I thought as a community service I'd pull everything together in one post. The recommendations and comments are from others in the thread plus a few recommendations from a thread I started asking for AV, anti-spy, firewall, and backup software.

Antivirus

• The following are free Antivirus programs that are commonly recommended. All three have realtime scanning features. Remember to only choose ONE Antivirus program to be running all the time.
• AVG 8 Free - probably the most well known free Antivirus and it's a decent alternative to the paid stuff.
• Antivir Personal - Another decent free AV. Has higher detection rates than AVG although there is a nag screen that pops up everytime it updates. You can disable the pop up by going into the directory where Avira Antivir is installed (use an Administrator account) and right clicking on avnotify.exe, choose Properties, go to the Security tab, and check the Deny Read and Execute permissions. Do this for every user.
• Avast Home Edition Yet another AV. I haven't used it myself but many people recommend it.
• www.free-av.com - Avira personal is a very light and solid Anti virus.

Antispyware/malware

• Malwarebytes Anti-malware - MBAM is a great tool for detecting and removing some pretty stubborn infections.
• SUPERAntiSpyware Free - Another good free AS scanner.
• Spybot it's a great little program for general spyware removal purposes. It's free ofc
• Ad-aware. A program to scan for adware. http://www.lavasoft.com/

Firewall

• Comodo Firewall - If you find Windows firewall to not meet your needs, this free alternative is certainly more powerful and configurable... to the extent that it can be annoying in the beggining. Remember to only have on firewall running at one time.
• Sygate Personal Firewall If you don't like Windows firewall OR Comodo, Sygate might interest you.
• Zone-alarm. A firewall. http://www.zonealarm.com
• You can check out www.matousec.com for firewall leak testing.
• Office
• OpenOffice.org - This free open source MS office alternative will more than likely meet your needs. Has a spreadsheet, database, presentation, and word processing program.. and more.

Instant Messaging

• Pidgin - Open source IM program that supports a ton of protocols. Even if you just use AIM I would consider switching. Pidgin has no adds, no bundled software, has a cleaner and lighter interface than AIM 6.
• Miranda - This ultra light and versatile IM program is highly customizable and is a good alternative for those who don't like pidgin.
• AIM Pro (free) is a great IM alternative to standard AIM. It's the 'business user' version of AIM. AIM 6 tilted me so hard, I uninstalled it the same day. AIM Pro is solid.
• http://www.meebo.com/ It's not even a program, it's a website that allows you to use AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, and others. Very handy for those of you on computers where you can't (or don't want to) install software.
• Apatch - Patch for MSN messenger that removes removes the advertisments and other visual clutter
• Trillian - IM program that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and IRC.
• Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) - Open-source plug-in for Pidgin that will encrypt conversations if both parties use it. Also works on Trillian.

Voice

• Teamspeak2 - VOIP group chat.
• Ventrilo - VOIP group chat, has better quality sound than Teamspeak.

Browsers

• Mozilla Firefox - Obviously. Most people have already heard of this one, but it's important to list it here.
• Google Chrome - Browser from google. Recently came out of beta.
• Apple Safari
• Opera
• Flock ? - Ohh - This is a real cool Extension for Firefox/Flock for browsing various image/video sites in a completely new (3D) way. http://www.piclens.com/

Image software

• Paint.net - Open source alternative to MS paint. Has ability to work with layers and many other features offered by expensive alternatives.
• Gimp - Open source photo manipulation tool. Very powerful tool. See the link provided for more in depth description.
• Picasa - Very nice photo managing software. Also from google.

Desktop/UI

• IconTweaker - For those of you on XP (prolly works on 2000 also) this tool is cool for editing your icons. You can download pre made themes from a place like deviantart, or make your own with .ico files. Leopard Theme for IconTweaker, Vista theme for IconTweaker
• Zune theme (screenshot)
• I'm sure some of you have heard of TweakUI. It is a nice little tool that allows you access to settings in XP that are not available by default. Very powerful tool.. check it out. For a similar tool in Vista try Winbubble.
• Rocketdock - Want a cool dock menu like OS X has? Here you go! Fully customizable and many skins available.

