List O'Free Windows Software

by Michael Dipperstein

Welcome to my list o'free software. Lately Linux has become my operating system of choice. My home PC has a Windows partition, but I can't remember the last time that I booted to it. How ever, I still use Windows at work, and still interact with Windows users, so I found some utility in maintaining this list.

This page contains links to sites which contain all kinds of free stuff that I've found useful. Most of the stuff is for Win32 (Windows 95/98/NT/XP), though some of the stuff may be used on several different platforms. Some of the free stuff comes in for fee versions too, but all of it may be used for free, for an unlimited time in at least one form.

This is by no means an exhaustive list of all the free stuff that I have tried or know of. If you know of any free software packages that I should add to my list, e-mail me at mdipper@alumni.engr.ucsb.edu and tell me what you know about it. If you happen to be the creator of the free software package, odds are especially good that I will include your software on my list.

Free Editors

AnyEdit - AnyEdit is a well designed program editor written by an open team of developers lead by M. Deepak and licensed under the GPL. AnyEdit is very well suited for editing of multi-file C/C++, Java, and PERL projects, with features such as code completion and syntax highlighting. If you are looking for programmers editor/IDE, AnyEdit is worth a try. However, AnyEdit's complexity makes it ill-suited as a Notepad replacement.
Arachnophilia - Arachnophilia is another cool editor. As the name suggests, it supports web page design (not spider lovers). In addition it has templates for several programming languages and allows you to view your file in an external web browser or a viewer that is part of the editor. If, you're the patient type, or have a really fast PC, you might find the keyword highlighting to be a great feature, but on my PC it's unbearable. Arachnophilia has recently been rewritten in Java. And works on any machine running Java 2 release 1.4. I haven't tried the Java version, so I don't know if it's better or worse.
ConTEXT - ConTEXT is an AEdit derivative developed by Eden Kirin. It has become my latest program editor of choice. ConTEXT has all the features that I expect from an IDE and the simplicity of Notepad. It includes syntax highlighting for several languages, rectangular text blocks, book marks, and support for projects. It was an easy editor to get used to, it's keyboard commands are intuitive. ConTEXT would be a perfect general purpose editor if it included a spell checker.
Crimson Editor - Crimson Editor is a compact and powerful program editor with most of the features found in commercial program editors, including: syntax highlighting, it's own macro language, and a spell checker (though it does not correct spelling). I have used this editor for creating HTML files, and it does an excellent job of syntax highlighting, but lacks the menu of HTML keywords that I have grown accustomed to.
HTML-Kit - Some time ago I tried playing with HTML-Kit. It's yet another full featured editor. HTML-Kit isn't nearly as easy to use as NoteTab, and it's not as quick loading either, but it is 100% free and comes with several features that the free version of NoteTab is missing, like keyword highlighting, spell checking, and a previewer. There's also a Linux version of HTML-Kit in the works. It's in Alpha at the time of my writing this, and I haven't tried it.
JFE - Jens' File Editor is a full featured editor text written by Jens Altmann. It that includes some functions which allow it to be used as an IDE. When I'm working in windows, I use it as a Notepad replacement as well as an editor for some of my programming. JFE is very stable and has most of the features found in the for fee program editors, including column blocking and syntax highlighting. The only thing it lacks is a spell checker.
NoteTab Light - NoteTab Light is a text editor designed with additional customizable templates. The templates that come with the editor support HTML, and are fairly robust. It's the editor that I originally for creating this and other web pages. There are actually three editors in the NoteTab family: NoteTab Light, NoteTab, and NoteTab Pro. Out of all of these NoteTab Light is the only free editor. The cost for either of the other editors is minimal (My wife actually owned a copy of NoteTab Pro, I've been too cheap to by a second copy for my PC). The full-featured editors support keyword highlighting and spell checking, as well as a few more powerful macros.
PFE - Programmer's File Editor is a full featured editor written by Alan Phillips. I used to use it for most of my coding. It was the editor that Microchip used to package in their MPLAB development package for PIC microcontrollers. It's very stable and has most of the features found in the for fee program editors. The only things it lacks are the ability to do column blocking, and a spell checker.
PSPad - I'm currently in the process of familiarizing myself with the features of PSPad. PSPad is developed by Jan Fiala and it's apparently written in Borland's Delphi. The common editing functions like cut and paste work as expected and it has block selections too, though selecting a block is a bit awkward. PSPad is another one of those editors with the features of an IDE. It includes syntax highlighting for several languages, rectangular text blocks, book marks, and support for projects. Though I'm still not comfortable with the project support. PSPad also includes a spell checker and a hex editor. Someday I expect it to become my editor of choice.

