Useful Software

I have used each of the software listed here myself and I am only listing them after being really satisfied by their functionality and quality. All of them are free and do not contain any malicious tools to the best of my knowledge.

» API-Guide:

API-Guide covers 900 API functions, all documented, and explained with an example. Several functions also have a .NET equivalent and .NET example code. Extremely useful for developers who need to use Windows API calls.

Highly Recommended!

URL: http://allapi.net/agnet/apiguide.shtml

» Auslogics Disk Defrag:

Auslogics Disk Defrag is a nice little software designed to defragment hard disks. Everybody knows that Windows also ships with a defragmenter but Auslogics Disk Defrag is really fast. It's efficiency is really good too and of-course it is free!

URL: http://www.auslogics.com/en/software/disk-defrag

» BitSpirit:

BitSpirit is a powerful and easy-to-use BitTorrent client which provides not only full BitTorrent protocol implementation but also many personalized features. It supports simultaneous downloads, download queue, UPNP port-maping, NAT traversal (UDP transport), select downloads from multiple files torrent package, disk cache, chatting with other peers, torrent market, IP-filter, etc. In 3.0 or above versions of BitSpirit, it also supports DHT network which is based on Kademlia protocol and fully compatible with Bittorrent official client.

Highly Recommended!

Original URL (Broken from a long time): http://www.167bt.com/intl/
Suggested Alternate URL: http://bitspirit.en.softonic.com/

» DVDx:

DVDx allows you to convert DVD to VCD2.0 or SCVD1.0 or DivX or WMV in one step (including multiplexing, splitting). It produces very good quality movies in MPEG1/2 format and you don't need to have 5GB or more free on your hard disk. DVDx has been designed especialy for unexperimented users, it is a simple and intuitive program. You only need Nero to burn your VCD/SVCD. DVDx has evolved in a very powerful program, the fastest DVD backup solution ever and is now adopted by a lot of people including advanced users.

URL: http://www.labdv.com/dvdx/download.php

» floAt's Mobile Agent:

FMA is a free powerful phone editing tool allowing users to easily manage all of the personal data stored in their phones, via a number of different connections methods. FMA allows easy management of Phonebook (both SIM and Phone memory), SMS, Profiles, and Files stored on the phone. FMA can also allow you to pickup and dial calls directly from your PC. FMA is fun and much more; whatever you want it to be, it is whatever a mobile phone should have :-) (Currently based on Sony Ericsson T610 features set & will not work on non-Sony Ericsson mobile phones).

URL: http://fma.sourceforge.net/index2.htm

» Hamachi:

LogMeIn Hamachi is a zero-configuration virtual private networking (VPN) application. In other words Hamachi is a program that allows you to arrange multiple computers into their own secure network just as if they were connected by a physical network cable. Hamachi is fast, secure and simple. Its core version is also free.

Hamachi gives you LAN over the Internet. Virtually any application that works over local/home networks can also be used over Hamachi networks. Think - Windows File Sharing, iTunes, Remote Desktop, Remote Assistance or even gaming - all fully encrypted, authenticated and peer-to-peer.

URL: http://www.hamachi.cc/

» Launchy:

Launchy is a free windows utility designed to help you forget about your start menu, the icons on your desktop, and even your file manager. Launchy indexes the programs in your start menu and can launch your documents, project files, folders, and bookmarks with just a few keystrokes!

Highly Recommended!

URL: http://www.launchy.net/

» Switch:

Switch sound file conversion software is an audio file format converter for Windows or Mac. It can convert audio files from many different file formats into mp3 or wav files including wav to mp3, mp3 to wav, wma to mp3 and much more (see the supported formats list below).

Switch audio file converter is very easy to use. Just add the files you want to convert to the list, select the format you want to use, and then click the convert button.

This is simply the best audio converter I've ever used.

URL: http://www.nch.com.au/switch/index.html

» TUGZip:

TUGZip is a powerful award-winning freeware archiving utility for Windows that provides support for a wide range of compressed, encoded and disc-image files, as well as very powerful features; all through an easy to use application interface and Windows Explorer integration.

URL: http://www.tugzip.com/

» WinSnap:

WinSnap is a small enhancement utility for taking and editing screenshots. It can easily capture windows of non-rectangular form with the background of your choice, automatically perform simple canvas transformations and coloring effects, add professional smoothing shadows in Photoshop style and more. Also, WinSnap supports variety of image formats and provides advanced auto-save features.

There is also a Portable Edition of WinSnap available for download. It is a special edition of WinSnap designed to run it from a removable media: USB flash drive, memory stick, iPod/MP3 player, network share, etc.

URL: http://www.ntwind.com/software/winsnap.html

» Xvid Video Codec:

The Xvid video codec implements MPEG-4 Simple Profile and Advanced Simple Profile standards. It permits compressing and decompressing digital video in order to reduce the required bandwidth of video data for transmission over computer networks or efficient storage on CDs or DVDs. Due to its unrivalled quality Xvid has gained great popularity and is used in many other GPLed applications, like e.g. Transcode, MEncoder, MPlayer, Xine and many more.

The Xvid video codec has gained a lot of popularity along with the DivX video codec. Basically both these codecs work on MPEG-4 compression standards but Xvid is an open source research project released under the terms of the GNU GPL license and thus is free for download and use which DivX is not. Some experts believe that Xvid gives better compression and provides higher quality than DivX for the same file size.

URL: http://www.xvid.org/