Free and Cheap Windows Utilities I Cannot Live Without

Every time I get a new computer to work on, I always need to track these programs back down, they have now become staples of my workflow. I’m sure at least one of these will help somebody else increase their productivity, and in that spirit, I present you the list, in no particular order.

Gadwin PrintScreen - Little utility that gives you a whole lot more control over print screen functionality. Now you can have the same Mac-type screen capture from a specific area of the screen, also make those captures into images with no additional work, choosing from different image formats, and a whole lot more. It’s freeware too.
ColorCop - A small eyedropper utility, with built-in magnification. It can minimize to the tray, automatically copy the color code to the clipboard, with or without pound sign for the hex value, creates color palettes based on your selection, and again a whole lot more. I have some old friends which used a Firefox extension for this (eyedropping), but I have found that ColorCop with it’s added functionality is the best choice. Also freeware.
Xenu Link Sleuth - I have had this program since I first remember getting into the web and writing my code in Notepad. Of course now you have software with this kind of link checking functionality already built in, but I have found having this super fast, light-weight, accurate, color coded results utility for checking links invaluable when I just wanted to do a quick check. It does have some limitations, but overall, a great little program. Freeware.
PixelRuler - According to a friend of mine, the nerdiest piece of software I use (she ended up using it herself so HA). This is the best pixel ruler I have found strictly for it’s simplicity and good looks. Freeware.
AMP Font Viewer - Another utility that helps the PC have some of the same built-in Mac functionality. This time it’s all about fonts: AMP Font Viewer will not only let you view your fonts in two different ways, preview any letters you want (works particularly well when trying to match a font that you don’t know), but most of all, it allows for a list of non-installed fonts to be not only previewed, but also installed temporarily while the program is running, and uninstalled when the program is closed. All of a sudden you don’t really need 5000 fonts installed out of which you only use 50. Just install the 50 (which will help your Creative Suite load faster anyways) and then pick and choose the other 4950 when you need something different. Freeware.
Tredosoft Multiple IE - A solution so easy to test is older versions of IE has never existed before to my knowledge. Just install IE 7 and let it override everything, once that’s all done (which it takes a ridiculous amount of time) just run the Multiple IE installer, choose what older versions of IE you want installed standalone, and go. Freeware.
Filezilla - (comic book guys’ voice) best free FTP software ever. Freeware.

And on top of these I also want to list a few programs which I cannot live without which are free for home users only though.

ALZip - Don’t want to pay for Winrar but want all the same functionality? Get this program. It’s free for home users and includes more features than I can put in this little post.
xporer2 - Again, this program is so great I ended up buying a license for the Pro version. It’s a file management program that basically replaces the Windows native file explorer functionality. Dual pane, tabbed, and a ton more stuff that I cannot live without. The version linked is free for home users and academic purposes.
FastStone Image Viewer - I used to always use XnView for my pic viewing pleasure, but it just started getting really slow. When I would want to view an image in a folder full of images, the first image would come up in the viewer, but then I couldn’t get to the other images very quickly. FastStone Image Viewer fixes all that and gives me the functionality I crave: batch rename, batch conversion, an awesome viewer and a great browser utility. Of course XnView is free for all purposes which is nice, but FastStone is just a better product IMHO.

That’s it for now, although I’m sure there are a number of other utilities I could probably put here, these are the core though.

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