The 16 Best-ever Freeware Utilities

There are a lot of great freeware programs out there. Many are as good or  better than their commercial alternatives. This list features my pick of the "best of the best."

All these utilities have been featured in past issues of Gizmo's free Support Alert newsletter.  Subscribe now to stay up-to-date with the latest freeware and shareware programs.

Last updated July, 2004.

The Best Freeware List

Best Free Anti-Virus Software
I normally recommend the Norton Anti-virus suite but I'm fully aware that some folks simply can't afford to buy it.  If you fall into this category then you should check out AVG Antivirus 6.0 Free Edition. This product has been continuously refined since it was first released in 1991 and now offers very impressive protection capabilities. Additionally, it's relatively small, light on resources, has regular automatic updates and handles email scanning. There is a free and a pro version, the only difference being that the free version has a few non-critical features disabled and has no technical support. Even so, it's an impressive package and a offers the financially challenged a real alternative to the major anti-virus suites.(5MB)
http://www.grisoft.com/

Best Free Adware/Spyware/Scumware Remover Updated
Spybot Search and Destroy quickly hunts down all those odious applications that are secretly bundled in with many "advertiser-supported" utilities. It also provides active protection against the current plague of browser hijackers, auto-dialers and other surreptitiously downloaded scumware products.   My second choice in this category is Ad-aware. It's free too and has a simpler user interface though the free version lacks the active protection offered by Spybot. I use both Spybot and Ad-aware as they tend to find slightly different things. I recommend that you use both as well. 
http://spybot.safer-networking.de/  ( 2.5MB) http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/  (1.7MB)

Best Free Malware Prevention New
These days all users face a real risk of malicious programs secretly installing themselves on your computer. Anti-virus and anti-spyware products help reduce the chance of infection but you can really enhance your protection by installing WinPatrol, which provides a vital "last ditch" defense layer by telling you when a product is trying to change any of the critical settings on your PC such as the registry and auto-start areas. WinPatrol simply throws up a dialog asking whether you want to allow the change or not. It's simple but highly effective. The only downside is the messages can confuse some inexperienced users. That reservation aside, this is a product that should be on every PC. (785KB)
http://www.winpatrol.com/

Best Free Browser New
Internet Explorer is a great browser but it has become such a target for malicious exploit that it now has become a security risk.  There are several excellent alternatives but my top pick goes to Mozilla FireFox.  It's faster and leaner than Internet Explorer and since the release of version 0.9, is stable and reliable. It loads a little slower than IE but once running, it zips along at lightning speed. With tabbed browsing and more free extensions than you could ever want, it offersa major upgrade in your browsing experience.  Unlike IE, it's also standards compliant.  FireFox is now my everyday browser though occasionally I have to fire up IE to browse a site designed around IE's non standard features. (4.7MB)
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

Best Free Browser Accelerator
There are dozens of products that claim to speed up your surfing
but most have little effect. NaviScope is different - it actually works! Not only does it speed up your surfing it also offers optional ad, pop-up, cookie and JavaScript blocking, an extensive set of diagnostic tools and more bells and whistles  than you can imagine. My only beef is that the tool bar is very
obtrusive so once you set up NaviScope, you should select the option to turn off the toolbar.  If you need it, you can always bring it up again though the taskbar icon. (614KB)
http://ftp.pcworld.com/pub/new/internet/internet_tools/nscope.exe

Best Free File Manager
Windows Explorer is fine for simple file management activities but when you have some serious work to do, you need a two pane file manager. I use Directory Opus which is excellent but costs $59.  Recently I discovered 2X Explorer.  It offers most of the functionality of Directory Opus and is totally free. As a bonus, its user interface is very similar to Windows Explorer, so most users will find this tool easy to learn and use.(392KB)
http://netez.com/2xExplorer/

Best Free Anonymous Surfing Service
There are lots of reasons folks have for wanting to surf anonymously, ranging from simple paranoia to possibly being murdered by a malevolent foreign government. Whatever the reasons, commercial services that offer anonymity are doing real well. However one of the best services, JAP, is totally free and its level of secrecy is better than many commercial systems. However expect your surfing to slow down as you'll be relayed through a chain of servers. You'll also need to change your browser settings to work through a proxy.
http://anon.inf.tu-dresden.de/index_en.html

Best Free Software Suite
GNUWin II is a free software compilation for Windows. This huge suite features dozens of programs including free alternatives to many expensive commercial products.  There is Abi Word as an alternative for MS Word, OpenOffice for MS Office XP, The Gimp for Adobe Photoshop, Gzip for WinZIP are dozens more.   Taken collectively this suite provides more than enough software to completely set up a PC without spending a cent on applications or utilities.  The suite is available or CD or you download the
CD image and cut your own.
http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/en/index.html

Best Free Notepad Replacement
There are lots of text editors and Notepad replacements. Some of these aspire to be programming editors while others try to be word processors.  What I love about EditPad is that, unlike the others, it concentrates on simply being a better plain text editor and it succeeds brilliantly.  It has a Notepad like interface combined with tabbed document windows and the ability to open as many documents as you like with no file size limitations. I use it every day for tasks as diverse as writing Support Alert Newsletter to examining my web log files. Some of the latter can be up to 100MB, yet EditPad handles these huge files with ease.  (849KB). http://www.editpadlite.com/editpadlite.html

Best Free Hotkey Utility
Hotkeycontrol XP is a free utility that allows you to define your own hotkeys so that a single key press can launch an application, insert commonly used text, change your volume, or just about anything else.  Hotkeycontrol works with all versions of Windows from 98 onwards, though some features will only work with Win2K or XP. (0.91KB)
http://www.digital-miner.com/hkcontrol.html

Best Free Registry Cleaner
To keep the registries on my PCs in top running order I use Fix-It utilities This is a commercial product but I must admit that Toni Helenius' Easy Cleaner performs almost as well and is totally free. As a bonus, it will also detect duplicate files and help you clean up temp files to make more disk space. Remember though, as with every Registry cleaner,  to back up your Windows Registry before use. (2.64MB)
http://personal.inet.fi/business/toniarts/ecleane.htm