SecretMethod70

This (among the two other variations of it for different major OS's) was one of my favorite threads on TFP 3.

List your favorite suggestions for Windows downloads here and briefly explain why.

To start, I recommend <a href="http://www.jdennis.net/">DeadAIM</a> to add onto the AIM client. You'll get transparency, logging, tabbed windows, plus more.

If you use more than one chat protocol, I recommend <a href="http://gaim.sf.net">Gaim</a> It's open source, the first IM client to have tabbed IM Windows, you'll also get transparency with it, and Trillian uses some of the code from this project.

For word processing I recommend <a href="http://www.abiword.org/">abiword</a>, my personal favorite word processing program.

And, lastly, for browsing I recommend Mozilla or Firefox - both can be found at www.mozilla.org

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

Motry Latchman

Everytime I re-install windows (and it's been a lot over the years) I have a list of must-installs. Some of my first ones to get loaded on: TweakIU, WinRAR, PowerDVD, Tmpgenc, DVD2SVCD, Dekart Private Disk Light, Kazaa Light, Limewire, Lavasoft Ad-Aware, Panicware Pop-Up Stopper. These days I keep a CD-RW just for this purpose and update it as required. My favorite out of all of the above is Kazaa Light.

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I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it.
Groucho Marx

sixate

For picture downloading purposes get EZPics.

I love Zone Alarm. I wouldn't buy it. If you use Kazaa then you know how to get it for free.

sixate

I almost forgot about Trillian.

darkure

I would have to recommend Open Office.Org. It has all the functionality of MS Office but without being made by Microsoft. So there is no registration to deal with let alone nasty registration bugs (link goes to story at The Register).

Also I like AVG Anti-virus for my anti-virus needs. It is free for personal use and you don't have to pay for updates or new virus definitions like you now have to do with Norton.

Nad Adam

For filesharing nothing beats dc++ if you have a lot (+50GB) to share. http://dcplusplus.sourceforge.net/

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Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones. - Psalms 137:9

Mad_Gecko

If your looking for Firewall Software for free - kerio.com has some (Only for personal use).

Haven't used it yet but have it ready. I'm still a corp. Mofo and stuck with McaFee (yes I paid $$'s, slaps forehead)

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[color=bright blue]W[/color]e Stick To Glass

"If three of us travel together, I shall find two teachers."
Confucious

rock_bottom

For general file sharing, <a href="http://www.kazaalite.tk/">Kazaa Lite</a> is the way to go.
For text editting, I say <a href="http://www.textpad.com/">TextPad</a>. It's what I like: tons of useful features for power-users, but uses little memory and is very responsive.
And who could forget the best IRC program ever, <a href="http://www.mirc.co.uk">mIRC</a>.

Zello

I personally like Emule over Kazaa Lite.

Emule I like better for large files. While Kazaa Lite is great for getting smaller files quick.

For music I like to use MusicMatch, it also has an online radio built in.

sixate

I use MusicMatch Jukebox to listen to my MP3's and rip them. It's a great program. If you use Kazaa, get it there and search for version 7.2 plus.

Get DIVX.

Don't forget SpyBot.

ccvirginia

First thing I do after a fresh OS install is install winamp. The old winamp, the new one sucks.

Motry's list looks just like mine.
I hate unneccesary processes running in the background so I'm usually pretty tight when it comes to the amount of software I load on my system.

b1m2x3

pop-up stopper professional is THE BEST popup stopper i have ever used. it is so full of features. makes browsing so much easier.

http://www.panicware.com/process_dow...PSPROFESSIONAL

bundy

mozilla
zone alarm
ad-aware
spybot
kazaa lite

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Ohayo!!!

manalone

Putty Telnet
VIM
Winamp (I like V3)
Irfanview - great pic viewer

and loads more

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--
Man Alone
=======
Abstainer: a weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure.
Ambrose Bierce, The Devil's Dictionary.

Johnny Rotten

Same here, plus:

YahooPOPs
Motherboard Monitor
Proxomitron
TrojanHunter
WinRAR
Trillian

fracturedmind

I second that!

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It won't give up, it wants me dead, god damn this voice inside my head.

spectre

JR Splitfile - splits files into smaller sizes and creates a batchfile that you use to recombine those peices into the original

X-Setup - great little tweaking tool.

mIRC - great chat program.

__________________
"Fuck these chains
No goddamn slave
I will be different" ~ Machine Head

zizdog69

I like the X-Setup program <b>spectre</b>. It will definatly take a lot of time to master. I usually use TweakUI.

