Slashdot Mirror
Free Windows Software Without Spyware/Adware
Jem Berkes writes "This week I launched CleanSoftware.org, a resource site with a unique goal: listing free, daily-use software that is free from spyware, adware, and other malicious/intrusive components. With Windows users increasingly believing that free software invariably means adware or spyware, I set out to promote good, clean, free software. Perhaps geeks helping family and friends set up their new computers this holiday can make use of this resource; sticking to clean software is much easier than struggling with never-ending cleanups. To expand my listing, I am also looking for input from the Slashdot readership: what other free, clean desktop software do you regularly use that Windows users should know about?"
I am also looking for input from the Slashdot readership: what other free, clean desktop software do you regularly use that Windows users should know about?
Firefox (and Linux!).
You've got to be kidding.
All you're going to get is "All you need to do is list Linux and you're done." comments.
www.pricelessware.org ?
--
"Just believe everything I tell you, and it will all be very, very simple."
the programs that are every bit of other programs except they take the crapware out. A good example is Kazaa vs. Kazaa Lite. Everyone loves Kazaa and hears about it from friends, but it's full of crap.
for the mac page, see http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/
A clean design? Valid HTML? Valid CSS? Useful info? No ads?
What's the catch?
Foobar2000 (audio player) :P
Miranda (instant messenger)
PuTTY (telnet/ssh client. but if you didn't know _that_, then you really have no business being here.)
I use IrfanView. The lighest and quickest image viewer for Windows that I've ever used.
Nice.
From the benevolent computer geek in me: thank you.
From the computer repair business owner in me: ouch.
Electrons are free; it is moving them that becomes expensive.
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternati ve.htm
Although less annoying, there's a Quicktime alternative too:
http://www.free-codecs.com/download/QuickTime_Alte rnative.htm
Nice idea. I suggest you put a special icon next to open source software. I'm not saying you should be an open source evangelical, but I do think that *some* people who browse your site might prefer open source (and especially GNU) to propietary software, if they are given a clear choice. [For the record, I often choose propietery "clean" software myself. And sometimes I even (gasp!) pay for it. I'm very, very happy with Trillian 3 Pro, and am unsatisfied with the open source offerings.]
This one's straight from microsoft's site, but heck the software there are free and I use 'em daily:
o ls /default.mspx
:-)
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/to
I also use The Core Media player, a free media player that I use to replace windows media player with. It has all the known codecs already built-in, and has many other unique and helpful features.
http://www.tucows.com/preview/299014.html
Hope you'll find those two useful.
Anthony
http://www.palmzone.net
that should be BODE not BOD.
Now to be a little more of a help than an ass...
There's Bittorent, Azureus, Firefox, Mozilla, Thuderbird, Open Office, the GIMP, Ad-aware, Spybot-S&D, Winamp (at least in the 3.0 series...haven't upgraded for a while.)
I'm sure others will name more.
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
Trillian basic is a great IM client.
... i tried lately includes:
W32.Envid@mm
Trojan.Vundo
W32.Bofra@mm
Backdoor.Agent.B
W32.Evaman.C
W32.Erkez.B@mm
- CD Burner XP Pro
- Ultra VNC
- POV Ray
- Sygate Personal Firewall
- IconShop
Good luck!By the way, how do you plan to take submissions in the future and filter out bunk submissions? It'd be nice to have a moderated system that could evolve some.
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
US Democracy:The best person for the job (among These pre-selected choices...)
You gotta have Cygwin! Best thing since sliced bread.
Underholdning.info
Note that there is a huge difference between "freeware" (gratis pieces of proprietary software, often spyware-laden) and "free software" (no need to explain this here, I hope).
Of course, this distinction won't help the ordinary user, but for you, it's a good rule of thumb: basically everything that comes with source is safe (except some "open source" scams -- if you're paranoid, just check if they use some weird fancy license instead of known-good ones). Of course, it's possible to conceal malicious code, but with the freedom to review and modify, it just doesn't make any sense.
On the other hand, gratis pieces of software that don't include the source usually tend to have some strings attached. It may be spyware, may be ads, or perhaps just annoying nag screens -- you shouldn't install anything like this unless you have a reason to think it's ok.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Sokoban
WinHTTrack
Battle for Wesnoth
Lbreakout
Filezilla
TightVNC
SciTE
All free - all free from adware/spy ware
There are lies, damned lies, and statistics.
- Firefox
- Thunderbird
- Outpost Firewall
- Cygwin
- The GIMP
- Spybot
- adAware
- Trillian
- Google Desktop Search
- SETI@home
- iTunes
I'm sure there are many other specialty apps that could be useful, but searching SourceForge for something in the appropriate category seems like a better approach than trying to audit a bunch of closed source stuff for malware."I would give my right hand to be ambidextrous."
