My two recommendations:
Kantaris - Kantaris Media Player - "Kantaris is an open-source alternative to Windows Media Player with similar GUI and features. Video playback is based upon Videolan Client (VLC) which enables Kantaris to play almost anything without the need of installing any codecs separately." It will indeed play things that windows media player won't, and it's not nearly as much of a system hog.
Media Monkey - MediaMonkey Free Media Jukebox, Music Manager, CD Ripper & Converter - Plays, manages and organises your music collection. It has a TON of features but doesn't seem cluttered (syncronization with ipods/whatever, file conversion, tagging, cd burning, sorting by year/artist/album/name/genre/mood whatever, etc) and its free.
Rocket Dock - Organize desktop icons on a bar that you can hide. I think it's pretty popular, but I didn't see it on the list.
About RocketDock - RocketDock.com
What's the best driver cleanup tool these days, I got some new video cards to install
Driver Sweeper gets my vote.
Worked like a charm, thanks. May want to add that to system utilities at the top, I wouldn't have asked the question if there was something in the list already 8)
Mac Users:
Mac Software Reviewed
Just to clarify my post, since I thought the post I was looking at was on the front page, here is the link I should have posted: http://mac.appstorm.net/general/60-o...free-mac-apps/
coconut-flavour.com - [coconutBattery 2.6.5]
A very easy-to use, popular laptop battery information software for OS X (10.4.5+), 849KB. Gets the information from the system profile.
POV-Ray - The Persistence of Vision Raytracer awesome free code driven ray-tracer
Mediacoder - Video transcoding, just about any format is supported with full control over the output.
Windirstat - Displays used/free disk space as a series of rectangles proportional to the file's size, useful for finding large files or directories on your disk.
Totalcommander - Robust File Manager with plugin support for .MPQ archives (downloaded separately).
CD Art Display
Download
CD Art Display is a free desktop program that shows the current song cover in a customizable skin.
Some examples of skins:
http://www.cdartdisplay.com/images/ThaPorthole-full.png
http://www.cdartdisplay.com/otisbee/...Jewel-full.png
http://www.cdartdisplay.com/otisbee/...lular-full.png
http://www.cdartdisplay.com/otisbee/...-Sync-full.png
It fully works with AlbumPlayer, Helium Music Manager, iTunes, Winamp, Windows Media Player, foobar2000 (component required), MediaMonkey and partially supports qmp, MP3Toys and musikCube.
Along with several skins ready to use, CD Art Display has a powerful Skin Editor with real time preview.
Main Features
* Skinnable
* High quality graphics
* PNG transparency support
* Reads cover from players database, local folder or ID3v2 tag
* Download cover from Amazon.com via built in tool
* Cover as system tray icon
* Lyrics (read, search and submit thanks to LYRDB.com)
* Hotkeys (including rating ones)
* Free! No spyware or adware!
Requirements
Windows Vista or XP and Visual Basic runtime 6.
Vista also requires Visual Basic runtime 5.
I'm not sure if this goes here or not but I found this app when I was trying to find media servers for my PS3
PS3 Media Server
Runs off your PC, and as long as your PS3 is on the same network (I.E. same Router), it automatically finds it. Really simple to use.
Strange that i don't see it here but Hiren boot CD
Hiren's Boot CD 9.9 and All Other Versions - HTTP Download (for download)
Hiren's BootCD 9.9 - www.hiren.info (for that it contains)
Please remove FoxIt Reader from the list, requires a unwanted toolbar to be installed for it to work. =(
Was Avira Antivirus ever proposed for the list? It's always been mentioned as within the top 3 of freeware AVs as far as I've known. The popup upon update and scans be annoying, but is very easily disabled in Safe Mode.
Link: Download AntiVir Personal 9.0.0.407 - FileHippo.com
Also, as filehippo is one of my favorite resources, you can very easily narrow down a massive compendium of popular software to freeware only by using the filter option near the top right of the site. Has a ton of categories as well as a most popular list to gauge community response to particular software.
Link: FileHippo.com - Download Free Software (be sure to click "No Filter" to change to freeware only for perusing.
Lastly I'd mention Lifehacker's great Hive Five series of posts for narrowing down the top 5 choices for particular software categories. The top five and most popular are selected by the Lifehacker community via votes, so it's largely user opinion, but the top 5s are usually very solid choices.
Link: Hive Five - Lifehacker
Most recent pick was Defraggler for disk defragmenters, which I also spy as missing from the big list! ;p
Link: Defraggler - Defragment your files!
eXtreme Power Supply Calculator Lite
This is not a program per se, its just a calculator for computer power supply units. However, the question comes up from time to time regarding what people should have for computer power supplies, and I didn't see it posted anywhere yet at least as a sticky and it definitely should be. The link points to the free version, there is a pay version as well that also includes much more indepth information, such as rail amperage and UPS calculations. The configuration options are pretty indepth as well, and cover a wide multitude of the latest computer hardware components, so if you've got a question about what you should be buying for your next rig in terms of power, this is a good place to look.
If you're sick of the pop-ups and general shittiness of free antivirus programs, some (many? most?) ISPs provide free antivirus software for their subscribers. Full version ones too, not cut-down trial versions.
Examples:
AT&T: Mcafee http://att.software.yahoo.com/
Comcast: Mcafee Comcast.net Security
Road Runner: CA Security - Road Runner
AutoHotkey - Free Mouse and Keyboard Macro Program with Hotkeys and AutoText
A great program for anyone who wants to work faster on their PC. Tons of great pre-made scripts to use too. Here's a few examples included in the program's help:
Spoiler: show
Spoiler: show
Spoiler: show
Spoiler: show
As you can see the scripts can be very complex and are 100% customizable. You can also make basic scripts that will auto-replace certain text(i.e. typing spl followed by a ~ will replace spl~ with the spoiler tags(you can use any end character you want)) , navigate to a webpage automatically when you enter a certain keystroke(#1 will open my homepage) or even launch an unopened program(^!n = new notepad window if there isn't one open already).