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"So I was sitting in my cubicle today, and I realized, ever since I started working, every single day of my life has been worse than the day before it. So that means that every single day that you see me, that's on the worst day of my life." -Peter Gibbons, Office Space

Macheath

After facing the prospect of giving up my Mac, I have just bought a PC. In the last seven days, I have downloaded:

Ad-aware, SpyBot, Mozilla, Trillian, Winamp, ZipCentral (free .zip utility), Kazaa Lite, Audacity (sound editing), TagScanner (ID3 editing), FreeRIP (ripping), DivX, Roxio DirectCD (packet write), and Folding@home.

I've managed to avoid spending money on software but I do miss iTunes.

I will also be investigating some of the programs listed here and squirreling it all away on a CD-RW for a rainy day.

Thanks for the info everybody.

Mad_Gecko

Sixate Thanks for Spybot

Damn, All my tests said I was cleen like Mr. Sheen...

Anyone got anything else. ( I am Marvin the Robot - check Hitchhikers Guide...)

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[color=bright blue]W[/color]e Stick To Glass

"If three of us travel together, I shall find two teachers."
Confucious

Mad_Gecko

Paranoid and Manic Depressive!!!

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[color=bright blue]W[/color]e Stick To Glass

"If three of us travel together, I shall find two teachers."
Confucious

SecretMethod70

Oh yeah! how could I forget eMule - thanks to those who mentioned it. I'd also like to add <a href="http://www.xchat.org">XChat</a> - my personal favorite IRC program. Version 2.0 has blown me away

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Le temps détruit tout

"Musicians are the carriers and communicators of spirit in the most immediate sense." - Kurt Elling

sngx1275

Irfanview - Simply the best image viewer ever, I see absolutely no reason why anyone would use anything but irfanview for image viewing and simple stuff like resizing. Opens Everything and fits on a floppy disk.

meanSpleen

I've seen almost all the Essentials. And most of the "Wants". Here goes:

Flashget - Download Manager/Accelerator - Most efficient and powerful download helper I've used. Reuses connections and speeds downloads - http://www.flashget.com

Mozilla/Phoenix/Firebird - THE BEST - http://www.mozilla.org

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ToiletDuck

This is the last thing i download and run when my box is all set the way i want it. MBSA

Grondar

Lots of good programs here.

To add a few that aren't yet listed:

CacheMan - Memory management program that I use once, save, and never again.

NBGCleanR - Registry cleaner that works and doesn't mess up your PC. You will be amazed at all the "junk" left behind and deleted by this.

ATM - Shows % of processor being used, and what programs are using it.

WinHTTrack Website Copier - Download entire websites for offline viewing. Very nice.

TrayPlay - Simple, but effective CD player for Windows. No frills, low resource.

Advanced MP3 Home Studio - Program I use to rip CDs to MP3 form.

EditPad Lite - Notepad, enhanced and with tabbed windows. Nice for text and HTML creation.

And lastly...

ESPN BottomLine - Great for sports fans that want news and updated scores without having to view a website. A sports ticker that sits above your taskbar and shows scores and news categorized by sport.

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"Yes, I rather like this God fellow. He's very theatrical, you know, a pestilence here, a plague there. Omnipotence. Gotta get me some of that." -Stewie

cub4life78

Thanks Grondar on the heads up for that bottom line by espn. I like POW on analogx.com for blocking pop ups. I like winamp (old version), and newsbinpro.

a_divine_martyr

WinAMP is about all on my "need-to-install list".

OH! Another thing is I *need* some things from <a href="http://www.shadowness.com">Shadowness</a>

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Censorship and thought control can only exist in secrecy and darkness...

phaulb

adaware
kazaalite
piolet i can generally find any stuff on there that i cant find on kazaa
avg , excellent anti virus software and its free

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always have a plan b

jets

Ps Tray Factory, great because sometimes I kill explorer and this guy will restore all those funky tray icons. It's annoying when they aren't there! Does other stuff too.

Watchcat, this is just the best. Does ALOT of neat stuff.

Grabit, favorite news binary grabber.

WinMX, Favourite mp3 grabber.

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Hey. Wasn't Me.

crazycousinjim

FilZIP
It's like Winzip but supports nearly every compression format, and it doesn't do that popup rgister crap.

Trillian Pro

Macromedia Fireworks and Dreamweaver.
Putty for SSH.
Mozilla for surfin TFP.

