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."
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
- 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."
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.
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
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/
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
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'.
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."
Zoom Player http://www.inmatrix.com/
VideoLAN http://www.videolan.org/
VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org/
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?"
Why does anyone use WinMX, Kazaa or any other spy and mal-ware software when both eMule and Shareaza are available? with source?
I guess I spend so much money on my hobby, CGI and the software for that, I just can't handle the thought of buying something when a free application does as good or better.
Some free software that is better than alternative commercial software (or has no alternative):
FREENET
Steel Panthers: World at War
Irfanview
PAF 5 (genealogy software, go to download products, ignore Marie Osmond's attempts to seduce you to the dark side)
GMAX 3D Modelling software
You can also get tons of free software with the purchase of magazines (I know, not really free); you can get the previous version or a free version of just about any graphical app when you buy digit magazine, including software that cost kilobucks as recently as a year ago.
Why, yes, I AM a Pagan Libertarian.
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.
http://www.pmail.com Excellent Free email program.
Buy the President