Suggest some useful utility programs for the computer

[stm177]

I can start. I really like Sequoia View: http://w3.win.tue.nl/nl/onderzoek/onderzoek_informatica/visualization/sequoiaview//

It scans your hard drive and makes a graphical representation of the file sizes and directories. It's useful for finding stuff you haven't used in a year, like old system restore files, or a directories of extracted sound files from a game.

[MostlyHarmless]

Freeware? Shareware? Anything?

It's not free but I have found SnagIt to be very useful as my screen capture tool of choice. It can scroll a window for you or just capture an area that you define by clicking and dragging.

[Reinboom]

DeepFreeze (http://www.faronics.com/) - It freezes a partition in a single state. No matter what happens to it, when you restart the PC, it reverts back to the frozen state. You can unfreeze it to install things when needed.
This is better than an antivirus program. The virus never happens.

Now for the free:
7-Zip (http://www.7-zip.org/download.html), a free integrated unpackaging software that supports most formats.

VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/) plays nearly any format, even specific formats such as DivX, without the need to install multiple codecs over and over.

BWG Burner (http://sourceforge.net/projects/bwgburn/) a disc burning software that supports disc images.

Daemon's Tools Lite (http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/download.php), a virtual disc software. So you don't have to worry about scratching your discs, or searching for them. Of course, you need virtual disc images to make use out of it...

ISO recorder (http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm), an integrated ISO recording software the feels like it simply belongs. It's simple and fast. This lets you make the virtual discs for daemon's tools.

IrfanView (http://www.irfanview.com/) is the VLC for graphics. It supports even the most obscure formats - and allows mass conversion between them.

Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm), a nice looking, colorful notepad. This supports massively large files, has a built in hex editor, has a regular expression search function, supports many programming language formats to make many slightly more simple to see where you are at. Etc.

AVG AntiVirus - Free (http://free.grisoft.com/), an extremely reliable free antivirus software.

MicroSoft Powertoys (http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx) - notably TweakUI. Because I like controlling the small things of my system. Very handy alongside DeepFreeze, since, you can change where My Documents and similar folders are, to make them an offdrive that isn't frozen.

And, it's not quite a "utility" in the program sense, but it has many many that can be added on to it, the most important program:
FireFox (http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/?from=getfirefox)

[Zombie pixe]

if you are at school, you should be able to get macromedia from your IT teacher with a little whineing for free. but yea, you will want macromedia, it is so wide spread now that you could probably get it off someone for free.

[Reinboom]

if you are at school, you should be able to get macromedia from your IT teacher with a little whineing for free. but yea, you will want macromedia, it is so wide spread now that you could probably get it off someone for free.

Macromedia... what?
Dreamweaver CS3? A notepad variant (UltraEdit or Notepad++) works much better.
Flash CS3? Sure, if you want into flash.

You can't really just say macromedia anymore, anyways. Adobe purchased them.

[bugsysservant]

Well, its not a utility at all, but I bought a 2 gb flash drive for about $20 and have since loaded it up with freeware from Portable Apps (http://portableapps.com/) a site dedicated to freeware which can run from a flashdrive. Much of the Freeware mentioned there is on that site, such as firefox, 7-zip, notepad ++, and others. From my flashdrive I run 7-zip, clamwin, command prompt, eraser, gimp, firefox, limewire, notepad ++, the open office suite, pidgin, sumatra pdf reader, VLC media, and sunbird. Since I can get around almost all of the restrictions on my school computers with these, I have come to use them all very heavily (except command prompt. That's actually blocked. :smallannoyed:) Plus, if I'm going to use limewire, I prefer that its on the school's ip :smallwink: , since it won't seem to allow me to route it through tor and privoxy (http://www.torproject.org/download.html.en), an excellent anonymous surfing utility. For my computer I love Avast (http://www.avast.com/eng/avast_4_home.html), AVG (http://free.grisoft.com/), (only use AVG's active scanner), and CCleaner (http://www.ccleaner.com/). Threatfire (http://www.threatfire.com/) is also an excellent anti-malware tool.

Also, if you're looking for free utilities (and you obviously are) try this list (http://www.techsupportalert.com/best_46_free_utilities.htm). I don't agree with everything he says, but I have found quite a few excellent programs through here.

By the way, if anyone has any idea why I can't funnel limewire through the tor/privoxy proxy (localhost, port 8118), any help would be appreciated.

[RandomLogic]

Just another vote for AVG free, VLC media player, and Firefox as some of the most useful free software out there.

[adanedhel9]

If you like the Linux command-line and never-ending list of utilties that come along with it, but you don't want go all the way to a Linux install for them, Cygwin (http://www.cygwin.com) is your app. It gives you a Linux-style CLI under Windows, and it comes with all the Posix-standard utilities, with the option to include a lot more. A full install is practically a complete Linux distro.

Want to back up your precious work? Of course you do. Mozy (http://www.mozy.com/) lets you automatically back up 2 GB of personal data to their professionally managed servers for free. Unfortunately, there's no Linux client, and the Mac client is in beta.

For browsers, I personally prefer (and recommend) Opera (http://www.opera.com). Opera is the fastest browser, and (arguably) the most standards-compliant. And the interface is extremely customizable, with editible mouse gestures, keyboard shortcuts, and menu-bars right out of the box.

[bugsysservant]

For browsers, I personally prefer (and recommend) Opera (http://www.opera.com). Opera is the fastest browser, and (arguably) the most standards-compliant. And the interface is extremely customizable, with editible mouse gestures, keyboard shortcuts, and menu-bars right out of the box.

That's true, forgot to mention it. If you like to really customize your browser, Firefox is better for this as the number of themes and extensions dwarfs any capabilities of Opera. But if you just want a fast, relatively small web browser, Opera is actually better. I have used both, and while can say that they are both excellent choices.