What are some good freeware utilities that would optimize my computer.
I use things like Ad-Aware, CleanUp!, and Find Junk Files.
What freeware kinds of things do you people use to manage your systems??
SpamPal is rather good (the Beta is having a bit of a hard time at the moment, but the release is OK).
AVG Antivirus is also great.
I tend to avoid most other ‘optimizers’, especially memory defragmenters and the like, which I consider to be snake oil.
I use ZoneAlarm firewall and ocassionally go to http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan/com for a virus scan but I do not run any antivirus software because I find they just give too many problems. Irfanview is another good one IMHO
www.nonags.com is full of amazing freeware utilitys and progs.
They rank each program as well. They only list real freeware with no nagscreens, disabled features etc.
Fred Langa of Langa.com (great free computer newsletter), just recommended this site for free utilities.
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The Proxomitron - a freeware local proxy/web filter
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TClockEx - a freeware replacement for the windows clock
-FK
My standard list of indispensable Macintosh utilities, with the shareware and commercial sw trimmed off:
• Grab the venerable tool DeskZap which will let you view invisible files and folders and change their visibility, move, delete, copy, and rename them, or change File Type or Creator, protect/unprotect files, lock/unlock files, set file-level bits that designate a file as stationery or tell it whether or not to display a custom icon, etc.;
• Pick up a copy of the Open With application and contextual menu item. The app scans your hard drives and other volumes and notes which applications can open what types of files (including with the use of 3rd-party translators); the contextual menu item lets you choose which application should be used to open the selected file, showing only applications genuinely capable of opening the file. (It doesn’t dumb the choices down for you; it knows which programs can open virtually anything, and designates them as such).
•/•_Snag yourself copies of the freeware pair [FinderPop and Popup Navigator, to turn your volumes and drives and folders into hierarchical menus of themselves, so you can quickly locate and launch even rarely-used programs buried deep in folders insider of folders, or open a deeply buried folder without having to drill down to it; and so that in Open/Save/Save As dialog boxes you can not only navigate back up the hierarchy by clicking on the enclosing folder name (default MacOS behavior) but also navigate sideways and then back down a different path all in one easy pass of the mouse.
• Get the world’s best freeware text editor, [URL=http://www.barebones.com/products.html] BBEdit Lite](http://www.finderpop.com/). This one is sufficient reason in and of itself to avoid using a PC voluntarily if a Mac is an alternative possibility.
• Stuffit Expander is how you decode and decompress files. Zip files, Stuffit files, UUEncoded files, BinHexxed files, gnuzipped files, compact-pro’ed files, packit’ted files, all kindsa stuff.
• Every former Windows use should put FileCM in their Contextual Menu Items folder so that they can cut, copy, and paste files on the Mac they way they’re used to doing under Windows, using the contextual menu.
• Meanwhile, you’ll want to catch up with generations of Mac users who know the power of ResEdit so that you can edit the keystroke equivalents of programs or the names of the menu commands to suit your needs, or modify various dialog interfaces and behaviors.
•_It’s not only free, it’s included and you’ve already got it: Script Editor. The Script Editor is to MacOS 9 what the Terminal is to MacOS X, what the command line is to Windows and DOS. Learn it, use it, love it. Let FileMaker tell the Finder to automatically switch the printer to Adobe PDFWriter. Print 3 reports, then have FileMaker tell the Finder to rename the files and create a folder, give it a name, and move the new files to the folder. Then have FileMaker tell Microsoft Outlook to launch itself and open a new email and address it to recipients listed in the FileMaker database with an appropriate subject and with the files as attachments… using, uh, real complicated nerdy programming language like this:
tell application “Microsoft Outlook”
activate
CreateMail Subject “Reports 2nd Quarter” Recipients “recipient@domain.com” CC_Recipients “bossmanager@homeoffice.com” Body “I believe you’ll like these results, Dave.” Attachments “Realbad’s HD:Desktop Folder:Model_Release.fp5.pdf”
end tell
Damn code.
…howzabout:
[ul]
[li]Monkey’s Audio, a lossless audio compressor. [/li][li]EAC, an accurate CD-ripper. Well, this one’s ‘postcard ware’, not freeware per se.[/li][/ul]
Both excellent.