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?"

Comments

Asking /. about Windows software?

[Gogo Dodo]

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.

Re:Asking /. about Windows software?

[gad_zuki!]

> You've got to be kidding.

Ask the slashdot admins to reveal what % actually uses desktop linux, its in the logs. The windows userbase is huge, even here. Almost all of my unix use is server side. That being said:

Winamp - disable anon statistics at setup
Firefox/Mozilla
Media Player Classic - best videoplayer out there OSS
Music Brainz - indentifies mp3 files my their sound signature
Abiword - word processor OSS
eMule - like kazaa only better
TightVNC - A nice VNC derivative
Cygwin - unix on windows. sexy.
Winzip - it now does 256 ARS encryption
PGP - the free version, crippled but useful
Textpad - great text editor
Thunderbird - email client OSS
7-zip - free zip/rar/everything opener
Trillian - best IM client, does encryption
Gaim - okay IM client OSS
CoreFTP - better than filezilla
atomic time sychronizer - for PCs/users that cant do NTP
Tweak UI - Users will want this eventually
AGP - free virus scanner
Ad Aware - spybot not needed really. AA catches just about everything now

What NOT to recommend:

Google toolbar - the full version is spyware. Warn users if they are going to use this.

Re:Asking /. about Windows software?

[jonbryce]

Winzip is not freeware. You are supposed to pay for it, not use a keygen from from emule.

Re:Asking /. about Windows software?

[Thundersnatch]

atomic time sychronizer - for PCs/users that cant do NTP

I've noticed a lot of sites actually selling NTP clients for windows as shareware. Rediculuous scams.

All versions of windows 2000, XP and 2003 support Simple NTP natively via the Windows Time Service. You just can't configure it using a GUI. However, entering this simple command line:

NET TIME /SETSNTP:time.nist.gov

The server time.nist.gov is a decent choice for users in the US. You can enter multiple NTP servers separated by commas, and the Windows Time service will try them in order.

so what's wrong with

[belbo]

www.pricelessware.org ?

Re:so what's wrong with

[Solder Fumes]

Everything you just said was wrong.

1. There are many different versions of programs on Pricelessware. At least six text editors, for example. Basically if it comes up to an acceptable level of usability and isn't spyware/shareware/nagware/adware, it will get in. Not just one text editor they think is best.

2. The whole list is up for review each year, but the list is updated throughout the year. In most cases programs aren't voted off, only new programs are voted in.

3. Linux is in fact included on Pricelessware.

(longtime user of Pricelessware since back when it was just a newsgroup)

Re:so what's wrong with

[spacefight]

Horribly outdated. Firefox listed as v. 0.9.1.

Waaaaait a minute there, pal...

[SamMichaels]

A clean design? Valid HTML? Valid CSS? Useful info? No ads?

What's the catch?

the obvious

[Anonymous Coward]

Foobar2000 (audio player)
Miranda (instant messenger)
PuTTY (telnet/ssh client. but if you didn't know _that_, then you really have no business being here.) :P

IrfanView

[Anonymous Coward]

I use IrfanView. The lighest and quickest image viewer for Windows that I've ever used.

thank you and darn

[wcitechnologies]

Nice.

From the benevolent computer geek in me: thank you.

From the computer repair business owner in me: ouch.

Real Player alternative

[cy_a253]

I really hate RealPlayer, so this is a godsend:

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

microsoft has some of nice little freeware

[KeelSpawn]

This one's straight from microsoft's site, but heck the software there are free and I use 'em daily:

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/too ls /default.mspx

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

Trillian

[Sango]

Trillian basic is a great IM client.

Free Windows Software...

[b374]

... i tried lately includes:
W32.Envid@mm
Trojan.Vundo
W32.Bofra@mm
Backdoor.Agent.B
W32.Evaman.C
W32.Erkez.B@mm

Here's some

[BrynM]

Here are some standard apps for me just taken from my start menu:

• 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.

Re:Teraterm and winzip

[BrynM]

You missed winzip and winrar.

Last I heard WinZIP was $29.

Cygwin!

