Free to Use Software

Free for home use software

This page is for use by my students who are seeking software that is free to use on their home computers.

Knowing that most of my students run Microsoft Windows XP at home, this list is limited to software that will run on XP. The software titles listed on this page are further limited to those that I currently have loaded and use on my personal computer at home. While I am pleased with all of the software listed on this page, the experiences of others may vary.

Please read the licenses agreements and instructions for any software prior to loading and using it.

The software titles are divided into five categories:

Graphics and Multimedia
Security Related
Web Browsers
Word Processing and Text Editors
Others (not otherwise classified)

A brief description and link to the software accompanies each software title.
Simply click on an icon to go to the website for the software.

Graphics and Multimedia
		CDBurnerXP Pro is CD/DVD burning software.
		Irfanview is a graphics and media viewing and manipulation tool with plugin support for many formats.
		The free-codecs site offers free (and not so free) codec plugins to support various media formats.
		Media Player Classic is a Media Player replacement with support available for Real Player media format.
		Nvu is a what you see is what you get web authoring tool.
		VLC is a multimedia player that supports a wide variety of audio and video formats.
		Wink allows one to capture screenshots and convert them to Flash presentations.
		XNView is a multimedia viewer, browser and converter.
Security Related
		CCleaner removes (and will overwrite) unused files and files related to browser activities.
		Eraser removes and overwrites data files.
		Free Grisoft AVG is excellent anti-virus software.
		HijackThis is a very powerful browser hijack and spyware locating tool.
		Sygate Personal Firewall (Sygate was purchased, so downloads may soon disappear.)
		Spybot - Search & Destroy is a spyware blocking, detection, and cleaning tool.
		Spyware Blaster is a power spyware blocking tool with free updates.
Web Browsers
		Foxfire web browser enables the user to use a number of excellent plugins.
		Opera web browser is the fastest and most standards compliant browser available.
Word Processing and Text Editors
		AbiWord is a free word processing program.
		Notepad++ is a Notepad replacement with advanced features and many available plugins.
		OpenOffice is a free office suite.
		RoughDraft is a light weight word processor for writers.
Others
		NTREGOPT is a registry optimizer that works with XP.
		Sam Spade for Windows is a graphical TCP-IP utility suite.
		uTorrent is a very light weight torrent client.