My Top 20 Free Windows Programs - Sept. 2012

Backup
Cobain Backup - a free backup program that you can fully customize - scheduling, backing up to various drives including network drives, differential or full backup, etc. Uses Shadow Volume Copy so you can back up while you work on your computer. In the task pane it now also shows the total size (GB, MB...) of your backup task.

Browser
Firefox - Still the best browser. Faster than ever. Better memory management. More secure and stable. Tons of extensions to meet your needs. Check out Personas - an easy way to dress up Firefox. Now also available for mobile Android devices.

Clean-Up
CCleaner - great for cleaning up temp files, temp files leftover from crashes, and cleaning up the Registry, disabling unnecessary start-up items, cleaning up IE add-ons, scheduled events and more.

Revo Uninstaller - an advanced un-installer program that enables you to remove the usual leftover registry items and folders. Scroll to the bottom of the page at the link to get to the free version download link.

Defraggler - from the makers of CCleaner, this program is a great replacement for the Windows defragment program. Works in all recent versions of Windows. This program lets you see what is going on (like the old program in XP). It is fast and can work even if you have less than 10% of the hard drive free. Not as necessary in Windows 7, but very handy for older XP and Vista system hard drives.

Email
Thunderbird - an excellent email program from Mozilla (same group that brings you Firefox). I find this much easier to customize and to backup and move files around when need be, and much more stable than Outlook, Outlook Express, or Windows Mail/Windows Live Mail programs. Tabs, excellent search function, File-Link (large file management) and more.

Entertainment
Winamp - best free media player overall - yes it has playlists and you can use it with your ipod or any other MP3 player. Works better than iTunes and doesn't install other programs behind your back, and you can customize its many settings (file formats to deal with, whether it launches on its own or by your command...). Great for doing live mixes as you can queue songs up.

Freemake Video Converter - With video collections moving to hard drives away from disc collections, here is a great free program that you can use to convert your DVD movie or TV show into an AVI file (or other digital format).  Here is the short how-to video for this process. To go with this, here is a decryption program - DVD43 - that operates in the background. It should work with most DVDs.

VLC Media Player - for playing a wide variety of video and music files, DVDs, and streaming. When Windows Media Player won't play it (WMP in Windows 7 works much better but there are still files it won't play), this will. The user interface isn't that pretty, but it works.

File Sharing
uTorrent - the best little torrent program around. Pronounced MOO-torrent (as the initial u is actually the micro symbol). Although there was a threat to stick ads in the free version, they backed down and made them optional.

Peerblock - lets you control who your computer "talks to" on the Internet. By selecting appropriate lists of "known bad" computers, you can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been "hacked", even entire countries! They can't get in to your computer, and your computer won't try to send them anything either.

Productivity 

Libre Office - the best free alternative to MS Office. Libre Office picked up where Open Office left off - same program but newer/more developed. And it can open .docx  and .xlsx files. You can create a PDF directly from any of the programs in the suite with a click of an icon. Word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, database, and a math program. You can make it save things in MS Office format by default if you need to share documents with others who have MS Office. The link takes to you the page where you can download the main installation file and the help file. Download both, install the main one first and then the help file. If you currently have Open Office installed, make sure to remove it before installing Libre Office. The first time you open the program it will take a while to load to configure itself. You may need to open it again if it doesn't fully open. After that it opens normally.

EssentialPIM - A personal information manager. Similar features to Outlook (outside of the email part). If you want a PIM that is not bogged down by the email part of Outlook (and it's other issues) - just a basic appointment calendar, contact list, To Do list and notes - this is a great program.

Security
AVG Free - anti-virus and anti-spyware and more, and continues to improve. Easy to use and works better than the big commercial programs. Go here for installation instructions for AVG Free 2013.

Malwarebytes - A good anti-spyware removal program to use along with your regular security program to occasionally check for bugs. Has a quickscan mode that takes about 10 minutes, and a full scan mode. Also adds as a context menu so you can right-click on a file/folder/drive and choose to scan it with Malwarebytes.