Free Compilers

Mingw GCC - Mingw GCC is a Win32 porting of the GNU Project's GCC developed by Mumit Kahn. The resulting compiler and tools may be used by anyone under the GNU public license. There are two versions of this compiler, one which requires MSVCRT.DLL and the other which requires CRTL32.DLL. Each version has it's limits, so read about them before you choose one. Unless you're targeting old (pre OSR 2) Windows 95 machines I recommend using the MSVCRT.DLL version.
Cygnus's GCC for Cygwin - CygWin32 is actually a porting of GCC and much of the GNU environment to a Win32 platforms. The porting was done by Cygnus Software and is free to be used by anyone under the GNU public license. Recently, Redhat has acquired Cygnus and continues to support their projects. I used this compiler when I did work for my school projects. Unlike the mingw version of GCC, this version emulates much of the Unix environment and may use many of the more common Unix libraries. It let's me get pretty far with my assignments using my PC before I have to log on to real Unix machines where my project finally has to run. The only real downside to Cygwin GCC is that all code compiled under it requires a special DLL, cygwin1.dll, to run. The DLL does all the translating of Unix system calls to the Win32 environment.
lcc-win32 - lcc is free Win32 C compiler written by Jacob Navia. It supports all the Win32 libraries, and has intrinsic Pentium MMX operations. In my benchmarks of lcc, I found that it generated smaller code than the Borland and Microsoft compilers, but the speed of the code was slightly less. Considering that lcc comes with a hefty price tag of free, I think it lives up to its expectations. I've been using it on and off for a while now and have yet to encounter a compiler bug. I thought I had one when I used it to compile crypt(3), but it turned out to be a bug in the crypt(3) source.
Borland C++ - Borland has made the 5.51 version of their compiler free for download. You're required to join their Borland Community, but there is no cost to that either. The free version of the compiler does not come with and IDE or debugger. Fortunately a free version of the Turbo Debugger is also available. If you wish to do any development with Borland C++, Jogy has a site containing a lot of useful links.
Pacific C - Pacific C is a freeware C compiler for Windows released by Hi-Tech Software. It's latest incarnation includes the HI-TECH Professional Development environment, an IDE. Pacific C's claims to be ANSI-compliant with tight code generation. It haven't looked at it in years, so I can't verify their claims.
Digital Mars - Walter Bright, one of the main developers of Zortech C/C++, has developed a series of compilers for DOS, Win16, and Win32. The compilers support C, C++, and D. To the best of my knowledge there are no other compilers for the D language. I have tried the D compiler and it worked, but ANSI C has always been the quickest way for me to get something done, so I found that I wasn't using any of D or even C++ the features.

Free Scripting Languages

I really don't want to lecture about the pros and cons of any scripting languages. Aside from shell scripts and batch files, almost all of the scripts I write are in PERL, however most newly trained programmers prefer Java. Both of these languages have ports to a wide variety of platforms including Win32, and wide legion of supporters who are more than happy to lend their assistance. The links below are to the home pages for each of the languages.

Java
PERL

Integrated Development Environments (IDEs)

Dev-C++ - Lately I have been using this IDE in combination with mingw for most of my development. The editor that comes with Dev-C++ is a little weak, its tight integration with the compiler, the gdb debugger (including the insight version), and a make utility make up for the weak editor. Mike Serrano maintains a site describing the ide, its use, and integration with the insight debugger.
VIDE - VIDE is the V Integrated Development Environment developed by Bruce Wampler. VIDE supports both the gcc and Borland C compilers under Win32. For debugging, VIDE will integrate with gdb or turbo debugger. VIDE also supports a Sun's Java SDK.

Free Compression Utilities

InfoZIP's ZIP utilities - One of the most common compressed file formats for PC is .ZIP. Though the format has been made public domain, most of the ZIPers and UNZIPers are not. InfoZIP has ported ZIP and UNZIP to several platforms and made both the source and executable available. They've also developed Wiz, a ZIP GUI for win32. Zip, Unzip, and Wiz may all be found InfoZIP FTP site.
gzip - gzip is a single file compression format developed as part of the GNU project. It is responsible for all of the files with a .gz extension. A major reason for gzip's popularity is that it has been ported to several Unix platforms.
bzip2 - Like gzip, bzip2 is a single file compression utility. It's not quite as popular as gzip, but is gaining in popularity because it usually has better compression ratios.
7-Zip - 7-Zip is a Windows GUI based file archiver capable of using the 7z algorithm to achieve high compression ratios. 7-zip also packs and unpacks: ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, and TAR formats. There are several more formats that it can unpack, but not 7-Zip is licensed under the GPL, so source is available. I don't use 7-Zip all that often, so every time I come back to it I have to relearn its interface, but other than that it has a quality archiver.

