Frontpage
Forums
Tutorials
Members
Calendar
Subscription
Donate
Links
Contact 
Help
Quote
Video Player & DVD:
VideoLAN http://www.videolan.org
VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
Media Player Classic http://sourceforge.n...cts/guliverkli/
Media Player Classic is an extremely light-weight media player for Windows. It looks just like the good-old Media Player v6.4, but has lots of nice extra features. MPC has, for instance, a built in DVD player with real-time zoom, support for AVI subtitles, QuickTime and RealVideo support (requires QT and/or Real player), and lots more. Definitely a great replacement for the huge and clumsy Microsoft Media Players.
Music Player: foobar2000 http://www.foobar2000.org
Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats.
Editor: Notepad++ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net
Notepad++ is a source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the M$ Windows environment. This project, written in C++ with pure win32 api (i.e. without MFC, that ensures the higher execution speed and smaller size of the program), is under the GPL Licence.
Web Browser: Mozilla FireFox http://www.mozilla.o...oducts/firefox/
Firefox 0.9 is the award winning preview of Mozilla's next generation browser. Firefox empowers you to browse faster, more safely and efficiently than with any other browser.
Email Client: Mozilla ThunderBird http://www.mozilla.o...ts/thunderbird/
Thunderbird 0.7 is Mozilla's next generation e-mail client. Thunderbird makes emailing safer, faster and easier than ever before with the industry's best implementations of features such as intelligent spam filters, a built-in spell checker, extension support, and much more.
Compression Utility: 7zip http://www.7-zip.org
7-Zip is a file archiver with the highest compression ratio. The program supports 7z, ZIP, RAR, CAB, ARJ, CPIO, RPM, DEB, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR formats. Compression ratio in the new 7z format is 30-50% better than ratio in ZIP format. Also 7-Zip compresses to ZIP 2-10% better than PKZip and WinZip. 7-Zip has additional powerful command line version and FAR Manager support.
Burning Applications: CDBurnerXP Pro http://www.cdburnerxp.se
CDBurnerXP Pro is an easy to use CD burning software, that can write CD-R and CD-RW discs. The program can also write disks directly from an ISO image file, and save image as an ISO image file (*.iso). You can create data and audio CDs, however it currently only supports WAV files for audio. It does however support Burn-Proof technology, multi-session disks, import of ISO images and more. In addition to CD burning, you can also rip audio CDs, normalize WAV files, encode MP3 files, erase disks, CDBurnerXP Pro does not require ASPI when used under for NT/2000/XP.
Spyware Removal: Spy Bot Search & Destroy http://www.safer-networking.org
Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer. Spyware is a relatively new kind of threat that common anti-virus applications do not yet cover. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you didn't intentionally install, if your browser crashes, or if you browser start page has changed without your knowing, you most probably have spyware. But even if you don't see anything, you may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging that is silently tracking your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile of you that will be sold to advertisement companies.
FTP Client: FileZilla http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
FileZilla is a powerful FTP-client for Windows 9x, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP. It has been designed for ease of use and with support for as many features as possible, while still being fast and reliable.
FTP Server: FileZilla Server http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
FileZilla Server is a small and fast FTP Server. The server looks like the famous G6, but it is free.
Icon Manager/Changer: IconPhile http://www.virtualpl...row/iphile.html
Icon Phile is a small program for customizing windows's system icons. Using IconPhile you can change the standard Desktop icons ( MY Computer, Recycle Bin, Network Neighborhood, etc..), drive icons (Hard drive, Floppy drives, external drives), folder icons ( Open and Closed Folders, Printers, DialUp, Tasks.. or any individual folder) and more.
Image/Mounting: Daemon Tools http://www.daemon-to...rtal/portal.php
DAEMON Tools is an advanced application for multiprotection emulation. It is further development of Generic Safedisc emulator and incorporates all its features. This program allows running Backup Copies of SafeDisc (C-Dilla), Securom, Laserlock, CDCOPS, StarForce and Protect CD (and many others) protected games. Also included is a Virtual DVDROM drive (Generic DVD-ROM) enabling you to use your CD images as if they were already burned to CD! DAEMON Tools works under Windows9x/ME/NT/2000/XP with all types of CD/DVDROM drives (IDE/SCSI) and supports nearly any CD protection.
Telnet/SSH Client: PuTTY http://www.chiark.gr...sgtatham/putty/
PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham.
Image Manipulation: The GimP http://www.gimp.org/
The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
IRC Clients:
HydraIRC http://www.hydrairc.com/
HydraIRC is an open-source IRC client with an attractive and easy to use interface. It supports DCC Chat and File transfers, Connecting to multiple servers, Dockable Floating Tabbed Windows, Autohiding Windows, DLL Plugins, Channel Monitoring, Message Logs, Event Viewer, Themes, Color schemes, Buddy groups, Audible and Visual Notifications , Reg-Exp Highlighting, Favorites and much more.