Mailwasher Free - filter out Spam before it gets to your email program. Works with a wide variety of email programs. Free version only works for one email address. Paid version will work with multiple addresses.

Utilities
7zip - 32bit or 64bit - decompression and compression of many many compression formats. After installing, run 7-Zip File Manager program as administrator, go to Tools, Options,click on the two + buttons, Apply and close the program.

Adobe Reader - Although it's big and sometimes annoying, this is still the best all round PDF reader. Works well in browsers. (I used to recommend Foxit Reader, but it is kind of buggy when dealing with opening PDFs inside a browser)

Crossloop - enables you to remotely connect to another computer to give or get help. Very simple to use. No need to create an account.

Dropbox - Actually a service, not a program, but very useful. Need to share or sync files with yourself or others in your group/business remotely, or, want to backup your work on-line? Free account starts at 2GB. There are other on-line free storage services, but Dropbox is probably the easiest to use and most versatile (and the least buggy).
From Wikipedia: Dropbox is a file hosting service operated by Dropbox, Inc. that offers cloud storage, file synchronization, and client software. In brief, Dropbox allows users to create a special folder on each of their computers, which Dropbox then synchronises so that it appears to be the same folder (with the same contents) regardless of the computer it is viewed on. Files placed in this folder are also accessible through a web site and mobile phone applications.
You can also share a file with someone who does not have a Dropbox account. To do this: Open your Dropbox folder. Open the Public folder. Right-click on the file you've put in there, select Dropbox, Copy Public Link. Then, send this link to the other person. This is a great way to send a file that is too large for email servers, or share a safe file that your email service keeps blocking (installation files, even when zipped, are often blocked by email services).

Honourable Mentions:
CDex - A simple program for converting CDs to digital audio files.

Freemake Audio Converter - a great program for converting digital audio files. Converts from and to many file formats.

EMDb - a free DVD/Video catalogue database program. Automatically downloads info from IMDB. I haven't used this but it looks like the best free one.

PDF Creator - Easy to create PDF files from any file - just print and select PDF Creator and it creates a PDF version of the file. You can also merge multiple files of any format into a multi-page PDF file. If you have Libre Office and only need to create PDFs of files you create with it, there is no need for this creator program.

More Programs
AlternativeTo - This is a great site for finding alternative programs (free or commercial) if you can't afford the usual expensive version, or for finding programs for very specific purposes.

Got any favourite free Windows programs for computer I left out? Add them in comments below.

Open Winmail.dat Attachments In Thunderbird

If you are using Mozilla's Thunderbird program for email, and you sometimes get emails with attachments that are stuck inside a winmail.dat file, have no fear, there is an easy solution.

Why do you get winmail.dat attachments?
If the sender is using Outlook and has it set to send messages in RTF format (instead of HTML - which is what everything else uses by default, including newer versions of Outlook), then anyone not using Outlook to receive the message will often get an email with parts of it missing and there will be an attached winmail.dat file, or, if there are attachments, they will be inaccessible and inside the winmail.dat attachment. More information on this and how to configure Outlook to NOT send in RTF format here.

Thunderbird solution.
If you are using Thunderbird, download and install the Lookout add-on.
With this installed, when you look at an email with attachments with a winmail.dat file, you will also see, beside it, the actual intended attachment file(s). You can click on these and save them or open them normally now. 

Fix Thunderbird Tabs Position

Thunderbird 11 changes the tab position from being below the menu bar to above it. If this is annoying to you and you would like the tabs back below the menu bar, download this add-on for Thunderbird and install it.To do so

• Go to this page, right-click on  the Download Now button and save the file to your computer.
• Open Thunderbird (if you haven't update to version 11 yet, do so by clicking on Help, About Thunderbird, Check for Updates...), Tools, Add Ons.
• Click on the button with the cog wheel on it beside the Search for all add-ons field
• Select Install Add-on From File
• Navigate to where you saved the file, select it and choose Open
• Now your tabs should be back below the Menu bar