System Utilities

• ATF Cleaner - Simple temp file cleaner that requires no installation.
• KeePass - password safe
• M8 Free Multi Clipboard - keep track of everything you cut or copy
• WinMerge - find differences between files and folders
• Winpatrol - Multipurpose tool for Windows that allows you to manage and keep an eye on startup programs, activeX controls, Services etc. I personally use this software and install it on all my personal machines.
• WinDirStat Nice tool that gives a visual representation of how the space on your hard drive is allocated. Answers the question, "what the hell is taking up all the space on my disk." Screenshot
• Revo Uninstaller - Uninstalls programs and cleans up most of the garbage some of them leave behind.

CD/DVD burner

• Infrarecorder- open-source and actively developed burning suite. Very easy to use and lightweight.

Encryption

• AxCrypt - Per file encryption. Does not work with XP x64 last I checked
• TrueCrypt- open-source whole or partial disk encryption. The latest version allows system drive encryption.

Virtualization

• Virtualbox - Free virtualization software (like VMware or Virtual PC). It's not as full featured as VMware but it gets the job done easily. If your looking to get started with running a virtual machine try Virtualbox. It might suit your needs while costing you nothing.
• VMWare Server (Free w/ registration) - Allows you to run multiple "virtual" machine on your computer, great for doing other work on your poker-dedicated machine

PDF

• Foxit Reader - Adobe Reader is another piece of software that I despise. This light and free PDF reader gets the job done with none of the BS that comes along with adobe reader.
• Sumatra PDF - It's lighter and faster than Foxit. It's also open-source.

Email client

• Thunderbird - Extensible open-source email client by Mozilla. It does for email clients what Firefox did for browsers imo.

VPN

• Superduper free VPN software for Win/Lin
• Hamachi: https://secure.logmein.com/products/...pn.asp?lang=en

Music/Audio/Video

• Quicktime Alternative - Quicktime is awful software in my opinion. Quicktime Alternative is just as it sounds, an alternative.
• Real Alternative In addition to Quicktime alternative, there's Real alternative for the "Real" format media out there.
• Audacity How could I forget Audacity? Open source audio editor.
• Winamp Media Player - MP3, Multimedia, and Music Player. www.winamp.com
• iConcert - http://www.iconcertcal.com/ goes through your iTunes and finds all the shows that your artists are having. press ctrl-t to switch between your regular music library and the iConcert calendar
• VLC Media Player and Real Alternative (for video media).
• foobar2000 Mass music player a la iTunes, but with lower memory use. Supports more file formats so you don't need to convert anything. Very, very customizable. Download the iPod plug-in and it makes iTunes obsolete.
• Yamipod - it's not exactly an alternative to itunes as a player... but for managing your ipod songs it works nicely.
• Media Player Classic - Video Player.
• VLC Player- Video Player, more robust that MPC (can play files that MPC thinks are corrupted), contains numerous codecs and is portable.
• VirtualDub - Video capture/processing utility.
• Super - Video format conversion utility.
• GOM Player - i can't even express in words how good this video player is - so many top notch features and yah...get it
• PSP Video 9 - just a good solid program - interface is pretty crumby but the actual programs is very good - not a bad selection of formats and pretty fast
• WinLAME - "winLAME is an encoder for several audio formats, including mp3 (MPEG Layer 3), Ogg Vorbis and more. winLAME lets you set up the encoding process with an easy-to-use wizard-style user interface. winLAME supports many input audio formats, and uses the LAME mp3 encoding library for encoding and the MAD decoding library for decoding." http://winlame.****************/

Codecs

• Quicktime Alternative - Use this instead of installing the full bloated Quicktime (comes with Media Player Classic).
• Real Alternative - Use this instead of installing the full bloated Real Player (comes with Media Player Classic).
• Klite Mega Codec Pack - Contains almost every codec you could ever need, comes with QTAlt, RealAlt and Media Player Classic.

Editors

• http://www.osalt.com/ultraedit
• Crimson Editor - text editor
• Notepad++
• PSPad
• VIM

Backups

• MS synctoy - In my search for backup software i came across.

Linux

• If some of you are interested in trying Linux out and are new to it, I recommend you check out the Wubi Installer. It allows you to download and install Ubuntu (or Xubuntu and Kubuntu) very easily. You can then boot into Ubuntu natively and use it. It's not a VM or anything like that, although it does use a virtual disk.

Other Notes

• also huge list here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/79...ally-good-747/
• osalt.com is a good website for finding open source alternatives.
• There's also websites you can run a port scan test at: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2. It will scan your ports to see if they're stealthed, closed, or open.