I use:
l oads.html (no longer under development, but I like it)
UltimateZip http://www.ultimatezip.com/ for file compression
Crimson Editor http://www.crimsoneditor.com/ for editing code
BadBlue http://www.badblue.com/ for local webserving
LeechFTP http://stud.fh-heilbronn.de/~jdebis/leechftp/down
For the geekier MS Windows user, how about emacs and yudit?
For power users, mostly (because they'll confuse your grandma)
I'm sure there are many others, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind.
listing free, daily-use software that is free from spyware, adware, and other malicious/intrusive components.
You can only be sure of that by having the source of the program. I see that you have many pieces of non-free software there in the same list as free. What makes you so sure that a non-free program which you use doesn't have a secret mode in which it obeys its coder, not you.
Someone got home from the relatives and was annoyed by the free computer services there were expected to provide.
I didnt have to do much to my parents computer this christmas since i had already installed Firefox and open office to take care of most of thier needs.
In America we are imprisoned by our fear of them.
Seriously speaking my desktop right now looks like a Full screen X0rg-cygwin + Fluxbox running - like this. With lots of Xterms and ssh logins :)
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
FileZilla is a nice FTP/SFTP client and apparently a server too, but I've never tried using it for that.
Media player classic is part of the "guliverkli" suite of multimedia opensource tools and applications.
It is much better than any other free player that I have tried, such as WMP, BSPlayer, and others.
I found out that most problems related to subtitles, audio, and codec-specific sync issues, which occur in many other players, never happened in Media Player Classic.
This could be a nice addition to CleanSoftware.org
I know many people say it's crap, but hey it's a install&forget firewall, it's free and it has no ads http://www.zonelabs.com/
See pictures of tits
video lan client is the best video player out there. it plays everything i've ever thrown at it.
;)
http://www.videolan.org/
a clean, free, open source gem
-mr silver
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/
I have installed a personal firewall on my system which notifies me about every incoming and outgoing connection. You will be amazed to see how many of those programs try do connect to their home site often. I block their incoming and outgoing internet connection for once and all.
Now I can choose any program that I want. I'm quite happy with this solution for a time being. Though it's not possible for those programs which meant for internet only.
Just be wary of where the links come from. Some freeware aggregators will wrap the regular installers in one that will include spyware.
Easiest way to avoid this is to code in a way for people to flag entries as questionable, to be verified manually by you or a trusted compatriot.
Think about it some.
-transiit
Perhaps geeks helping family and friends set up their new computers this holiday can make use of this resource
Or perhaps geeks helping family and friends will set up linux distros instead and head over to sourceforge, just to name one good place for solid gpl stuff.
Not trying flame here, but I got tired of being the windoze adming for the family and friends and for some time now I've been saying something along the lines "sorry, it's been years since I touched Microsoft and thesedays I wouldn't know where to begin to sort your problems. Let me set up a linux for ya and I'll promise I'll help you with as much as is needed."
1 Earth is warming, 2 It's us, 3 it's royally bad, 4 we need to take action NOW
WinMX is a P2P program that is NOT infested with spyware or adware. You must have gotten it from a bad location, because I use it and it's clean.
Wheel in the sky keeps on turnin'.
I'd nominate Virtual Dub. Come to think of it, I think I'm going to donate a little towards the guy who wrote that. Damn useful if you have to make .AVIs.
"Derp de derp."
For some software, there are multiple distributions on Windows, or merely multiple distributors (check all those Ebay auctions seeling the "MS Office replacements" etc...).
What happens if one of these includes spyware? Will the whole program be delisted, or will the offending ditros be identified individually?
actually, winamp now has AOD (AOL On Desktop). this puts an icon on your desktop that basically tells you to install and use AOL. this is technically adware, therefor should not make the "clean" list. also, by default, winamp installs its "winamp agent". this can also be looked down apon for "clean" install purposes. there is also "winamp pro" which isnt free.
note: dont think i'm anti-winamp... this is all coming from a guy that has been developing 3rd party plugins and components for winamp 2/3/5 the past 4 years now.
From their intro page: "Before we list anything here we check for viruses, trojans, spyware etc."
dont forget http://www.tinyapps.org/ they have their own ratings system of small, simple, free apps for windows. ...with a must-subscribe rss feed.
All you have to teach them is the difference between Free Software and Freeware.
It is Freeware that is very often infected with spyware, trojans, ads, etc.