Note: HydraIRC is NOT a script, plugin or any other kind of add-on for mIRC. In fact it's got nothing to do with mIRC at all
XChat http://www.xchat.org
Xchat is an IRC client for UNIX operating systems. I.R.C. is Internet Relay Chat, see http://irchelp.org for more information about IRC in general. Xchat runs on most BSD and POSIX compliant operating systems.
Binary Editors: Resource Hacker http://www.users.on..../resourcehacker
Resource HackerTM is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource files (*.res). It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2000 and WinXP operating systems.
Video & Audio Decoders: http://home.hccnet.n...skes/mirror.htm
Video
DVD
Cyberlink DVD Decoder:
This comes with WinDVD or you could install it with K-Lite Codec Pack. It is needed for playback of .VOB files.
VCD
MPEG2 Elecard Decoder
If you want to be able to watch MPEG2 movies in high quality and perfomance i recomend u go for this one. You can also install it though K-Lite Codec Pack.
XviD/DiVX
VideoLAN uses it's own internal plugins to decode some of the popular movie compressions, therefore you would not need these decoders if u'r planing to playback them in VideoLAN. Alternativly if u'r going to use some other media player i'd recomend to go for encoder/decoder of your own choice. For begginers who are looking for less fuss and troubles i advise you to go for ffdshow. For some of you that wants to know what kind of codecs u have in your system or just prefers something else go with your own wish and get them seperetly.
ffdshow http://sourceforge.n...ojects/ffdshow/
"ffdshow is DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DIVX and XVID movies using libavcodec or xvid with rich set of video
postprocessing filters. ffdshow can also be used as a separate postprocessing filter for other decoders."
XviD http://www.roeder.go...oepi/xvid.shtml http://www.xvid.org
XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec. It's no product, it's an open source project which is developed and maintained by lots of
people from all over the world.
DiVX http://www.divx.com
The DivX® codec enables playback of every version of DivX content ever created, and gives you instant access to millions of
DivX videos available on the Internet today. Now you can get a DivX® Certified DVD player to watch your movie on your TV, pack your
personal video player to watch on the plane, or create videos that finally take advantage of the superb visual clarity of your HDTV.
The DivX codec also adds DivX video playback support to most popular media players.
Audio
AC3 http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/
Was there a moment where your movie would just play but you couldnt get the sound working no matter what. After many days of searching and looking for problem, you find that it's just an audio filter u'r missing. Most of the new XviD/DiVX films come encoded with high quality ac3 sound which enables 5.1 channels. For that kind of thing u need AC3Filter.
"AC3Filter - it is DirectShow filter for AC3 decoding to play .AVI with AC3 audio tracks and MPEG2 (DVD). Distributed absolutely for free (FREEWARE, OpenSource)."
If u'v still got problems and dont know what codecs u need for movie try using AVIcodec or GSpot to identify the codecs/filters needed or you could visit http://www.videohelp.com
AVCodec
AVIcodec is a nice little tool for identifying what codecs you need in order to play your multimedia files. Program supports MPEG-1/MPEG-2, AVI, Ogg, ASF, WMV, etc formats. This tool is a direct competitor to GSpot, but has better support for non-AVI formats, such as VCD, SVCD, DVD, etc. AVIcodec can also produce a simple list of all codecs installed on your computer, whether they are actual video or audio codecs, or just Windows' DirectShow filters.
GSpot
GSpot is a nice little tool that allows you to see what audio and video codecs the video file uses in order to determine what you need to install on your system to watch it.
Office: OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org
OpenOffice.org is an open-source project, home of the OpenOffice.org 1.1 software, the most widely distributed open-source multi-platform productivity suite. The OpenOffice.org community was founded and sponsored by Sun Microsystems in 2000. An active community, of which Sun is a key member, enhances and supports the OpenOffice.org office suite.
P2P/Share Apps:
Limewire http://www.limewire.com
LimeWire is the world's fastest P2P file-sharing application. It enables the sharing, searching, and downloading of MP3 files. LimeWire also lets users share and search for all types of computer files, including movies, pictures, games, and text documents. Other features include dynamic querying, push-proxy support for connecting through firewalls, the ability to preview files while downloading, advanced techniques for locating rare files, and an extremely intuitive user interface.
Azureus http://azureus.sourceforge.net
Azureus is a java bittorrent client. It provides a bittorrent protocol implementation using java language. Azureus offers multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority systems (on torrents and files), start/stop seeding options and instant access to numerous pieces of information about your torrents.