[Underholdning]

You gotta have Cygwin! Best thing since sliced bread.

Obvious Choices

[Entropy Unleashed]

Off the top of my head, I'd recommend the following:

• 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.

And the less obvious

[Osty]

For power users, mostly (because they'll confuse your grandma)

• Startup Monitor. Priceless for dealing with crap like Real or Quicktime that always want to setup stubs to run at boot. The popup warning is pretty non-descriptive, though.
• Startup Control Panel, also from Mike Lin (the Startup Monitor guy). Similar to msconfig's Startup tab, but more powerful.
• Pretty much anything from Sysinternals. And they provide source!

I'm sure there are many others, but those are the ones that immediately came to mind.

Re:And the less obvious

[eMartin]

Currently Using:

AbiWord (word processor)
AVG Anti-Virus Free Version (obvious)
Azureus (bit torrent)

burnatonce (cd burning)
ChatZilla (irc client)

Daemon Tools (disk image mounting)
DC++ (file sharing)
FileZilla (ftp client)

Firefox (obvious)
Free Launch Bar (taskbar/toolbar customizer)
GrabIt (usenet downloader)

HoeKey (global hotkey utility)
ImageMagick (command line image utilities)
IrfanView (image viewer)

Locate32 (filename search)
Media Player Classic (obvious... not from microsoft)
PINs (password storage)

Purrint (screen capture utility)
SpaceMonger (disk space visualizer)
Start Killer (disable start menu and/or windows key)

Startup Control Panel (control startup items)
Startup Monitor (monitor startup items)

TClock2 (takbar/clock cutomizer)
TeamSpeak (voice chat for gaming)
Thunderbird (email)

Viewtify (customize open/save dialogs)
VirtuaWin (virtual desktop manager)
VLC (media player)

Wackget (wget frontend)
Wget (command line downloader)
Wherzit (find lost windows)

Winamp (music)

Wizmo (various command line tools... i use it to sleep monitor)
XnView (like irfanview, but better)

There are more I use, but this is a new Windows install.

Google should find you the sites.

PS: Stupid Lameness Filter.

How do you know?

[latroM]

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.

Re:Good, Clean, and Free

[Gopal.V]

GNU/Windows ... I carry one of these :)

Seriously speaking my desktop right now looks like a Full screen X0rg-cygwin + Fluxbox running - like this. With lots of Xterms and ssh logins :)

FileZilla

[kcomplex]

FileZilla is a nice FTP/SFTP client and apparently a server too, but I've never tried using it for that.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition

[cove209]

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition http://free.grisoft.com/freeweb.php/doc/2/

Other Media Software

[vikramrn]

Zoom Player http://www.inmatrix.com/
VideoLAN http://www.videolan.org/
VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org/

StrokeIt

[mskfisher]

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.

Some suggestions for site

[lar3ry]

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!

Re:Good, clean, free.

[Squalish]

On the other hand, the question is about windows. Here's the best freeware list I've found, taken off of the neowin.net forums. These are not guaranteed Clean, but most of them are. Also, you might want to check tinyapps.org, which specializes in SMALL apps (usually not enough space for ad/spyware).
Category 3D Graphics: ----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/CharacterCountF ilterForAValidList----
3Delight Free - http://www.3delight.com/index.htm
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Aqsis - http://www.aqsis.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Houdini (Free Edition) - http://www.sidefx.com/apprentice/index.html
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services...ple/i ndex.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.h tm
OpenFX - http://www.openfx.org
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/
Toxic - http://www.toxicengine.org/
Wings 3D - http://www.wings3d.com/
Category Anti-Virus:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Char acterCountFilterForAValidList----
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/
ClamWin - http://www.clamwin.com/
Category Anti Spyware:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Bazooka - http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htm l
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html
Category IRC Clients:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.silverex.org/news/
Category Audio Players:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Billy - http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy
CoolPlayer - http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/
DeliPlayer. http://www.deliplayer.com/
Foobar 2

Pegasus Mail

[Mephie]

http://www.pmail.com Excellent Free email program.