6 pages and http://www.irfanview.com/ isn't listed? Impossible.

It's pretty much the best light weight image editor/viewer ever created (IMO).

Updated to add TeraCopy and irfanview

Antivirus

• The following are free Antivirus programs that are commonly recommended. All three have realtime scanning features. Remember to only choose ONE Antivirus program to be running all the time.
• AVG 8 Free - probably the most well known free Antivirus and it's a decent alternative to the paid stuff.
• Antivir Personal - Another decent free AV. Has higher detection rates than AVG although there is a nag screen that pops up everytime it updates. You can disable the pop up by going into the directory where Avira Antivir is installed (use an Administrator account) and right clicking on avnotify.exe, choose Properties, go to the Security tab, and check the Deny Read and Execute permissions. Do this for every user.
• Avast Home Edition Yet another AV. I haven't used it myself but many people recommend it.
• www.free-av.com - Avira personal is a very light and solid Anti virus.

Antispyware/malware

• Malwarebytes Anti-malware - MBAM is a great tool for detecting and removing some pretty stubborn infections.
• SUPERAntiSpyware Free - Another good free AS scanner.
• Spybot it's a great little program for general spyware removal purposes. It's free ofc
• Ad-aware. A program to scan for adware. http://www.lavasoft.com/

Firewall

• Comodo Firewall - If you find Windows firewall to not meet your needs, this free alternative is certainly more powerful and configurable... to the extent that it can be annoying in the beggining. Remember to only have on firewall running at one time.
• Sygate Personal Firewall If you don't like Windows firewall OR Comodo, Sygate might interest you.
• Zone-alarm. A firewall. http://www.zonealarm.com
• You can check out www.matousec.com for firewall leak testing.

Office

• OpenOffice.org - This free open source MS office alternative will more than likely meet your needs. Has a spreadsheet, database, presentation, and word processing program.. and more.

Instant Messaging

• Pidgin - Open source IM program that supports a ton of protocols. Even if you just use AIM I would consider switching. Pidgin has no adds, no bundled software, has a cleaner and lighter interface than AIM 6.
• Miranda - This ultra light and versatile IM program is highly customizable and is a good alternative for those who don't like pidgin.
• AIM Pro (free) is a great IM alternative to standard AIM. It's the 'business user' version of AIM. AIM 6 tilted me so hard, I uninstalled it the same day. AIM Pro is solid.
• http://www.meebo.com/ It's not even a program, it's a website that allows you to use AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, and others. Very handy for those of you on computers where you can't (or don't want to) install software.
• Apatch - Patch for MSN messenger that removes removes the advertisments and other visual clutter
• Trillian - IM program that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and IRC.
• Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) - Open-source plug-in for Pidgin that will encrypt conversations if both parties use it. Also works on Trillian.

Voice

• Teamspeak2 - VOIP group chat.
• Ventrilo - VOIP group chat, has better quality sound than Teamspeak.

Browsers

• Mozilla Firefox - Obviously. Most people have already heard of this one, but it's important to list it here.
• Google Chrome - Browser from google. Recently came out of beta.
• Apple Safari
• Opera
• Flock ? - Ohh - This is a real cool Extension for Firefox/Flock for browsing various image/video sites in a completely new (3D) way. http://www.piclens.com/

Image software

• Paint.net - Open source alternative to MS paint. Has ability to work with layers and many other features offered by expensive alternatives.
• Gimp - Open source photo manipulation tool. Very powerful tool. See the link provided for more in depth description.
• Picasa - Very nice photo managing software. Also from google.
• http://www.irfanview.com/ - It's pretty much the best light weight image editor/viewer ever created (IMO).

Desktop/UI

• IconTweaker - For those of you on XP (prolly works on 2000 also) this tool is cool for editing your icons. You can download pre made themes from a place like deviantart, or make your own with .ico files. Leopard Theme for IconTweaker, Vista theme for IconTweaker
• Zune theme (screenshot)
• I'm sure some of you have heard of TweakUI. It is a nice little tool that allows you access to settings in XP that are not available by default. Very powerful tool.. check it out. For a similar tool in Vista try Winbubble.
• Rocketdock - Want a cool dock menu like OS X has? Here you go! Fully customizable and many skins available.