Free Software is almost the opposite. It's where not only can you be reasonably sure it's safe, it's also where you can check - something almost all commercial software doesn't allow you to.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Instant Messaging client. Great tool and open source too: http://www.miranda-im.org/release/
IAAL
Zoom Player http://www.inmatrix.com/
VideoLAN http://www.videolan.org/
VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org/
On the website, I see that you use the term "free software" to refer to software that is not distributed under free software licenses. This is misleading and NOT cool. I suggest you use another term, or perhaps add a footnote that says "free as in beer, not as in speech".
They have a great collections of tools including TCPView, FileMon, RegMon etc.
www.sysinternals.com
If you don't allow submissions, or even suggestions of any kind, the site will simply not grow. I know of LOTS of software that isn't on that list which I can say is completely spyware free, yet I cannot share that information since you will likely ignore me. I'm sorry, but I can't see this website of being any use. People would have more luck just looking for stuff via sourceforge. Theres more there, and everything is free of spyware. I could see this idea working if it was more of a community project, with submission forms and a group of volunteers who test the software and read the licenses to see if they are suitable for inclusion. As is though, with a single person, the website will fizzle out in no time.
Why use 7-Zip? There are so many other great alternatives. I prefer TugZip (http://www.tugzip.com/)
I will blog about your incompetence @ http://www.barelyadraft.com
StrokeIt is a mouse-gesture utility that is free for individual or non-profit use.
I use it all the time - once you get used to "right-click+drag-left" as "back" in your browser, you'll feel naked without it.
It's completely trainable - if you want to scrawl out your name to have it open Notepad, you can probably train it to pick up on that.
Otherwise, it comes with preprogrammed gestures that you can assign to all sorts of different commands - you can send keystrokes, hotkeys, even low-level Windows messaging commands to an application.
It's good stuff.
0x0D 0x0A
I think it would be better if the whole thing was compiled into the database with the simple search engine.
:)
The search result should tell four things.
1) whether it's been tested by org members to verify that it's free of the malware.
2) whether it's been tested by org members to verify that it contains certain malware.
3) verified ways to kill/remove malware if user choose to install it(for advanced users only - it could run as news group fashioned forum for best result - open source consunting - geeks for people)
4) it should return empty if software weren't submitted for testing or do not have knowledge for existance of the actual software. This attempt should be counted and used as priority marker for which software needs to be reviewed next.
* SOftware search should require three field (Software name, version, company)
This could be a good pilot project while people wait for the MS to close it's door.
Gurus can get together and develop an open source or clever automated procedures to test the various installation to see if product contains the known malware. It could come in two different method.
1) using QA tools to automate the installation of softwares to clean environment. Script tool + vmware to run install process and counting and comparing the number of running processes before and after to raise the alert.
2) Device a scanning software to scan the setup.exe or entire software package for malware signaure(binary size with matching hash from the file)...
This is very very cool.
Oktokie
I just spent a weekend setting up my wife's new laptop. In doing so, I added a lot of free and Spyware-free software. Here are some things you missed:
1. Editors! There are a lot of freely available (open source, freeware, etc.) editors out there. EMacs, Jove, VIM, Elvis, VILE/XVile/WinVile, NVI, Scintilla, and others too countless to name. I haven't seen ANY of these encumbered by SpyWare.
2. MultiMedia: RealPlayer and QuickTime both avoid spyware, if I'm not mistaken.
3. Blender and DIA are missing. They appear on
TheOpenCD.org, which seems to be a similar project to yours.
4. Cygwin32 -- Essential for any Linux user that needs to occasionally run Windows. With laptops with humongous drives, you can have an entire development system with GCC, perl, python, etc.
5. ActiveState has freeware implementations of a few useful languages, such as ActivePerl.
6. Tcl/tk comes to mind as not on your list.
7. Sun's Java is almost a requirement nowadays and integrates into IE, Opera, and the Mozilla-based browsers.
8. PaintDotNet was mentioned on Slashdot recently.
Now... for the site...
If you wish to use this as a service for users, then you should have a "This Just In!" section that shows items and when they are added. This way, a person can visit every couple of weeks and keep abreast of the things that have changed since they last left. This is also a good use for cookies--remember the last visit and highlight things that have changed since then.
Good attempt, and good luck!
"May I have ten thousand marbles, please?"
Darn! Should have used the preview. :)
Official Homepage:
http://www.mplayerhq.hu/
Unofficial Win32 binaries + installers and/or GUI's:
http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/
http://csant.info/mplayer.htm
http://deje.uw.hu/
http://mplayer.sunset-utopia.homeip.net/
http://mplayerc.uw.hu/
http://oss.netfarm.it/mplayer-win32.php
though, with that attitude you could just warez stuff and say "it's free, it didn't cost me a bit.".
among other things that nag screen says is that "WINZIP IS NOT FREE SOFTWARE", it's kind of it to let you keep using it but it makes it pretty clear that you shouldn't. there's quite a lot of shareware that even if it works after 30days says in it's licensing that you're not allowed to use it after that.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
in this order . .
http://nonags.com/
http://www.pricelessware.org/thelist/index.htm
http://www.doom9.org/ (click on the download button on the left)
http://theopencd.sunsite.dk/
http://www.komando.com/shareware_index.asp
http://www.techsupportalert.com/best.htm
Do I need to mention sourceforge and freshmeat?