More ways to make old add ons compatible in Firefox and Thunderbird

If you have updated Firefox and/or Thunderbird and have found that some of your favourite add ons no longer work, there are a number of ways to make them work.
One way, that I have written about for Firefox and for Thunderbird, is to install Mr. Tech Toolkit. But, the problem with that add on is that it is outdated and incompatible and must be adjusted to be made to work. Also, currently, the forced-to-work version of Mr Tech Toolkit will also cause the Add-Ons Manager page to show in a way that makes it difficult to close it. If you want to switch from using that add on to using the Add-on Compatibility Reporter (see below), install the reporter add on and disable the toolkit add on and restart (in either Firefox or Thunderbird).

The Add-on Compatibility Reporter
This is an add-on made by Mozilla that will enable all old add-ons and will also let you send a report to Mozilla that a certain old add-on still works fine in the new version of Firefox or Thunderbird if you so desire.
Here is the version for Thunderbird.

There is an issue with forcing old add ons to work. Sometimes they don't work and can cause problems. The only way to troubleshoot this is to disable them one by one and restart to test things out. Sometimes an add-on can cause a very odd specific problem. Once you find out which add on is causing the problem, disable it and keep it disabled. If you don't need it anymore, uninstall it. But, if you would like to use it if it would work, keep it disabled but check once in a while to see if it is updated. If it is ever properly updated, it will usually stop being labelled as incompatible with the current version on the Add Ons Manager list. Once you see this you could give it a try again - enable it - and see if it still causes the old problem.

Here are a couple of articles from ghacks.net discussing the Add-on Compatibility Reporter and other methods of forcing compatibility and the issues around this.

Firefox Add-on Compatibility Reporter, Force Add-On Compatibility

Three Methods To Force Add-On Compatibility in Firefox

Thunderbird 5 and making old add-ons work

The fix for this is the same as for Firefox 5.
Go to this post and follow the instructions.
You can install Mr. Tech Toolkit in Thunderbird too.
Exception to the instructions - when you come to adjust the MaxVersion, change it for where it says Thunderbird this time instead of Firefox - it is most likely at 3.2pre or something similar - change this value to
7.*
With this updated Mr Tech Toolkit installed in Thunderbird your old add-ons should work. Note, for some they might work only be very buggy, so use with caution. If you find one that is very buggy, disable it and restart Thunderbird.

My Top 20 Free Windows Programs - June 2010

In no particular order:

Backup
Cobain Backup - a free backup program that you can fully customize - scheduling, backing up to various drives including network drives, etc. Now uses Shadow Volume Copy so you can back up while you work on your computer.

Browser
Firefox - the latest version of Firefox is fast and very secure and remains the best with extensions of all the browsers. Check out Personas - an easy way to dress up Firefox.

Clean-Up
CCleaner - great for cleaning up temp files, temp files leftover from crashes, and cleaning up the Registry, disabling unnecessary start-up items and more.

Revo Uninstaller - an advanced un-installer program that enables you to remove the usual leftover registry items and folders.

Defraggler - from the makers of CCleaner, this program is a great replacement for the Windows defragment program. Works in all recent versions of Windows. This program lets you see what is going on (like the old program in XP). It is fast and can work even if you have less than 10% of the hard drive free.

Email
Thunderbird - an excellent email program from Mozilla (same group that brings you Firefox). I find this much easier to customize and to backup and move files around when need be than Outlook or Outlook Express. The latest version has tabs and the search feature is most excellent.

Entertainment
Winamp - best free media player overall - yes it has playlists and you can use it with your ipod or any other MP3 player. Works better than iTunes and doesn't install other programs behind your back, and you can customize its many settings (file formats to deal with, whether it launches on its own or by your command...). Great for doing live mixes as you can queue songs up.

DVDFlick - convert and burn digital video files (many formats supported) to DVD in regular DVD video format. Also has basic menu creation features too.

VLC Media Player - for playing a wide variety of video and music files, DVDs, and streaming. When Windows Media Player won't play it, this will. The user interface isn't that pretty, but it works.

File Sharing
uTorrent - the best little torrent program around. Pronounced MOO-torrent (as the initial u is actually the micro symbol)

Peerblock - lets you control who your computer "talks to" on the Internet. By selecting appropriate lists of "known bad" computers, you can block communication with advertising or spyware oriented servers, computers monitoring your p2p activities, computers which have been "hacked", even entire countries! They can't get in to your computer, and your computer won't try to send them anything either.

Productivity
Open Office 3 - the best free alternative to MS Office. And it can open .docx files. You can create a PDF directly from any of the programs in the suite with a click of an icon. Word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, database, you can make it save things in MS Office format by default if you need to share documents with others have MS Office, and more. Currently on version 3.2.1

EssentialPIM - A personal information manager. Similar to many of the other features in Outlook (outside of the email part). If you want a PIM that is not bogged down by the email part of Outlook - just a basic appointment calendar, contact list, To Do list and notes - this is a great program.

Security
AVG Free - anti-virus and anti-spyware, and much improved since it first came out. Easy to use and works better than the big programs that must be purchased.

Malwarebytes - A good anti-spyware removal program to use along with your regular security program to occasionally check for bugs. Has a quickscan mode that takes about 10 minutes, and a full scan mode. Also adds as a context menu so you can right-click on a file/folder/drive and choose to scan it with Malwarebytes.

Mailwasher Free - filter out Spam before it gets to your email program. Works with a wide variety of email programs. Free version only works for one email address. Paid version will work with multiple addresses.

Utilities
TeraCopy - Improves copying speed for large files and for when copying a lot of files at once. Also has better overwrite and skip options. Install it and it replaces the Windows copy function. You can still use the usual cut/copy and paste shortcuts.

7zip - decompression and compression of many many compression formats, and free!

Foxit PDF reader - works directly inside a Firefox tab as well as on its own. Faster and with a much smaller footprint than Adobe Reader. They keep making this better with every version

Crossloop - enables you to remotely connect to another computer to give or get help. Very simple to use

Got any favourite free programs I left out? Add them in comments

How to Access Gmail When It's Down

How to Access Gmail When It’s Down - Gmail - Lifehacker
This is a great article with a number of tips on accessing Gmail through different methods.

Personally, I have Thunderbird set up on my laptop and an a POP3 account set up for it so I always have all my sent and received emails at hand if I loose my Internet connection. Also, as stated, when the Gmail interface went down the last time, the POP3 connection was still active, so I still had full Gmail access via Thunderbird.

My Top 15 Free Windows Programs for 2008

Inspired by the post at Lifehacker, and, since it's been a while since I've written up a top-list, here is my top 15 list of free Windows programs.

In no particular order:

Firefox 3 - the latest version of Firefox is fast and very secure and remains the best with extensions of all the browsers

AVG Free 8 - anti-virus and anti-spyware, and much improved since it first came out. Easy to use and works better than the big programs that must be purchased.

7zip - decompression and compression of many many compression formats, and free!

Foxit PDF reader - now works directly inside a Firefox tab as well as on its own. Faster and with a much smaller footprint than Adobe Reader. They keep making this better with every version

Crossloop - for remote connections with clients for help/repair - free and very simple to use

Shutdown Guard - for stopping Windows Updates from automatically restarting your computer (XP and Vista)

Winamp - best free media player overall - yes it has playlists and you can use it with your ipod or any other MP3 player. Works better than iTunes and doesn't install other programs behind your back, and you can customize its many settings (file formats to deal with, whether it launches on its own or by your command...)

Quicktime Alternative - streamlined and unobtrusive version of Quicktime

Realplayer Alternative - streamlined and unobtrusive version of Realplayer

Open Office 3 - the best free alternative to MS Office. And it can open .docx files now. You can create a PDF directly from any of the programs in the suite with a click of an icon. Word processor, spreadsheet, drawing program, database, you can make it save things in MS Office format by default if you need to share documents with others have MS Office, and more.

Thunderbird - excellent email program from Mozilla (same group that brings you Firefox). I find this much easier to customize and to backup and move files around when need be than Outlook or Outlook Express.

Picasa - a good, free program from Google for viewing, sorting and editing your photos and more

Superantispyware - A great 2nd program for manually scanning your computer after AVG Free 8 to catch and fix anything that might have been missed. I like this better than Ad Aware and Spybot put together.

CCleaner - great for cleaning up temp files, temp files leftover from crashes, and cleaning up the Registry and more.

Cobain Backup - a free backup program that you can fully customize - scheduling, backing up to various drives including network drives, etc.

Got any favourite free programs I left out? Add them in comments.

Happy New Year!

AVG Free 8 and No One Is Getting My Emails

If you are using the new AVG Free 8, and you are using Thunderbird or maybe even a version of Outlook or another Email program, and no one is receiving your emails even though it looks like they are sending okay, it may be a setting in your AVG. Open AVG, double-click on Email scanner, UNcheck Scan Outgoing mail, and Save Changes.

Now you can send emails again and people will receive them.

Test things out. If people can receive your emails now, then that was the problem. If not, it is something else...

AVG Free 8, Thunderbird and Hotmail

Currently, AVG Free 8 blocks outgoing Hotmail (aka Windows Live Mail) emails, when Hotmail is set up in your Thunderbird.
To alleviate this, open AVG, go to the Email scanner and disable scanning of outgoing email. This will let Hotmail setup within Thunderbird send mail out properly.

Using Hotmail in Thunderbird - Update

UPDATE!
With the update of the Webmail-Hotmail extension to version 1.2.5, I found that I could no longer send mail with the settings below. After some experimentation, I found that you need to change one setting: in the options for the Webmail-Hotmail extension, in Accounts, Mode, change it from "Hotmail Live (new website)" to "WebDav". This seems to work.



Here is the definitive guide (with the current Hotmail site) for setting this up.

Note: the links to the extensions mentioned here are in my previous posts about Hotmail and Thunderbird.

1) make sure you have the latest version of Thunderbird
2) Install the extensions: Webmail, and Webmail-Hotmail (and make sure they are the latest versions)
3) Make sure you have updated your Hotmail to the new the new Hotmail Live (do so via the website if you haven't)
4) Set up the account in Thunderbird (don't worry if you have some settings wrong at first)
5) Open the options in the Webmail extension and ensure that the Pop (port 110) and SMTP (port 25) servers are enabled
6) Open the options in the Webmail-Hotmail extension and in Accounts, Mode, check off "Hotmail Live (new website)". Make your selections in the POP tab, and in the SMTP tab.
7) You are now ready to adjust your server settings.

Outgoing server: hotmail - localhost

Incoming server settings
Server name: localhost. Port: 110
Username: yourname@hotmail.com (your full hotmail address)
Security Settings: Never

Outgoing Server
Server name: localhost
port 25
User name: yourname@hotmail.com
TLS if available.


Done.

Thunderbird Update Out Now (2.0.0.4)

The latest update for Thunderbird 2 (Mozilla's email program - a great companion to Firefox) is out now. If you get the message asking to update it, definitely let it update itself.

Included in this update are some security fixes as well as a number of bug fixes.

One notable bug fix: If you had filters to tag mail that comes in, in Thunderbird 2 you had to run the filters manually after downloading the mail. This is fixed so the tags apply automatically when the mail comes in (so it works normally/properly now).

If you are still using Thunderbird 1.5, update now. Thunderbird 2 works better.

If are using Outlook, and you are only using the email and email address portion of Outlook, switch to Thunderbird for a better email experience.

Thunderbird and Hotmail

Something seems to have changed today so you can no longer use the old Hotmail with Thunderbird 2. However, if you switch to the new Live Hotmail, and change a setting in the Hotmail extension, Hotmail will work again in Thunderbird 2.

1. Make sure you have the new versions of Webmail and Hotmail for TB 2 from
http://webmail.mozdev.org/installation.html
If you don't, uninstall the old extensions, then install the Webmail extension, then the Hotmail extension.

2. Go into the options in the Hotmail extension and check off "Hotmail Live (new website)".

Everything should work okay now.

If you don't have Thunderbird 2, get it.

UPDATE
Currently, you can't use hotmail for the outgoing server. You have to use something else - usually your regular ISP's outgoing server.

Mozilla Thunderbird 2 Is Finally Ready

Thunderbird 2 is finally available. Download here. Install it on top of the old Thunderbird (1.5...).

Some of your old extensions and themes might not work (at first). The theme I was using did not work and things looked very messed up. I switched to the new default theme and things were fine. If you use small icons on the toolbars, you may need to Customize and uncheck and then re-check Use small icons to make this work.

Release notes are here if you are interested in all the details of what is new.

The only problem I had was with my Hotmail that I had set up with 2 extensions so I could read and send Hotmail email via Thunderbird. To fix it, I had to delete my Hotmail account within Thunderbird and recreate it using the new Webmail feature in Thunderbird. If you are dealing with this situation too, make sure to include "@hotmail.com" in the user name, and for the outgoing server, use the one you were using with the old Hotmail extension set up. The new account will default to an outgoing server of: "Webmail - localhost" which is a weird combination of your regular ISP account and hotmail and this does not work. Use the hotmail - local outgoing server that you set up previously - it works.
Then, I went onto my hotmail on the web and marked everything as UNread and then re-downloaded all the messages into Thunderbird. Adjust the account settings for the newly set up Hotmail in Thunderbird to keep messages on the server.

My Gmail, that I had set up as a POP account in Thunderbird still works fine.

If you want to force some old extensions to work in the new Thunderbird, install the Mr Tech Local Install extension (Firefox and Thunderbird) and then configure it to allow the old extensions to work (this doesn't work for the old webmail/hotmail extensions though). It may not work for some extensions.

Another Thunderbird Extension

I just found another very useful Thunderbird extension: Empty Trash Toolbar Button.
Install it, restart Thunderbird, right-click on your toolbar to Customize, drage the new Trash icon up to where you want it, ok. Now, to empty the trash, just click on that button.

To empty your junk folder, there is a Delete Junk icon already in there (when you Customize the toolbar) - you can drag it up to where you want it to have a shortcut for that too.

Recommended Thunderbird Extensions

Here are some core Thunderbird extensions that I frequently use. Most of them (if not all) can be found at the Mozilla Thunderbird Add-ons page.

Contacts Add BCC Button
If you use the Contacts side bar when you are writing an email, this extension can be handy. On the side bar, there are Add to and Add CC buttons. This extension adds a Add BCC button to the side bar.

Signature Switch
You need to set up html signature files first. But once you do, in the extension's Options, you can add them in. Then, when you are writing an email, you can chose which signature to use via the icon on the toolbar. Handy if you have a polite one to use when writing to your parents and a less-polite one for when you write to friends.

Slideshow
This extension is great for if you receive a lot of emails that contain a lot of attached pictures. Instead of scrolling down to see each picture, you can click on the slideshow button (bottom right of the email - beside the list of attached files) and a slideshow viewer will pop up. Expand it to full screen and then click through the pictures one by one. The viewer window includes options for saving individual pictures or all pictures at once to your hard drive.

Timestamp
Provides a timestamp you can place anywhere in your email. Fully customizeable. This is handy for if a server delays your emails, or if a server puts the wrong time on your email. Make sure you have your computer set at the right time and time zone to start with though!

Update Notifier
Same extension can be used for Firefox or Thunderbird. Set it to Check for updates when Thunderbird starts, Install updates when they become available,and un-check all the other boxes in Options. With these settings, all your Thunderbird extensions will update themselves in the background and you won't have to update them manually.

How to install a Thunderbird Extension

Go to the page with the extension. Right-click on the install button and save the file to your hard drive. Once saved, open Thunderbird, click on Tools, Extensions, and Install. Once installed, restart Thunderbird and open Tools, Extensions again and right-click on the new extension, chose Options and configure the new extension.