System Utilities

• ATF Cleaner - Simple temp file cleaner that requires no installation.
• KeePass - password safe
• M8 Free Multi Clipboard - keep track of everything you cut or copy
• WinMerge - find differences between files and folders
• Winpatrol - Multipurpose tool for Windows that allows you to manage and keep an eye on startup programs, activeX controls, Services etc. I personally use this software and install it on all my personal machines.
• WinDirStat Nice tool that gives a visual representation of how the space on your hard drive is allocated. Answers the question, "what the hell is taking up all the space on my disk." Screenshot
• Revo Uninstaller - Uninstalls programs and cleans up most of the garbage some of them leave behind.
• teracopy. This program is EXCELLENT for copying/moving large amounts of data between hard drives. It goes so much faster. Another nice benefit that I like more in windows, is let's say you're moving a total of 8 different folders about 1-2 gb each. In windows, if you don't select them all at once, each new copy/paste opens in a new window and runs concurrently with the last one which is obviously slower. Teracopy just queues them all to the end of the file list and processes them one at a time. I've also had problems in the past with windows somehow forgetting to copy an entire folder, but I've never had that problem teracopy.

CD/DVD burner

• Infrarecorder- open-source and actively developed burning suite. Very easy to use and lightweight.

Encryption

• AxCrypt - Per file encryption. Does not work with XP x64 last I checked
• TrueCrypt- open-source whole or partial disk encryption. The latest version allows system drive encryption.

Virtualization

• Virtualbox - Free virtualization software (like VMware or Virtual PC). It's not as full featured as VMware but it gets the job done easily. If your looking to get started with running a virtual machine try Virtualbox. It might suit your needs while costing you nothing.
• VMWare Server (Free w/ registration) - Allows you to run multiple "virtual" machine on your computer, great for doing other work on your poker-dedicated machine

PDF

• Foxit Reader - Adobe Reader is another piece of software that I despise. This light and free PDF reader gets the job done with none of the BS that comes along with adobe reader.
• Sumatra PDF - It's lighter and faster than Foxit. It's also open-source.

Email client

• Thunderbird - Extensible open-source email client by Mozilla. It does for email clients what Firefox did for browsers imo.

VPN

• Superduper free VPN software for Win/Lin -Hamachi: https://secure.logmein.com/products/...pn.asp?lang=en

Music/Audio/Video

• Quicktime Alternative - Quicktime is awful software in my opinion. Quicktime Alternative is just as it sounds, an alternative.
• Real Alternative In addition to Quicktime alternative, there's Real alternative for the "Real" format media out there.
• Audacity How could I forget Audacity? Open source audio editor.
• Winamp Media Player - MP3, Multimedia, and Music Player. www.winamp.com
• iConcert - http://www.iconcertcal.com/ goes through your iTunes and finds all the shows that your artists are having. press ctrl-t to switch between your regular music library and the iConcert calendar
• VLC Media Player and Real Alternative (for video media).
• foobar2000 Mass music player a la iTunes, but with lower memory use. Supports more file formats so you don't need to convert anything. Very, very customizable. Download the iPod plug-in and it makes iTunes obsolete.
• Yamipod - it's not exactly an alternative to itunes as a player... but for managing your ipod songs it works nicely.
• Media Player Classic - Video Player.
• VLC Player- Video Player, more robust that MPC (can play files that MPC thinks are corrupted), contains numerous codecs and is portable.
• VirtualDub - Video capture/processing utility.
• Super - Video format conversion utility.
• GOM Player - i can't even express in words how good this video player is - so many top notch features and yah...get it
• PSP Video 9 - just a good solid program - interface is pretty crumby but the actual programs is very good - not a bad selection of formats and pretty fast
• WinLAME - "winLAME is an encoder for several audio formats, including mp3 (MPEG Layer 3), Ogg Vorbis and more. winLAME lets you set up the encoding process with an easy-to-use wizard-style user interface. winLAME supports many input audio formats, and uses the LAME mp3 encoding library for encoding and the MAD decoding library for decoding." http://winlame.****************/

Codecs

• Quicktime Alternative - Use this instead of installing the full bloated Quicktime (comes with Media Player Classic).
• Real Alternative - Use this instead of installing the full bloated Real Player (comes with Media Player Classic).
• Klite Mega Codec Pack - Contains almost every codec you could ever need, comes with QTAlt, RealAlt and Media Player Classic.

Editors

• http://www.osalt.com/ultraedit
• Crimson Editor - text editor
• Notepad++
• PSPad
• VIM

Backups

• MS synctoy - In my search for backup software i came across.

