Essential Programs (2022-11-09)

General Programs

AstroGrep (.NET 4.0)

Full-text file search. Tell it what you're looking for and where, and it'll pull up every single mention.

Everything

One-click access to a list of every damn file in every NTFS and ReFS partition you have mounted. Know what a file's called, but not where it is? Type it in for instant results.

Kiwix Windows Vista?, macOS 10.??, Linux

Offline viewer with a plethora of downloadable content packs from Wikimedia, TED, Stack Exchange, Khan Academy, Project Gutenberg, and more.

Notepad 2e

Simple but brilliant text editor with syntax highlighting, tag auto-closing, tag wrapping (ALT+X), and lots of other great website writin' features.

PeaZip Alternative to (Win)RAR and 7-Zip for Windows, Linux, BSD

Opens .arj .cab .cpio .jar .img .iso .lzh .pak .rar .vhd .xpi .z .zipx
Edits .7z .arc .bcm .br .bz2 .gz .lpaq8 .paq8o .pea .tar .wim .xz .zip .zpaq .zst

Convenient and easy GUI archiving program which can (un)pack from/to most currently and previously popular compression formats.

Resource Hacker

Edits .dll .exe .mui .rc .res .scr

Rips open program data files to let you extract/replace icons and images.

Utilities

DoubleKiller

Locates redundant files so you can move or delete them.

FastCopy

Whether you have a large file or 1000 minis, this'll zap 'em over with a quickness the built-in file copier can't hope to match.

Glary Utilities Alternative to CCleaner and Defraggler

Suite of useful programs for regular system main-ten-ants and updating.

HWiNFO Windows 95-11

Comprehensive system analysis tool with CPU features, RAM timings, GPU power, HDD/SSD statistics, and sensor data.

ImDisk Toolkit (.NET 4.0)

Program for mounting disc images, virtual drives, and RAMdisks.

Macrium Reflect Free

Tool for easy partition-level backups.

Process Explorer

Task Manager not doing it for you? Give this a try.

QtTabBar Alternative to Clover

Adds much-needed tabbed browsing features to Windows Explorer.

VeraCrypt Windows XP, macOS 10.7, Linux, BSD

Full-drive or virtual disk encryption.

WizTree Alternative to WinDirStat

Generates an interactive chart of what's using up all your drive space.

View/Edit Images

Colorpix

See a color you like? Open this up and hover over it to get the exact hex and RGB values.

Homestuck (Electron) Windows, macOS, Linux

The internet's Ulysses, preserved in its original format.

Honeyview Alternative to IrfanView, FastStone, XnView

Opens .bmp .bpg .crw .cr2 .dds .dng .cb7 .cbr .cbt .cbz .gif .j2k .jpg .jp2 .jxr .nef .nrw .orf .pcx .pef .pgm .png .pnm .ppm .psd .raf .rw2 .sr2 .tiff .tga .webp

Speedy image viewer with interpolation toggle (press U/I).

JPGExtra

Strips useless metadata from images to save space.
(Note: Chokes on filenames with Unicode characters.)

Mr. Teal

Offline viewer for webcomic packs.

PabloDraw (.NET 4.0) Windows XP, macOS 10.6, Linux

Delightfully easy to use ANSI art editor.
(Bug: Fails to read files containing the 0x0A character.)

PhotoScape

Edits .bmp .gif .jpg .png .tiff

Compact image editing suite that I've been using since 2011.

SumatraPDF Alternative to Adobe Reader and Foxit Reader for Windows Vista

Opens .cb7 .cbr .cbt .cbz .chm .djvu .epub .mobi .pdf .xps

Lightweight document and ebook viewer.

Zint Barcode Studio

Converts some text to a scannable 1D or 2D code.

Optimize/Record

Audacity Windows 10, macOS 10.7, Linux

The audio editor used by absolutely everyone. Grab 2.0.0 for Windows 98, 2.0.6 for XP SP2, or 2.3.3 for Windows 7.

BeCy Icon Grabber

Opens .cpl .cur .dll .exe .icl .ico .ocx .src

Turns classic ICOns into PNGs you can slap on your webzone.

Blender Windows 8, macOS 10.13, Linux

The open-source 3D modeling software. 2.76b for XP, 2.92 for 7.

FFMPEG-Win Windows 7

The powerful transcoder that HandBrake is a frontend for. Learn those command-line switches and you'll feel like a vizard (video wizard).
(Last known Windows XP compatible build was 20150525/8ce564e)

GIF2APNG Windows, macOS, Linux

Got GIFs? Most of the time they'd be smaller as animated PNGs.

OBS Studio Windows 8, macOS 10.13, Linux

All-in-one screen and game recording/livestreaming solution.

PNG Gauntlet (.NET 4.0) Windows, macOS

Image optimizer that squeezes down your static GIFs and PNGs.
(Caution: Removes all frames from animated PNGs.)

Trout's GIF Optimizer

Shrinks your jrafics, with optional color palette limiting.

UnFREEz

Simple program to turn a stack of frames into an animated GIF.

Internet

Escargot

Miss those good times on MSN Messenger? They're memories no more.

HTTrack Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD

Tired of your favorite blogs and websites disappearing? Grab a copy!

Lagrange Windows 7x64, macOS 10.13, AppImage

Opens .gmi and .gpub

Excellent Gopher and Gemini browser, with inline image and audio viewing, and support for ANSI color codes.

PuTTY Windows, Unix

SSH/SCP/SFTP clients with keypair generation.

Qodem Windows, macOS, Linux, BSD

Inspired Telnet client for doing some hardcore BBSing on.

Tixati Alternative to µTorrent, Transmission, qBittorrent for Windows, Linux

Lean and efficient torrent client.

Whalebird (Electron) Windows, macOS, Linux

My preferred way to keep up with the Fediverse.

WebDev

Arles

Image gallery and thumbnail generator to quickly get your pics online.

EasyPHP

Archived versions of the offline dynamic website development tool.

Link Examiner

Useful for scanning a locally-hosted copy of your site to find any typoed links and missing pages.

Grumpy

Basic little webserver I use to test my sites before uploading.

htp

The simple but powerful generator of every page on this site. Great templating features with a syntax already familiar to anyone who knows HTML.

Swivel Windows XP, macOS 10.5

Flash to video conversion utility so people on cringe no-NPAPI browsers can still watch those animated masterpieces.

Comodo PFW

When properly set up, absolutely foils malware and ransomware.

Hardentools

Disables some common attack vectors.

Privacy Dashboard Windows 7

Simple GUI program to disable Microsoft's telemetry and tracking.

Malwarebytes Windows 7

The best on-demand scanning and cleanup in the business.

MVPS HOSTS

Blocks loads of tracking and malware sites at the system DNS level.
(Note: Changes get reverted by Windows Defender, if active.)

Windows NT6 Debloating Guide

Helpful guide to reducing system resource usage on Vista/7/8.

Debloat Script Windows 10

One-click access to privacy restorations and annoyancy removals.