Free software we have found useful!

(Not shareware, crippleware or nagware)

• File compression
  • Alzip - Simple and fast, multiple formats
  • 7-Zip - Powerful Command Line features plus can make stable archives over 4 Gb.
  • Zipgenius - Good Command Line and flexible, full featured GUI Interface, but a bit slow.

   

• PDF Creation
  • PDFCreator - Best free PDF printer I have found. Allows watched folders for postscript files and configurable naming conventions so you do not have to type the file name every time.

• CAD Viewing
  • eDrawings - An absolute must have for Pro/Engineer and Solidworks users

• Office Suite (document editing, spreadsheet, presentation, database, etc)
  • OpenOffice - With the exception of Outlook, it really rivals MS Office

   

• Project Management (Gantt charts, resource allocation, etc)
  • GanttProject - Simple. easy and effective

• Email/Calendar
  • Mozilla Thunderbird/Calendar - Not quite to the level of MS Outlook but looks promising

• FTP (File Transfer Protocol)
  • Filezilla - Very configurable. FTP Server and Client software

• Image Editing
  • IrfanView - Even has a Command Line interface (no, we don't know what the name means either)

• Windows Registry Cleaner
  • Regseeker - Works well for searching and cleaning

• Hardware Information
  • Sisoftware Sandra Lite - Tells you more than you want to know as well as some nice benchmark utilities

• System Monitoring
  • Speedfan - Ahead of its time. Slick program that monitors the various system temperatures and adjusts the various fans accordingly

• Antivirus
  • AVG Free Edition - One of several free Antivirus programs