VideoLAN http://www.videolan.org
VLC (initially VideoLAN Client) is a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols. It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
Media Player Classic http://sourceforge.n...cts/guliverkli/
Media Player Classic is an extremely light-weight media player for Windows. It looks just like the good-old Media Player v6.4, but has lots of nice extra features. MPC has, for instance, a built in DVD player with real-time zoom, support for AVI subtitles, QuickTime and RealVideo support (requires QT and/or Real player), and lots more. Definitely a great replacement for the huge and clumsy Microsoft Media Players.
Music Player: foobar2000 http://www.foobar2000.org
Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include ReplayGain support, low memory footprint and native support for several popular audio formats.
Editor: Notepad++ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net
Notepad++ is a source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the M$ Windows environment. This project, written in C++ with pure win32 api (i.e. without MFC, that ensures the higher execution speed and smaller size of the program), is under the GPL Licence.
Web Browser: Mozilla FireFox http://www.mozilla.o...oducts/firefox/
Firefox 0.9 is the award winning preview of Mozilla's next generation browser. Firefox empowers you to browse faster, more safely and efficiently than with any other browser.
Email Client: Mozilla ThunderBird http://www.mozilla.o...ts/thunderbird/
Thunderbird 0.7 is Mozilla's next generation e-mail client. Thunderbird makes emailing safer, faster and easier than ever before with the industry's best implementations of features such as intelligent spam filters, a built-in spell checker, extension support, and much more.
Compression Utility: 7zip http://www.7-zip.org
7-Zip is a file archiver with the highest compression ratio. The program supports 7z, ZIP, RAR, CAB, ARJ, CPIO, RPM, DEB, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR formats. Compression ratio in the new 7z format is 30-50% better than ratio in ZIP format. Also 7-Zip compresses to ZIP 2-10% better than PKZip and WinZip. 7-Zip has additional powerful command line version and FAR Manager support.
Burning Applications: CDBurnerXP Pro http://www.cdburnerxp.se
CDBurnerXP Pro is an easy to use CD burning software, that can write CD-R and CD-RW discs. The program can also write disks directly from an ISO image file, and save image as an ISO image file (*.iso). You can create data and audio CDs, however it currently only supports WAV files for audio. It does however support Burn-Proof technology, multi-session disks, import of ISO images and more. In addition to CD burning, you can also rip audio CDs, normalize WAV files, encode MP3 files, erase disks, CDBurnerXP Pro does not require ASPI when used under for NT/2000/XP.
Spyware Removal: Spy Bot Search & Destroy http://www.safer-networking.org
Spybot - Search & Destroy can detect and remove spyware of different kinds from your computer. Spyware is a relatively new kind of threat that common anti-virus applications do not yet cover. If you see new toolbars in your Internet Explorer that you didn't intentionally install, if your browser crashes, or if you browser start page has changed without your knowing, you most probably have spyware. But even if you don't see anything, you may be infected, because more and more spyware is emerging that is silently tracking your surfing behaviour to create a marketing profile of you that will be sold to advertisement companies.
FTP Client: FileZilla http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
FileZilla is a powerful FTP-client for Windows 9x, ME, NT4, 2000 and XP. It has been designed for ease of use and with support for as many features as possible, while still being fast and reliable.
FTP Server: FileZilla Server http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
FileZilla Server is a small and fast FTP Server. The server looks like the famous G6, but it is free.
Icon Manager/Changer: IconPhile http://www.virtualpl...row/iphile.html
Icon Phile is a small program for customizing windows's system icons. Using IconPhile you can change the standard Desktop icons ( MY Computer, Recycle Bin, Network Neighborhood, etc..), drive icons (Hard drive, Floppy drives, external drives), folder icons ( Open and Closed Folders, Printers, DialUp, Tasks.. or any individual folder) and more.
Image/Mounting: Daemon Tools http://www.daemon-to...rtal/portal.php
DAEMON Tools is an advanced application for multiprotection emulation. It is further development of Generic Safedisc emulator and incorporates all its features. This program allows running Backup Copies of SafeDisc (C-Dilla), Securom, Laserlock, CDCOPS, StarForce and Protect CD (and many others) protected games. Also included is a Virtual DVDROM drive (Generic DVD-ROM) enabling you to use your CD images as if they were already burned to CD! DAEMON Tools works under Windows9x/ME/NT/2000/XP with all types of CD/DVDROM drives (IDE/SCSI) and supports nearly any CD protection.
Telnet/SSH Client: PuTTY http://www.chiark.gr...sgtatham/putty/
PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator. It is written and maintained primarily by Simon Tatham.
Image Manipulation: The GimP http://www.gimp.org/
The GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.
IRC Clients:
HydraIRC http://www.hydrairc.com/
HydraIRC is an open-source IRC client with an attractive and easy to use interface. It supports DCC Chat and File transfers, Connecting to multiple servers, Dockable Floating Tabbed Windows, Autohiding Windows, DLL Plugins, Channel Monitoring, Message Logs, Event Viewer, Themes, Color schemes, Buddy groups, Audible and Visual Notifications , Reg-Exp Highlighting, Favorites and much more.
