Top Ten Free Programs I Use - freeware, open source

Thought I'd make a list of a bunch of neat apps that I use, some people might find a few new apps they may like in my list.

1. Firefox I probably use it more than any other program. Not much to add here since most people know about it. My top five extensions would be:
• Adblock Plus - Self explanatory.
• Tab Mix Plus (I like my address bar opening urls I enter into new tabs) It has a lot of other features too.
• Foxmarks - Backs up your bookmarks online so that you synchronize and get them if you lose them or download them on a second PC. I have 500+ bookmarks, so it's an absolute necessity for me.
• Aging tabs - Tabs you haven't looked at while you're browsing begin to change colour. (colours are definable too). I have mine set to turn a shade closer to red and then eventually blue every time I switch between other tabs. It's a great way to see which pages I haven't been looking at and can probably close.
• Image zoom - Hold the right mouse button + scroll your scroll-wheel while hovering over a picture to make it bigger or smaller.

2. Launchy - Launcher application, basically you press alt+space (keys configurable) and then type in the first few letters of any program you have running, files in certain folders (depending on which folders you tell it to index), and even your bookmarks. It can also search popular search engines. It becomes "more intelligent" as you use it too, selecting things you access more frequently than those you do not when typing in the first few letters for a program, file, or webpage. It also doubles as a basic calculator. Screenshot Sleek WMP theme as seen in the screenshot.

3. Unlocker - Adds an option to your right click menu which allows you to delete files which won't delete. E.g. when you get a message saying "Cannot delete file: Access is denied".

4. VLC Media player - Neat little player that allows you to play almost any media file. Comes in handy if you have some video file which isn't recognized in windows media player for example.

5. Any Video Converter - Somewhat self explanatory, basically it converts any video file to another format. Useful for converting files so that they work on an ipod or something.

6. Lightscreen - Neat little app that runs in your system tray which will take screenshots and save them to your desktop or any directory you specify. Alt+Print screen takes a screenshot of only the active window and Ctrl+Print screen takes a screenshot of a square selection you can drag and select with your mouse. The shortcuts can be customised too.

7. Acronis True Image - Disk imaging application. In other words, you can clone your hard drive which has windows installed on it to another hard drive or partition so that if anything should go wrong on your PC, you can restore the entire windows installation back to EXACTLY how it was when you backed it up.
This one isn't actually free but they do have a more limited version that IS free for people with Seagate hard drives: link Technically it will work on any hard drive, so that shouldn't matter. It offers the basic functionality to back up and restore a drive image, which is all most people would probably need anyway. I purchased the full version though because it was worth it for me. It has saved me having to reformat several times now.

8. Rklauncher - Icon dock, much like those on Mac operating systems. Screenshot Leopard theme as seen in screenshot. The latest nightly build has more features and works better than the main one which you get from the download button. Direct link: link

9. ScrubXP - History cleaning app, basically you install it and it adds a small button on your system tray which you can double click to clear the history of run commands, windows media player, internet explorer, etc. I like to use it after having run different run commands on a machine since it cleans up their run window history. After you've run it, you just right click the icon>uninstall and it uninstalls itself almost instantly. I've run out of time for the last two.

10. Defraggler - Great little disk defragmenting app, lightweight, allows for the defragmenting of specific files too and is somewhat faster than the normal windows defragment tool.

11. Nvidia nHancer - Something I got quite recently actually after purchasing spore. Basically it allows you to set all the graphics settings for different games on your PC. Spore doesn't have any anti-aliasing settings in its option menu, so I used it to turn them on. Not sure HOW often I'll even ever need to use it, but it certainly is a help if a game just lacks one or two quality setting options or if you want to set it a bit higher than the game might offer.