Security Programs

Zone Alarm - Zone Alarm is a software firewall that comes in many for fee versions and an increasingly hard to find version that is free to individuals and not-for-profit charitable entities. The free version is capable of blocking IP port access to any programs not specifically given user authorization. Unlike other firewalls, Zone Alarm fingerprints the programs that are allowed internet access, allowing for identification of corrupted programs. Not only does Zone Alarm block access from the outside, it also blocks access from the inside, allowing you to catch key loggers, spyware, and programs that phone home.
AVG - AVG is an anti-virus program that is free for personal use. Grisoft, the developers of AVG, require the product to be registered. You should check out their privacy policy before you use it. As far as anti-virus programs go, AVG isn't the best scanner, but the test results I've seen show it catching virii found in the wild in the high 90 percent range. That's certainly better than not using a virus checker. No anti-virus program is 100%.
Ad-Aware - To quote straight from their web page "Ad-Aware is designed to provide advanced protection from known Data-mining, aggressive advertising, Parasites, Scumware, selected traditional Trojans, Dialers, Malware, Browser hijackers, and tracking components". Ad-Aware is available in both free and for fee versions. I've only used the free version. It doesn't catch everything, but it helps.
Spybot-S&D - Spybot is yet another tool for finding and removing spyware. I honestly haven't used it, but I'd be negligent if I didn't include it in my list.

Free Stuff From Microsoft (Yes, they have free stuff)

Power Toys - The wonderful people at Microsoft have been nice enough provide some of their developer's favorite tools. They called this package the Windows 95 Power Toys. Among my favorite power toys are a utility which allows access to desktop links from the system tray, and another utility which allows the display resolution to be changed in real-time. X-Windows users will also appreciate an autofocus utility, which just annoys the hell out of me, now that I've become used to not having autofocus.
Kernel Toys - The wonderful people at Microsoft have been nice enough provide some of their developer's favorite tools for monitoring system activities and resource availability. They called this package the Windows 95 Kernel Toys.
Excel Viewer 2003 - A free Microsoft Excel 97/2000/2003 viewer.
PowerPoint Viewer 2003 - PowerPoint Viewer 2003 lets you view full-featured presentations created in PowerPoint 97 and later versions.
Visio Viewer 2003 - The Microsoft Office Visio 2003 Viewer enables almost anyone with Windows to view Visio files.
Word Viewer 2003 - View, print and copy Word documents, even if you don't have Word installed.
Snapshot Viewer for Access 2003, 2002, 2000, and 97 - The Snapshot Viewer enables you to view a report snapshot without having the standard or run-time versions of Microsoft Access 97 through Access 2003.

Monitor Utilities

DLLView - DLLView is one of several freeware utilities made by the people at sysinternals. It allows you to view all DLLs that are currently in use as well as the executables that use them. DLLs may be searched for and selected DLLs may be killed. It's an excellent tool for discovering the real cause for DLL X has caused a page fault in Y.
OpenList - OpenList is yet another freeware utilities made by the people at sysinternals. It allows you to view all the files that are currently open, their access status, share mode, and their open flags.
PRCView - PRCView is process viewer much like DLLView, it's not as strong on the find features, but it can put itself in the systray and also has a command prompt version. If a debugger is available, PRCView will invoke the debugger when a process is double clicked on.

Misc. Useful Stuff

MiTeX - MiTex is a complete LaTeX package for Win32. It contains fonts, dvi generators and viewers. It's just one of many free TeX packages available, but it's the only one that I've ever used. My TeX needs are few and far between, and MiTeX has done the job just fine.
Aladdin's GSView and GhostScript - These utilities are a must for viewing and printing PostScript (PS) and Acrobat (PDF) files. In addition, they allow PostScript files to be printed without a PostScript printer. I believe GhostScript is strongly related to the GNU package of the same name. However, I don't know which package derives itself from the other.
Adobe Acrobat Reader - Acrobat Reader is Adobe's utility that allows viewing and printing of Acrobat (PDF) files. In addition to the basic feature set, a few plug-ins are available for searching for text, linking to other forms, and similar operations. For viewing PDF files, I prefer Acrobat Reader over GSview, however Acrobat Reader does not support PostScript.
FastCode32 - In earlier revisions of this page, I recommend SAPI Software's WinCode for encoding and decoding mime, uuencoded, and xxencode files. Unfortunately, SAPI is nowhere to be found. Fortunately, FastCode32 is a 32 bit program that performs all of those functions in an easy to use package, and like everything else on this page FastCode32 is freeware.
TeraTerm Pro - TeraTerm Pro is a VT-100 terminal which I use for all my telnet sessions. It supports all of the basic features of Windows 95 telnet, with a few additions like better terminal support, and key commands for cut and paste. In addition there are a few extensions available for TeraTerm Pro, the only one of which I have ever used is SSH extension.
WebTutor - WebTutor is a HTML tutor designed by Joe Barta. It's useful for anyone needing either a reference or instructions on Web design. The only reason it requires a Win32 platform is to run the self-extracting install program. The WinTutor home page includes links to copy of WinTutor hosted on their site.
WinMerge - To quote straight from the WinMerge home page "WinMerge is an Open Source visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. It is highly useful for determining what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions". In other words it's a graphical diff program. I use it heavily when verifying changes that I've made to my software.
unxutils - unxutils is a collection of GNU utilities to ported native Win32. Many of the programs that come with Cygwin are also here. The big difference is that these utilities don't require an emulation layer. This package is a must have for any *nix user required to use Windows.

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Last updated on January 4, 2006