Jesus Pimp

If you want to download lots of anime and other files get:
bit torrent

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Never date anyone who doesn't make your dick hard.

Crimson

PuTTY - Gets me into my other computers

And ps and kill - From cygwin or something similar - Nothing gives me more pleasure than hitting kill -9 and watching all the shit just fall off the fan

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Crimson
If my life is to change - Let it change
If my whole world is to be destroyed - So be it
If my fate is to die - I must simply laugh

charliex

http://www.tortoisecvs.org/ - TortoiseCVS makes the PITA cvs workable under windows explorer nicely, combined with putty+ssh is real good.
http://www.jpsoft.com - 4NT best CMD replacement bar none
http://www.scootersoftware.com/dl.html - Beyond Compare 2 for file comparision
http://www.cosmigo.com/promotion/ Pro Motion the best DPAINT replacement on the PC, great for doing game and low res art tonnes better than photoshop
http://www.sourceoffsite.com Makes sourcesafe work over the internet properly.
http://www.numega.com boundschecker and softice nuff said
http://www.sysinternals.com for lots of good tools

and yes flashget and DC rocks, honourable mentions debabilizer pro, filezilla for ftp(or leechftp)

Mad_Gecko

One for the newsgroup hounds.

Download and decode all in one.

Xnews

Took me a while to get the hang of it but its great at getting the binaries.

Combine it with SmartPar and your done.

__________________
[color=bright blue]W[/color]e Stick To Glass

"If three of us travel together, I shall find two teachers."
Confucious

meembo

irfanview
dc++
cacheman
x-setup
smartFTP
ISO recorder PowerToy (for XP)
belarc advisor
exact audio copy (best ripper out there) + lame
AVG antivirus
red flag -- small taskbar icon that reminds me when the wife is OTR
VNC

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less I say, smarter I am

Realizm

I recently formatted my drive and reinstalled Windows. Before I did this, though, I made a list of software that I wanted to make sure I got after the erasure.

What kind of things do you guys make sure you reobtain after a clean install?

Important
--
Star Downloader
DivX
DrTag
GIMP
KaZaA Lite
Diamond Mine
Snood
WinMX
WinZip
ZoneAlarm
HL Client and Server 1.8.5
Winamp

Not as important
--
BitTorrent
Celestia
Ethereal
Ettercap
GLTron
BZFlag
PFE
WinPCap
XNap

heyal256

It is always useful to get the latest drivers for your devices in windows BEFORE you reinstall. It just makes it easier to (try) and find the stuff instead of scratching your head trying to figure out what drivers you are missing. Once that is out of the way, with the apps that you have listed, I would recommend getting adaware and/or spybot.

Don't forget about antivirus, it's usually one of the last things i remember that I need to install as well.

Boner

Let's see...

- Cygwin (bash, and other *nix goodies that have been ported to Win32)
- EndItAll (process killing program)
- Free Surfer MKII Pop-Up Killer
- I News (weather app)
- Intellisync for Yahoo!
- jv16 Power Tools (registry cleaner, etc)
- Motherboard Monitor 5
- MP3 Tag Tools
- MRUblaster (most-recently used list cleaner)
- Spywareblaster (prevents spyware from being installed)
- Spybot Search and Destroy
- TightVNC (VNC with built-in compression)
- Trillian
- WinSCP2 (SCP, ssh file transfer)
- Yahoo! Messenger

I run Firehand Ember for image viewing. I've been a licensed user of it for several years and haven't found a program I've liked more than it.

After I have it all installed, I boot up Knoppix and image the Windows partition using Partition Image.

SiN

Just re-installed (XP Pro Corp) last weekend...

The progs i've got installed so far are probably what i would consider 'essential'.

Highlighted things i'm surprised no one's mentioned yet.

AccessDiver
ACDSee
Ad Muncher
Adobe
-Photoshop
-Acrobat (full)
-Album
-ATM Deluxe
DAMN NFO Viewer
DivX etc (3.11, 5.x, AC3, XviD)
Daemon Tools
DiskKeeper Workstation
ExamDiff Pro
FlashFXP <- So good that I paid for this one
GetRight
HyperSnap-DX
K++
Messenger Plus! (freeware MSN Messenger util, logging etc)
mIRC
Office XP (Word, Outlook, Excel)
QuickSFV
Tag&Rename
TextPipe Pro
UltraEdit
WhereIsIt
WinRAR
WinZip

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