Note: HydraIRC is NOT a script, plugin or any other kind of add-on for mIRC. In fact it's got nothing to do with mIRC at all
XChat http://www.xchat.org
Xchat is an IRC client for UNIX operating systems. I.R.C. is Internet Relay Chat, see http://irchelp.org for more information about IRC in general. Xchat runs on most BSD and POSIX compliant operating systems.
Binary Editors: Resource Hacker http://www.users.on..../resourcehacker
Resource HackerTM is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource files (*.res). It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2000 and WinXP operating systems.
Video & Audio Decoders: http://home.hccnet.n...skes/mirror.htm
Video
DVD
Cyberlink DVD Decoder:
This comes with WinDVD or you could install it with K-Lite Codec Pack. It is needed for playback of .VOB files.
VCD
MPEG2 Elecard Decoder
If you want to be able to watch MPEG2 movies in high quality and perfomance i recomend u go for this one. You can also install it though K-Lite Codec Pack.
XviD/DiVX
VideoLAN uses it's own internal plugins to decode some of the popular movie compressions, therefore you would not need these decoders if u'r planing to playback them in VideoLAN. Alternativly if u'r going to use some other media player i'd recomend to go for encoder/decoder of your own choice. For begginers who are looking for less fuss and troubles i advise you to go for ffdshow. For some of you that wants to know what kind of codecs u have in your system or just prefers something else go with your own wish and get them seperetly.
ffdshow http://sourceforge.n...ojects/ffdshow/
"ffdshow is DirectShow decoding filter for decompressing DIVX and XVID movies using libavcodec or xvid with rich set of video
postprocessing filters. ffdshow can also be used as a separate postprocessing filter for other decoders."
XviD http://www.roeder.go...oepi/xvid.shtml http://www.xvid.org
XviD is an ISO MPEG-4 compliant video codec. It's no product, it's an open source project which is developed and maintained by lots of
people from all over the world.
DiVX http://www.divx.com
The DivX® codec enables playback of every version of DivX content ever created, and gives you instant access to millions of
DivX videos available on the Internet today. Now you can get a DivX® Certified DVD player to watch your movie on your TV, pack your
personal video player to watch on the plane, or create videos that finally take advantage of the superb visual clarity of your HDTV.
The DivX codec also adds DivX video playback support to most popular media players.
Audio
AC3 http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/
Was there a moment where your movie would just play but you couldnt get the sound working no matter what. After many days of searching and looking for problem, you find that it's just an audio filter u'r missing. Most of the new XviD/DiVX films come encoded with high quality ac3 sound which enables 5.1 channels. For that kind of thing u need AC3Filter.
"AC3Filter - it is DirectShow filter for AC3 decoding to play .AVI with AC3 audio tracks and MPEG2 (DVD). Distributed absolutely for free (FREEWARE, OpenSource)."
If u'v still got problems and dont know what codecs u need for movie try using AVIcodec or GSpot to identify the codecs/filters needed or you could visit http://www.videohelp.com
AVCodec
AVIcodec is a nice little tool for identifying what codecs you need in order to play your multimedia files. Program supports MPEG-1/MPEG-2, AVI, Ogg, ASF, WMV, etc formats. This tool is a direct competitor to GSpot, but has better support for non-AVI formats, such as VCD, SVCD, DVD, etc. AVIcodec can also produce a simple list of all codecs installed on your computer, whether they are actual video or audio codecs, or just Windows' DirectShow filters.
GSpot
GSpot is a nice little tool that allows you to see what audio and video codecs the video file uses in order to determine what you need to install on your system to watch it.
Office: OpenOffice http://www.openoffice.org
OpenOffice.org is an open-source project, home of the OpenOffice.org 1.1 software, the most widely distributed open-source multi-platform productivity suite. The OpenOffice.org community was founded and sponsored by Sun Microsystems in 2000. An active community, of which Sun is a key member, enhances and supports the OpenOffice.org office suite.
P2P/Share Apps:
Limewire http://www.limewire.com
LimeWire is the world's fastest P2P file-sharing application. It enables the sharing, searching, and downloading of MP3 files. LimeWire also lets users share and search for all types of computer files, including movies, pictures, games, and text documents. Other features include dynamic querying, push-proxy support for connecting through firewalls, the ability to preview files while downloading, advanced techniques for locating rare files, and an extremely intuitive user interface.
Azureus http://azureus.sourceforge.net
Azureus is a java bittorrent client. It provides a bittorrent protocol implementation using java language. Azureus offers multiple torrent downloads, queuing/priority systems (on torrents and files), start/stop seeding options and instant access to numerous pieces of information about your torrents.
Comments are welcome
Back to top
some of which i still use. Freeware OWNS
(I don't install DivX junk on my PCs 
)
