infections. CWShredder is the premier tool to find and remove traces of CoolWebSearch – a wide range of insidious browser hijackers.“

RootkitBuster

“Scan for hidden files, registry entries, processes, drivers, and Master Boot Record (MBR) rootkits. Trend Micro RootkitBuster can also clean hidden files and registry entries.“

Sources: Trend Micro Website

Burn CD-Rom or DVD for Free

“Multi-disc file backup and restore on CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs; create compressed backup archives with powerful password protection; split archives automatically across multiple CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs; restore archive contents to their original locations; integrated Audio CD ripper store your audio tracks as WMA or WAV files; new option for setting the number of copies you want to burn (available for all disc formats); discs can now be verified immediately without being ejected first (if the drive supports this feature); numerous other small improvements that make the program easier to use and more effective; burn files and folders on data CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs; burn Audio CDs from WAV, MP3, FLAC, WMA and Ogg Vorbis files; burn MP3-CDs from your MP3 files; burn Video DVD, Video CD (VCD) or Super Video CD (S-VCD); create and burn CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc images; burn speed and other options can all be set automatically”  <Download>

Clonezilla backup and recovery freeware

“You’re probably familiar with the popular proprietary commercial package Norton Ghost®, and its OpenSource counterpart, Partition Image. The problem with these software packages is that it takes a lot of time to massively clone systems to many computers. You’ve probably also heard of Symantec’s solution to this problem, Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition® with multicasting. Well, now there is an OpenSource clone system (OCS) solution called Clonezilla with unicasting and multicasting!

Clonezilla, based on DRBL, Partition Image, ntfsclone, partclone, and udpcast, allows you to do bare metal backup and recovery. Two types of Clonezilla are available, Clonezilla live and Clonezilla SE (server edition). Clonezilla live is suitable for single machine backup and restore. While Clonezilla SE is for massive deployment, it can clone many (40 plus!) computers simultaneously. ……”

Virtual Desktop Utility

You’ve seen it before: a desktop totally cluttered with too many open windows. No overview, the workflow is affected. Dexpot offers up to 19 additional work spaces to spread out your work. Finally, a tidy desktop again.

Portable Software Applications that run from USB

PENDRIVEAPPS.COM

Portable Applications that can be run directly from a USB device. By installing any of the listed portable apps to your USB flash drive, thumb drive, pen drive, iPod or other storage device, you can carry your applications, tools, software, personal settings and files with you (in your pocket) to use on any available Windows (or Mac in some cases) client computer.

IT Infrastructure Management made easy by Splunk

The Joornaal does not endorse specific products or specific software. However, we cannot help but notice Splunk, A software which makes the job of IT Infrastructure management (Applications Management, Security and Auditing) under one platform and does such a good job. We believe these dudes are into something huge. Who needs to buy expensive multiple IT infrastructure management software, when the ingenious Splunk brings under one umbrella?  My SysAdmin buddies are happy with Splunk

Password Cracking Tools

How strong is your password?

Download the handy Mandylion Research Labs  BruteForce Attack Time Estimator (excel template) and see for yourself an estimate of how fast a password is hacked by these widely available tools running on today’s desktops

TOP Software File Spliters

This application is a free reliable file splitter that lets you split your large files (like Self-Extracting archives, Zip archives, disk images, multimedia, music, video, backup, image, archive, log, large text, document files…) into a set of smaller files called pieces.

Rapid Split is an easy-to-use, wizard-based file splitting software with step-by-step assistance in splitting process. It enables you to split files of all types into pieces that can be stored on removable storage media such as floppy disk and zip disk.

JoneSoft File Splitter.

Another File Splitter program. However, this one is different in the fact that it’s free(!) and that it includes all the features that most others leave out. You can split files to any size you wish. Restoring is simply a matter of running the restore (BAT) file created when the file is split, or, for total control, you can restore using the File Splitter program. Integrated with Windows Explorer to allow even more flexibility. Full install/uninstall support.

FileSplit.org

File Splitter is a freeware program which does not require installation and can be used to split files to multiple chunks as well as to merge multiple chunks into a single file.