Useful Websites
Old Version - A website with old versions of programs. Very useful for finding that 'old version' that worked better than the new one.
Internet Movie Database - Websites with a thorough catalog of movies, games, and tv shows.
Random.org - Internet Random number generator and misc randomizer.
Hulu - Watch tv or movies online with minimal commercials. Great alternative to pirating.
Surf The Channel - Another place to find tv/movies online.
Newegg - Definitive computer parts online store. Find most of the best deals here.
Gametrailers - Website constantly updated with all forms of media concerning upcoming and current games.
Ladislav Zezula - A pioneer of reverse engineering the MPQ file format used in W2, W3, D1, D2, SC, and other Blizzard games. He also has his own set of utilities that are like those at sysinternals.
Filter Forge - A really large database with seamless textures. Useful for beginners
dafont - Get your fonts here.
Tweak Guides - Site with an optimization guide for numerous games and applications.
Requirements lab - Check to see if your computer can run certain games before you buy them. Not 100% accurate.
Useful Programs
File utilities
7-zip - File compression utility. Works with many formats.
Irfanview - Great image viewer/browser/converter.
Free Commander - Alternative windows file manager.
Video utilities
VLC - Great media player, if videos lag then try this.
SUPER - If you can follow the several links and somehow manage to download it its a great video file conversion utility.
Media Coder - Rockz claims this is better than SUPER.
Virtual Dub - Another conversion utility a bit more on the technical side.
CCCP - Combined Community Codec Pack. Lightweight codec pack which will play most anything, so long as the encoder wasn't an asshole. Also comes with 2 media players.
Audio utilities
Winamp - Old school mp3 player. Sucks for anything else.
Foobar2000 - The player for people who hate Winamp.
Audacity - Great audio editing utility.
Computer Maintenance (Also please read the other pinned topic, these two tie in nicely)
Ad aware - Spyware removal.
Spybot - Also Spyware removal.
CCleaner - Helps keep your compy running faster by cleaning out shit.
Reg Cleaner - Registry cleaner. Does different things than CCleaner's built in registry cleaner, and allows you to view/delete keys that don't exist anymore. Only use 1 core, or it will freeze.
Easy Cleaner - Much like CCleaner, but with a few extra tidbits. One nice part is the pie chart of folders.
NTREGOPT - Registry optimizer. Makes it "faster" and "smaller". Not by much, but a lot of small things can make something big.
Start -> Run -> msconfig - Why fuck with other programs when Windows has shit like this built into it. This lets you edit many things from your system and windows boot settings, to active services, to startup programs and shortcuts to other useful Windows tools.
Hijack this - Scans system for possible changes by spyware/malware.
System Internals - Contains some very basic tools that can greatly satisfy performance needs, development needs, or just plain curiosity.
Auslogics Disk Defrag - Alternative defragger to Windows built in one.
Bittorrent/File Sharing programs
Vuze - Great bittorrent program with a built in community.
uTorrent - More minimalistic bittorrent program.
Browsers
Firefox - Plugins make this the most feature packed browser.
Opera - Faster than Firefox but lacks the flexibility.
Chrome - Faster than FF and Opera and very minimalistic.
Firefox Plug-ins
Mouse Gestures Redox - Gestures featuring diagonals, and the ability to highlight an address (not a link), open new tab and automatically go to that address.
FireGestures - Another popular gestures addon, apparently better if you don't use diagonal gestures.
NoScript - Easily block javascript/flash through the use of a whitelist. Annoying if you don't know how to use it, or don't have a very good mouse. Blocks most *annoying* ads, shows the simple ones.
Adblock Plus - Blocks ads via a blacklist. Really though, ads are what keep the internet free.
DownloadHelper - Downloads flash movies with ease. It's gotten a whole lot better, but doesn't work on obscure sites.
IE Tab - Allows you to open up an emulated IE tab. Works with windows update. The back button is a little funky though. You may notice that ytmnd sucks on Firefox, but not on IE.
Greasemonkey - Allows you to customize the way a webpage displays using small bits of JavaScript. Great for modifying commonly viewed sites with bad layouts like Youtube.
CD/DVD/Bluray utilities
DoISO - Great for quickly turning anything into an ISO. ANYTHING.
CD burner XP - CD/DVD/Bluray burning utility.
Daemon tools - Mount and emulate cd/dvd drives on your computer.
Document utilities
Open Office - Free alternative to Microsoft Office.
Notepad++ - Great source code editor.
Metapad - Minimalistic editor but has many features.
Textpad - Mix of the above two, choose your flavor I guess.
Cosmetic or useful alternatives to Windows Explorer
Launchy - Launch programs with a couple keystrokes.
Rocket Dock - Windows dock application that mimics ones on a Mac.
Rainmeter - Customizable resource meter that can display various performance data in different formats. A screenshot is worth a thousand words. Its very customizable.
Google Desktop - For people without Vista who want this stuff. Its a highly flexible sidebar on your computer where you can stick tons of mini-gadgets and applets.
FTP programs
Filezilla - Great FTP agent.
winscp - Another FTP agent.
PDF utilities
Foxit Reader - PDF viewer. Opens much faster than Adobe Reader.
Cute PDF - Create PDF files.
Miscellaneous / Not enough for its own category
Gimp - Free alternative to Photoshop.
Taksi - Free alternative to FRAPS.
DOSBox - x86 emulator. Play those old games found on abandonia and Home of the Underdogs.
Gmax - 3d modeling tool.
Swiss knife - Partitioning tool, when Windows fails this thing picks up the slack.
ATI tray tools - If you have an ATi card, ATT is an alternative to Catalyst Control Center: much easier to use, supports game profiles, and doesn't require .NET.
Post some good additions and I'll throw them in the list.
Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Mar 5 2009, 3:44 am by chuiu.
None.