Comments on: The World's Most Popular Freeware – Updated

By: Susan A

Susan A — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 09:12:01 +0000

I agree with many of the programs on your list, although I have not tried them all. I would have to add a few more, though. I was surprised Irfanview was not on the list. I have been using it for years. It's the best free image viewer there is. It's also great for doing a few simple things quickly, such as cropping, gamma and saturaton correcting or image optimizing. Other free programs I think highly of and use are- Unlocker
by Cedrick Collomb, TreeSize, BSPlayer,a media player up there with Videolan, CDisplay for reading comics, Quintessential Media player for music, it shrinks away to almost nothing, PeerGuardian2, and DamnNfo Viewer.

By: dalton robert schwartzkopf

dalton robert schwartzkopf — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 06:14:51 +0000

a wonderful list there are a few i would have added, but i admire the work you've done, so i wont press the issue.

By: Darryl

Darryl — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:21:20 +0000

I tried the Glary Utilities, based on this recommendation here, and used the encrypt feature to create an exe self-decrypting file. Then I took the file to another computer to see if it worked and Spybot S&D flagged it as containing the Fakebill virus. So I went Glary Utilities forum, and found that the site overall looked pretty shady, so I'm not overly confident that the utility is safe.

Thoughts?

By: CheekyC

CheekyC — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 14:17:22 +0000

Anyone know of a free program to backup/image your PC? I want to buy a new PC but don't want to have to pay for Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image if I can avoid it.

By: parrotlover

parrotlover — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 20:26:34 +0000

Parrotlover in simi valley,ca says thanks for the tip on the Revo uninstaller I couldn't get that real player and all it's garbage out of my p.c and registry! plus it has some great extra features! does ANYBODY know of a program that will record videos I watch online? snag-it only grabs the video not the audio so it's kinda useless! also RE:SR Ironware I read the features and how google chrome adds clutter but I need the ABC/spell check DOES Ironware browser have that feature? Lastly I Bookmark a lot of sites in firefox is doing this a bad idea? to have a bunch of them?? thanks PC Pitstop and you all great forum*

By: B gilbert

B gilbert — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:10:10 +0000

PC Pitstop has some good pointers sometimes, but I can't underatand why peaple want to use any software that evan touches the registry. if 1 does use registry software, they are likely, headed for some big problems down the road. I have had to compleatly erase a lot of Hard drives and reload the entire operating system on a lot of computers due to this, and the problems don't start right away, always they build up over a bit of time.
also PC Pitstop needs to be sure the software they sell is VISTA compatible, that is a major concern in a VISTA system

By: freeware master

freeware master — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:21:03 +0000

Kevin, there's an even better free PDF reader than Foxit. It's called PDF-XChange Viewer. It also uses tabs but then there's much more – with PDF-XChange Viewer, you can type directly onto any PDF file. There are more features also, but this is huge! You can fill out forms before you print them and you can save any changes you make. Try PDF-XChange Viewer, it's the best free PDF viewer out there right now.

As "Stephen" pointed out, KeePass DEFINITELY needs to be on this list. KeePass is free, open source, simple and effective. It's a free password manager with good features and the ability to use plugins. It's a great way to keep track of all of your passwords.

"Roger" mentioned SIW, which is a great system info tool. Look on the website (gtopala.com) for the standalone version. It's a useful tool to see your computer specs. Still, a tool that might be even better in some ways (like being able to see power and voltage info) is PCWizard from CPUID. Free and very nice.

Here's another huge miss, as "Lawrence" point out: Where's IrfanView? It's the best freeware image viewer out there. Not only is it very fast and can read many image, sound and video file types, but it can also do some editing of pictures. Basic stuff, but very helpful when all you want to do is crop or other simple edits. It can do an automatic image enhancement (called auto adjust colors) which makes most photos look better with just one click. Has a batch mode and can use your scanner to acquire images too. It can do more too, go get it!

As "Jack" mentioned, SpywareBlaster should be listed, it's a great free anti-spyware program.

PS – Instead of GIMP, you might try GimPhoto, a version of Gimp that's designed to be more like Photoshop.

Also, SMPlayer is a great free media player. It's just MPlayer with it's own GUI, but it's simple and works great at playing most things.

For what might be the best ".zip" program right now, try IZArc. It handles most types of compressed files, (including .7z and .rar) works great and has a simple interface. It can basically do anything that 7-Zip or WinRAR can, but it looks better and is truly free, unlike WinRAR.

Finally, Go-oo, an improved version of OpenOffice, also handles Works (.wps) files, for those unfortunate enough to have to deal with them, because Works comes free on computers and some people actually use it instead of OpenOffice.

There's more, but this should be good for now. Please remove P2P file sharing programs from your list, do not promote stealing. (Torrents CAN be good, but only for legitimate uses, like downloading Linux or OpenOffice legally.)

By: lud

lud — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 00:01:09 +0000

DriverMax should not be on that list.What a waste of time,I would rather do it manually.Driver Max must be a sponser of Pc pitstop.You removed Win Rar because it gave you a nag after 15 days,yet put up with this(driver Max)program.

By: Jack

Jack — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 07:13:06 +0000

Thanks for a really useful list.
One program I'm surprised isn't on the list is Spywareblaster.

By: MarshallL

MarshallL — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 20:01:11 +0000

NO TO DRIVERMAX… must agree with those who said it already. drivermax is a pain and not really free since you have to buy the pro version if you want it to work with any degree of ease.