Downloads

PERSONAL FAVORITE WINDOWS FREEWARE SITES

I immediately install the latest Linux Mint distro on desktops I build for myself, but Windows applications remain necessary for the notebook PCs I purchase, which come preloaded with Windows operating systems.  

Download.com
http://www.download.com/
FileHippo
http://www.filehippo.com/
Gizmo's Freeware Reviews
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/top-freeware-picks-category-editors.htm
MajorGeeks
http://www.majorgeeks.com/
SnapFiles
http://www.snapfiles.com/freeware/freeware.html
Softpedia
http://win.softpedia.com/
SourceForge
http://sourceforge.net/


PERSONAL FAVORITE WINDOWS FREEWARE

7-Zip
File archiver with a high compression ratio in 7z format with LZMA and LZMA2 compression. Supported formats: Packing / unpacking: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM, Unpacking only: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DEB, DMG, FAT, HFS, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, VHD, WIM, XAR and Z. For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
http://www.7-zip.org/

Belarc Advisor
Builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All your PC profile information is kept private and is not sent to any web server
http://www.belarc.com/free_download.html

CalcTape
CalcTape is a revolutionary new kind of pocket calculator. With CalcTape, also extensive calculations remain clearly structured. CalcTape makes the arithmetic process visible - you can generate intermediate results and subsequently correct or change all numbers and operations.
https://www.schoettler-software.com/en/calctape/windows

CCleaner (Crap Cleaner)
System optimization and privacy tool removes unused files allowing Windows to run faster, freeing up valuable hard disk space, cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history, fast, takes less than a second to run
http://www.ccleaner.com/

Defraggler

Speed up your PC with quick & easy defragmentation. Defrag entire hard drives or individual files. Works with HDD and SSD and supports NTFS and FAT32 file systems!
https://www.ccleaner.com/defraggler

Epson Perfection V33 Scanner Driver 
http://www.driversepson.com/epson-perfection-v33-driver/

FreeCommander 

FreeCommander is an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager

https://freecommander.com/en/downloads/

GIMP
An acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. Can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, or image format converter. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything
http://www.gimp.org/

Google Chrome

Browse with the power of Google

With Google apps like Gmail, Google Pay, and Google Assistant, Chrome can help you stay productive and get more out of your browser.

https://www.google.com/chrome/

LibreOffice

Power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux. Gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base
http://www.libreoffice.org/download

MiniTool Partition Wizard Free
All-inclusive free partition manager to organize disk partitions to get the best of your hard drive Measure drive performance and analyze disk space usage in simple ways Fully compatible with Windows 10/8.1/8/7 all editions
https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

NoteTab Light
Leading-edge text and HTML editor, winner of software industry awards since 1998, easily handles a stack of huge files; lets you format text to your heart's content; does system-wide searches, and multi-line global replacements, even corrects your spelling mistakes, build document templates, add bookmarks, convert text to HTML on-the-fly, and take charge of your code
https://www.notetab.com/notetab-light

Open Shell

Classic style Start Menu for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10. Reborn of Classic Shell

Open Shell is the continuation of Classic Shell, which was is a collection of features that were available in older versions of Windows but were later removed.  

Features:  Classic style Start Menu for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 Toolbar for Windows Explorer Classic copy UI (Windows 7 only) Show file size in Explorer status bar Title bar and status bar for Internet Explorer
https://open-shell.github.io/Open-Shell-Menu/

PosterPrint
Did you ever need to print out a large poster or banner but you couldn't make it big enough on your standard printer? PosterPrint can take a document created by any Windows ® printing application, zoom and print it on several standard sheets of paper using any available printer. This is a Multipage Printing - if a poster doesn't fit into one sheet of paper, print it on several and glue (or tape) them together! PosterPrint automatically adds glue margins, prints trim and alignment guides and offers several ways for easy zooming
http://www.grandutils.com/PosterPrint/

qBittorrent

The qBittorrent project aims to provide an open-source software alternative to µTorrent.  Additionally, qBittorrent runs and provides the same features on all major platforms (FreeBSD, Linux, macOS, OS/2, Windows).
https://www.qbittorrent.org/

VLC Media Player
Multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols, can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
http://www.filehippo.com/download_vlc/

Windows Movie Maker 6 for Windows 7/8/8.1
Installs an updated version of Windows Movie Maker 6.0 (WMM6) from Vista, in Windows 7/8/8.1. Windows Movie Maker 6 is the best version of Windows Movie Maker ever offered. It is much better than Windows Live Movie Maker, or WLMM, which comes standard with Windows 7/8/8.1
http://noeld.com/programs.asp?cat=video
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Multimedia/Video/Other-VIDEO-Tools/Windows-Movie-Maker-Installer.shtml

The Linux Penguin

PERSONAL FAVORITE LINUX DISTRO

Linux Mint
Linux Mint is the Linux distro that finally persuaded me to convert to Linux on my desktop PCs, permanently, and not look back. Linux Mint is what has long been promised Windows users -- an Open Source operating system as easy to install as Windows, but which has all the virtues of Linux.

No, I am not double-booting into Linux and Windows. No, I did not partition my hard drive for both Linux and Windows. I formatted my entire hard drive and installed Linux Mint on the entire disk. I will not be going back.

If you're like me, if you're a Windows user who has been waiting for Linux to get its act together so you can finally make the switch, your wait is over. Linux Mint is what you have been waiting for. Linux Mint will give you a seamless, trouble-free installation, and seamless, trouble-free updates thereafter. All through menus and mouse clicks. No line commands required. Linux Mint is what Mandrake, Xandros, and OpenSUSE promised to be, but weren't.

Download the Linux Mint ISO and have Linux up and running within the hour. Complete with apps such as Firefox, Thunderbird, and Open Office. Be the proud owner of an operating system and office suite superior to Windows and Microsoft Office. All for free.

Linux Mint, like almost all Linux distros, is completely free. Your only cost will be a blank thumb drive and a little download time.

http://linuxmint.com/

PERSONAL FAVORITE LINUX SITE

Distrowatch
http://distrowatch.com/