Not sure if http://skype.com/ is listed in the above lists - it is surely worth mentioning but sometimes requires a USB headset purchase to tweak it, which is well worth the expense since this software often rivals Vonage service in quality when calling pots lines (non-free) and blows away anything when calling pc to pc (free).
http://grouper.com/
http://www.ultravnc.com/ is almost always my preference over tightvnc.
Realplayer is not that bad if it is tweaked - you have to look for the setting that disables automatic ownership of filetypes.
http://kerio.com/ is my firewall preference over ZoneAlarm and Sygate, although the windows xp built-in is is usable. Kerio keeps an eye on changing files via an md5 hash.
http://grisoft.com/, in most cases, would be my recommendation for AV software.
http://www.apple.com/itunes/ is great if you have the connection for it.
And if you want more free software then download emule.
um uh . . erase that last line
PDF tool kit (pdftk), by Sid Steward, author of PDF Hacks (O'Reilly), at http://www.accesspdf.com/pdftk/
PDF merge/split/repair/etc. GPL, multi-platform.
http://www.pmail.com Excellent Free email program.
Buy the President
Some of my favorites are: Dev-C++ BurnAtOnce IZarc Abiword Open Office GAIM
You might want to take Gnucleus off the list, or look into it a little more clearly. On more than a few occasions Zonealarm caught it trying to send e-mails out. To who, I don't know.
These are the programs I install as soon as I have to work on a new machine -
1. Firefox with adblock plugin (browser)
2. CDEx (ripping audio CDs)
3. AVG (antivirus)
4. AceMoney Lite (Personal finance management)
5. Irfanview (Image viewer)
Cheers
--
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
HijackThis - an invaluable addition to the expert's arsenal in antspyware
These ones were mentioned already, but bear repeating:
AVG - free antivirus. I just used this over xmas to clean out someone's computer...
Virtualdub - possibly the best video editing program ever written. Source code too.
Sysinternals.com - my favorite site for expert's utilities. These guys are sharp, and they release their sourcecode too.
statistics:s .shtml
R http://www.r-project.org/
WinBugs http://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/bugs/winbugs/content
symbolic mathematics:
Maxima http://maxima.sourceforge.net/
numerics:
Octave http://www.octave.org/
Scilab http://scilabsoft.inria.fr/
g95 (Fortran 95 compiler)http://www.g95.org/
Information that is deemed for the public good should not have restrictive copyrights in place. You should consider switching to a Creative Commons license that allows for others to cite, copy, and otherwise distribute the useful information you've collected. Doing otherwise would be counterproductive.
AnimeNEXT anime convention
Free programmer's editor. Highlights: open source; runs on any OS that supports Java 2; built in Java; modularized; has regular expressions search/replace, auto indent, soft word wrapping, syntax highlighting, folding of code based upon its indentation level (useful for collapsing deeply nested code, in order to more easily see the overall structure), keyboard macros, abbreviation expansion, shell interface, file browser, class browsers, etc. Runs on Windows and Linux.
Available at http://www.jedit.org/.
This wiki page is a conglomeration of work and suggestions from many different forums I am a part of. Lots of good utilities available such as:
Nokia Monitor test: Test your CRT for focus, convergence, moire, geometry, voltage regulation, etc.
Locate - Windows version of a linux utility. Creates a database of every file on your drives. You can then search and get instant results.
Unstoppable Copier - The program allows you to attempt recovery of files from a physically or logically damaged disk. The program will attempt to recover as much data as possible without giving up once an error is encountered. The program allows recursive copying of whole disks.
OpenOffice.org - Think: Free MS Office without the bloat. Has Writer (word), Calc, Impress (powerpoint), Draw (vector art program) and the DB user tools to give you all the tools you need for day to day database work in a simple spreadsheet-like form.
Here is the full list:
File Utils
Installation / Automation
Multimedia Tools
Linux/Etap.1C
July 2002
Linux/Slapper
September 16, 2002
Backdoor.Linux.GMM
2003-02-01
Backdoor.Linux.Rst.a
October, 2002
DoS.Linux.Chass
Dec 03 2004
Exploit.Linux.Dar.b
Dec 03 2004
HackTool.Linux.BF.a
couldn't find any references
Backdoor.Linux.Gata.a
10/12/2004
I rest my case...