Linux

• If some of you are interested in trying Linux out and are new to it, I recommend you check out the Wubi Installer. It allows you to download and install Ubuntu (or Xubuntu and Kubuntu) very easily. You can then boot into Ubuntu natively and use it. It's not a VM or anything like that, although it does use a virtual disk.

Other Notes

• also huge list here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/79...ally-good-747/
• osalt.com is a good website for finding open source alternatives.
• There's also websites you can run a port scan test at: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2. It will scan your ports to see if they're stealthed, closed, or open.

Don't think I saw these mentioned above.

7 ZIP
Supported formats:
Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z.

SPYWARE BLASTER
Multi-Angle Protection

Prevent the installation of ActiveX-based spyware and other potentially unwanted programs.
Block spying / tracking via cookies.
Restrict the actions of potentially unwanted or dangerous web sites.

No-Nonsense Security
SpywareBlaster can help keep your system secure, without interfering with the "good side" of the web. And unlike other programs, SpywareBlaster does not have to remain running in the background. It works alongside the programs you have to help secure your system.

CUTE PDF
CutePDF Writer (formerly CutePDF Printer) is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a "printer subsystem". This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button!

CRAP CLEANER
CCleaner (Crap Cleaner) is a freeware system optimization tool. That removes unused and temporary files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster, more efficiently and giving you more hard disk space. The best part is that it's fast! (normally taking less that a second to run) and Free.

I wanted to add a couple programs in for video editing, and will add a couple more programs when I think of it.


Antivirus

• The following are free Antivirus programs that are commonly recommended. All three have realtime scanning features. Remember to only choose ONE Antivirus program to be running all the time.
• AVG 8 Free - probably the most well known free Antivirus and it's a decent alternative to the paid stuff.
• Antivir Personal - Another decent free AV. Has higher detection rates than AVG although there is a nag screen that pops up everytime it updates. You can disable the pop up by going into the directory where Avira Antivir is installed (use an Administrator account) and right clicking on avnotify.exe, choose Properties, go to the Security tab, and check the Deny Read and Execute permissions. Do this for every user.
• Avast Home Edition Yet another AV. I haven't used it myself but many people recommend it.
• www.free-av.com - Avira personal is a very light and solid Anti virus.

Antispyware/malware

• Malwarebytes Anti-malware - MBAM is a great tool for detecting and removing some pretty stubborn infections.
• SUPERAntiSpyware Free - Another good free AS scanner.
• Spybot it's a great little program for general spyware removal purposes. It's free ofc
• Ad-aware. A program to scan for adware. http://www.lavasoft.com/

Firewall

• Comodo Firewall - If you find Windows firewall to not meet your needs, this free alternative is certainly more powerful and configurable... to the extent that it can be annoying in the beggining. Remember to only have on firewall running at one time.
• Sygate Personal Firewall If you don't like Windows firewall OR Comodo, Sygate might interest you.
• Zone-alarm. A firewall. http://www.zonealarm.com
• You can check out www.matousec.com for firewall leak testing.

Office

• OpenOffice.org - This free open source MS office alternative will more than likely meet your needs. Has a spreadsheet, database, presentation, and word processing program.. and more.

Instant Messaging

• Pidgin - Open source IM program that supports a ton of protocols. Even if you just use AIM I would consider switching. Pidgin has no adds, no bundled software, has a cleaner and lighter interface than AIM 6.
• Miranda - This ultra light and versatile IM program is highly customizable and is a good alternative for those who don't like pidgin.
• AIM Pro (free) is a great IM alternative to standard AIM. It's the 'business user' version of AIM. AIM 6 tilted me so hard, I uninstalled it the same day. AIM Pro is solid.
• http://www.meebo.com/ It's not even a program, it's a website that allows you to use AIM, Yahoo, MSN, Google Talk, and others. Very handy for those of you on computers where you can't (or don't want to) install software.
• Apatch - Patch for MSN messenger that removes removes the advertisments and other visual clutter
• Trillian - IM program that supports AIM, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo Messenger and IRC.
• Off-the-Record Messaging (OTR) - Open-source plug-in for Pidgin that will encrypt conversations if both parties use it. Also works on Trillian.

Voice

• Teamspeak2 - VOIP group chat.
• Ventrilo - VOIP group chat, has better quality sound than Teamspeak.

