Essential Freewares …..

….. to make your computing experience worthy of remembrance!! :shh: So without any further ado, lets dig in!!

7-Zip: If you are still stuck with trial versions of WinZip or WinRar, its time you try something better. 7-Zip is a blazing fast tool which supports multiple compression formats including ZIP, TAR & RAR. Also, this tool has its own format, the 7z format which till date offers the highest compression levels, many times of that offered by ZIP format.

avast! Home Edition: This is one the many anti-virus solutions available, but unlike many of them, this one’s free for home & non-commercial use. So if you meet this criteria and are looking for a good anti-virus software then you should give it a go, its quite a good one and popular as well.

AntiVir Personal Edition Classic: Another one of the anti-virus solutions, this one’s also free as long as you use it for personal purposes only, as their License states. That apart, this one’s also quite a popular & good anti-virus solution out there, worthy a try.

Ad Aware Personal Edition: This one’s quite a handy tool to keep around, as spywares and malwares do find a way or more to get into our PCs. This cool utility will help you combat that threat.

cPicture LE: This is a tool which you can use to browse through your photos, images, MP3s etc. Its quite a good option for those looking for an alternative to ACDSee or Irfanview.

Foxit Reader: Want to read PDF files and stuck with Adobe Reader? If you’ve been using Adobe Reader then you know how long it takes to load, I can get a coffee in the meanwhile!! Well, no more, as this tool opens up PDF files in a snap!! Give it a try and you might not want to go back to Adobe Reader(unless the PDF files you use have some special features put in by Adobe Acrobat, which this might not support).

YamiPod: Got an iPod but don’t want to use iTunes? No sweat, you can try this neat little tool to manage the contents of your iPod, transfer your music to and from iPod and this works as a zero installation software, meaning that you don’t need to install it, just launch the program straightaway(even from your iPod). Available in many languages & for Windows, Linux & Mac OSX.

KeePass: Have trouble remembering passwords for all your online & offline accounts? Then you can do with a good password manager & KeePass is just the right solution. Its an open-source free tool in which you can save your passwords etc. for as many accounts you want, categorized. It supports various encryption formats and in case you are not satisfied, you can take a shot at improving it since its source is also available.

Convert: We all need to convert one unit of measurement to another, and it can be a tough job sometimes when you don’t remember how many units make the other unit. Convert is a neat little zero install application which can do all that for you very easily, no problems at all. And you don’t need to install it, its ready to go, just launch & use.

Winamp: This is the best music player you can get, with lots of skins and plugins available, this one is the big daddy of all music players with ability to play multiple music formats.

Copernic Desktop Search: Forget the file search tools offered by Google, Yahoo! or MSN, this one leaves them far behind when it comes to file search.

Skype: Only tool worth consideration if you want to talk to someone without paying hefty phone bills. The best VoIP utility around for PC-to-PC calls, Skype offers the best sound quality I’ve experienced even on slow connections. It now has a video calling feature as well, and if you are looking for something more, then you can call normal phones around the globe as well, at very low rates. For a small fee, it also provides you with a phone number which anyone can call from a normal phone around in the globe and you’ll get the call on your Skype. But the PC-to-PC calls are free, so you don’t need to worry about paying anything if you are satisfied with that. It also has a mobile edition which you can install on your mobile phone.

TreePad Asia: A neat little tool for jotting down notes or personal info, quite handy. Treepad Asia supports asian languages as well, while the other version, Treepad Lite doesn’t support them. So if you might be writing notes in any other language besides english, Treepad Asia is the version for you.

These neat little utilities will definitely help you make better use of your PC. :tup: