PC Programs
This is a list of computer programs I have on my computers, what they do and why I have them. And each and every one is free!
Computer maintenance programs
CCleaner
Literally called "crap cleaner" this deletes temporary files, web browser caches, all sorts of garbage that slows your computer down.
Malwarebytes
A free anti-malware program. Again, not the best, but is quick and effective. And yes, you need both an anti-virus and an anti-malware program. Viruses are different from malware.
A free tool from Microsoft that does copies. Has both a GUI and a command-line interface (so it can be automated). I use it for backups, as it can be set to only copies the files that have changed on my computer to a backup disk. Other options allow it to sync both ways, so file in both directories are kept the same, though there could be better ways of accomplishing the latter depending on your application.
Organizing your life
Onenote
This program allows you to create different notes, e.g., Shopping, todo, etc. It has versions for your smartphone (Android or iOS) and syncs the notes automatically, so if you create or update a note on your PC, it shows up on your smartphone, and vice-versa. Very Useful. Highly recommended.
Evernote was the program previously recommended, but the free version no longer supports a sufficient number of login devices.
Web browsing security/privacy/protection.
Download Firefox or Chrome. Despite all protests to the contrary, EVERYTHING you do on line is captured and stored for years - in some cases, forever. This isn't paranoia, it is a just a simple fact. The head of Google, Schmidt, once said about privacy on the web something along the lines of "If you don’t want anyone else to know what you're doing, maybe you shouldn’t be doing that in the first place.". This wasn't said as some smart-ass comment. It was a warning.
The following are plug-ins for Firefox (see Tools menu, "add-ons"), and used all together can help keep sites from tracking you.
adblock plus
Blocks a lot of annoying advertisements on websites
Media playback
VLC media player
Free, simple .mp3 and video player from Sourceforge. (i.e., open source). Works on a large variety of different audio and video formats. If you want to play .flac or other lossless formats at really high resolutions try foobar 2000
Utilities
7-zip
Unfortunately the unzip program in Windows is very limited. Fortunately, 7-zip isn't. And it's free.
Find my files
A powerful search utility for files on your computer, also will search for text inside files. Includes the ability to narrow down your search in number of different ways. Requires some technical knowledge to use, so it's for power users, not for the average user.
Mobaxterm
A nice terminal program, supports xterm, also a number of different transport protocols (like VNC, SSH, RDP, FTP) also provides a Unix shell. If these terms aren't familiar to you, then you probably don't need this program. Putty works too.
Programming tools
Notepad++
A clean, not-overburdend, effective, code-aware programming editor. Supports a broad swath of languages. Not an SDE, but good for viewing a file or two or knocking out a quick script or snippet of code outside a development environment. (By the way, if you just want to test out a quick snippet with a compiler on-line, see the on-line compilers below).
Kdiff3
A quick and easy way to diff two different sub-directories or files. For files it includes a merge capability.
on-line compilers
These web pages allow you to choose a programming or script language, let you write some code, then compile and execute it for you, displaying the output. VERY useful in trying out a quick piece of code when you don't want to bring up eclipse or workbench or somesuch.
Codepad.org
Good but it doesn't support Java or some of the more esoteric scripting/programming languages.
compileonline.com
Wow - supports 60 different programming/scripting languages, 3 text formatting, several "web technologies" (e.g., javascript, HTML, VB script, jQuery, etc.)