Browsers

• Mozilla Firefox - Obviously. Most people have already heard of this one, but it's important to list it here.
• Google Chrome - Browser from google. Recently came out of beta.
• Apple Safari
• Opera
• Flock ? - Ohh - This is a real cool Extension for Firefox/Flock for browsing various image/video sites in a completely new (3D) way. http://www.piclens.com/

Image software

• Paint.net - Open source alternative to MS paint. Has ability to work with layers and many other features offered by expensive alternatives.
• Gimp - Open source photo manipulation tool. Very powerful tool. See the link provided for more in depth description.
• Picasa - Very nice photo managing software. Also from google.
• http://www.irfanview.com/ - It's pretty much the best light weight image editor/viewer ever created (IMO).

Desktop/UI

• IconTweaker - For those of you on XP (prolly works on 2000 also) this tool is cool for editing your icons. You can download pre made themes from a place like deviantart, or make your own with .ico files. Leopard Theme for IconTweaker, Vista theme for IconTweaker
• Zune theme (screenshot)
• I'm sure some of you have heard of TweakUI. It is a nice little tool that allows you access to settings in XP that are not available by default. Very powerful tool.. check it out. For a similar tool in Vista try Winbubble.
• Rocketdock - Want a cool dock menu like OS X has? Here you go! Fully customizable and many skins available.

System Utilities

• ATF Cleaner - Simple temp file cleaner that requires no installation.
• KeePass - password safe
• M8 Free Multi Clipboard - keep track of everything you cut or copy
• WinMerge - find differences between files and folders
• Winpatrol - Multipurpose tool for Windows that allows you to manage and keep an eye on startup programs, activeX controls, Services etc. I personally use this software and install it on all my personal machines.
• WinDirStat Nice tool that gives a visual representation of how the space on your hard drive is allocated. Answers the question, "what the hell is taking up all the space on my disk." Screenshot
• Revo Uninstaller - Uninstalls programs and cleans up most of the garbage some of them leave behind.
• teracopy. This program is EXCELLENT for copying/moving large amounts of data between hard drives. It goes so much faster. Another nice benefit that I like more in windows, is let's say you're moving a total of 8 different folders about 1-2 gb each. In windows, if you don't select them all at once, each new copy/paste opens in a new window and runs concurrently with the last one which is obviously slower. Teracopy just queues them all to the end of the file list and processes them one at a time. I've also had problems in the past with windows somehow forgetting to copy an entire folder, but I've never had that problem teracopy.

CD/DVD burner

• Infrarecorder- open-source and actively developed burning suite. Very easy to use and lightweight.

Encryption

• AxCrypt - Per file encryption. Does not work with XP x64 last I checked
• TrueCrypt- open-source whole or partial disk encryption. The latest version allows system drive encryption.

Virtualization

• Virtualbox - Free virtualization software (like VMware or Virtual PC). It's not as full featured as VMware but it gets the job done easily. If your looking to get started with running a virtual machine try Virtualbox. It might suit your needs while costing you nothing.
• VMWare Server (Free w/ registration) - Allows you to run multiple "virtual" machine on your computer, great for doing other work on your poker-dedicated machine

PDF

• Foxit Reader - Adobe Reader is another piece of software that I despise. This light and free PDF reader gets the job done with none of the BS that comes along with adobe reader.
• Sumatra PDF - It's lighter and faster than Foxit. It's also open-source.

Email client

• Thunderbird - Extensible open-source email client by Mozilla. It does for email clients what Firefox did for browsers imo.

VPN

• Superduper free VPN software for Win/Lin -Hamachi: https://secure.logmein.com/products/...pn.asp?lang=en

Music/Audio/Video

• Quicktime Alternative - Quicktime is awful software in my opinion. Quicktime Alternative is just as it sounds, an alternative.
• Real Alternative In addition to Quicktime alternative, there's Real alternative for the "Real" format media out there.
• Audacity How could I forget Audacity? Open source audio editor.
• Winamp Media Player - MP3, Multimedia, and Music Player. www.winamp.com
• iConcert - http://www.iconcertcal.com/ goes through your iTunes and finds all the shows that your artists are having. press ctrl-t to switch between your regular music library and the iConcert calendar
• VLC Media Player and Real Alternative (for video media).
• foobar2000 Mass music player a la iTunes, but with lower memory use. Supports more file formats so you don't need to convert anything. Very, very customizable. Download the iPod plug-in and it makes iTunes obsolete.
• Yamipod - it's not exactly an alternative to itunes as a player... but for managing your ipod songs it works nicely.
• Media Player Classic - Video Player.
• VLC Player- Video Player, more robust that MPC (can play files that MPC thinks are corrupted), contains numerous codecs and is portable.
• VirtualDub - Video capture/processing utility.
• Super - Video format conversion utility.
• GOM Player - i can't even express in words how good this video player is - so many top notch features and yah...get it
• PSP Video 9 - just a good solid program - interface is pretty crumby but the actual programs is very good - not a bad selection of formats and pretty fast
• WinLAME - "winLAME is an encoder for several audio formats, including mp3 (MPEG Layer 3), Ogg Vorbis and more. winLAME lets you set up the encoding process with an easy-to-use wizard-style user interface. winLAME supports many input audio formats, and uses the LAME mp3 encoding library for encoding and the MAD decoding library for decoding." http://winlame.****************/
• Videopad - Very similar to Movie Maker in layout, but very important it let's you save in .flv, .mov, .avi, and .wmv.
• Camstudio - I am sure that everyone know of this screen capture, but it needs to be on here.
• WM Encoder - If you want to compress your video simply into .wmv I have had good luck with this and it produces great quality.

Codecs

• Quicktime Alternative - Use this instead of installing the full bloated Quicktime (comes with Media Player Classic).
• Real Alternative - Use this instead of installing the full bloated Real Player (comes with Media Player Classic).
• Klite Mega Codec Pack - Contains almost every codec you could ever need, comes with QTAlt, RealAlt and Media Player Classic.

Editors

• http://www.osalt.com/ultraedit
• Crimson Editor - text editor
• Notepad++
• PSPad
• VIM

Backups

• MS synctoy - In my search for backup software i came across.

Linux

• If some of you are interested in trying Linux out and are new to it, I recommend you check out the Wubi Installer. It allows you to download and install Ubuntu (or Xubuntu and Kubuntu) very easily. You can then boot into Ubuntu natively and use it. It's not a VM or anything like that, although it does use a virtual disk.

Other Notes

• also huge list here: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/79...ally-good-747/
• osalt.com is a good website for finding open source alternatives.
• There's also websites you can run a port scan test at: https://www.grc.com/x/ne.dll?bh0bkyd2. It will scan your ports to see if they're stealthed, closed, or open.

Anyone use an alarm clock?

KeyScrambler Personal - Encrypts all keyboard input at the kernal level (works free in sync with your web browser)

www.pcalarmclockreviews.info

I downloaded this program and it seems to be better than the regular aim program....however it keeps automatically opening AOL.com in firefox, even if I have that page open. Very annoying. I didn't see an option to turn that behavior off.

Love the Key scrambler program....is that really effective against a keylogger? And also like the ATF prorgam.

I am using Pidgin for my MSN/AIM now, and I love it.

Best rar/zip program?

7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/), then WinRAR.

If you are looking for free software, check out Gizmo.
(and subscribe to their hot finds to get news about giveaways of comercial software)
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any good .pdf CREATORS out there?
Lokks like foxit and Sumatra are both just readers..

PrimoPDF installs as a printer on your computer and lets you print anything to pdf. There are others that do the same, but that was the one I found a while ago.

I don't know how fancy of a pdf creator you need, but you can use openoffice (writer) and just click "file -> export as pdf".

Ya i can do that with office 2007.
Problem i am having is that images that are inserted in a doc don't transfer well when converted, i meed to be able to place the images directly in to the pdf. I haven't tried printing to PDF yet though...

I use CutePDF.

Open Office will also export to pdf.

AlienGUIse, WXP/Vista themes by alienware

http://www.alienware.com/community/a...e-manager.aspx

What about printing solutions?
Looking for something to ..create and print professional-looking business forms, business cards, letterhead, envelopes, labels and checks postcards right from your computer.

thx for this, def. should be stickied

Office has gotten much better at this with the later versions.

The software isn't the issue here as kerowo just said Office is fine. The trick is mostly in stock selection.

Yup, spend a little money and get some texture and heft to your paper and it will look professional. Getting business cards printed is fairly cheap and nothing you can do at home will look as good.

This should be stickied.

Also any burning alternative?
Something akin to NERO