Useful Software Megathread

[Mark Kaine]

On Top Replica!

 

https://github.com/LorenzCK/OnTopReplica

 

Might be the best program ever, even though I don't use it much, in certain situations it does all the stuff windows cant do natively... Basically its a picture in picture program,  fully resizeable, etc, and it can update in real time, on top of everything (i think even in full screen games)

[TB_GB]

Is there a program to rip DVD/BluRays as I am looking to rip my films so I an store them in the attic to save space, Hopefully on that create massive files 

[ukanuk]

On 2/22/2023 at 11:47 PM, TB_GB said:

Is there a program to rip DVD/BluRays as I am looking to rip my films so I an store them in the attic to save space, Hopefully on that create massive files 

MakeMKV https://www.makemkv.com

[ukanuk]

PhotoStructure https://photostructure.com

It's not much fun having family photos+videos on a folder in your computer somewhere. It's more fun getting "On this day" notifications from Google Photos, but that comes with privacy concerns and a monthly subscription for lots of storage. PhotoStructure solves both issues, and by design does not lock you in so if/when the author dies or you decide to switch to Adobe Lightroom or something, all your tags and organization are stored with the original photos so you haven't lost any work. Very excited about where is today, and very excited about where it's going.

 

Although, you might want to wait for the next 2.1.0.alpha.8 release, or beta/stable release. It has loads of improvements since alpha.7, and even more since the last stable release. See https://photostructure.com/about/2023-release-notes/, https://photostructure.com/about/2022-release-notes/, and https://photostructure.com/about/2021-release-notes/.

 

Last stable release 1.1.0 was from 2021-08-15, 19 months ago. Dev is active in forums and in Discord and is also frustrated he hasn't made a stable release -- but that first stable release revealed stability issues with how he was using SQLite, and due to him trying to support photos from anywhere - USB drives, SMB shares, any other network shares, Windows, Linux, Intel Mac, M1/M2 Mac, and so on. He has said he wants to do stable releases with new most-requested features at least quarterly, but has been stuck on this release due to trying to resolve those dealbreaker issues. 

[upgradability]

On 11/6/2018 at 12:17 PM, Crunchy Dragon said:

Of course Chrome would need that

 

Couldn't resist that, I've had Firefox as my browser for around a decade.

This is the format of this thread

1) operation system 

2) application

3) how does it work

4) how can we make a regular user more likely to use it

5) your opinion 

6) up vote the application you use comment on it 

 

 

so here is the first post 

windows 10 or 11

Chromium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)

Strips out the google telemetry (the ability to track usage). 

Chromium lacks the following Chrome features:

• Automatic browser updates
• API keys for some Google services, including browser sync.
• The Widevine DRM module
• Licensed codecs for the popular H.264 video and AAC audio formats
• Tracking mechanisms for usage and crash reports

as you can see by visiting the link it should be within reach of average users.

chromium is light weight snappy and easy to transition from any other web based browsing method. With sideloading you can reenable H.264 Video, although not required. side loading is the ability to skirt the chrome app repository *** use at your own risk

please tell me if you use this program or if I have taught you something?

 

[upgradability]

11 minutes ago, upgradability said:

This is the format of this thread

1) operation system 

2) application

3) how does it work

4) how can we make a regular user more likely to use it

5) your opinion 

6) up vote the application you use comment on it 

 

 

so here is the first post 

windows 10 or 11

Chromium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)

Strips out the google telemetry (the ability to track usage). 

Chromium lacks the following Chrome features:

• Automatic browser updates
• API keys for some Google services, including browser sync.
• The Widevine DRM module
• Licensed codecs for the popular H.264 video and AAC audio formats
• Tracking mechanisms for usage and crash reports

as you can see by visiting the link it should be within reach of average users.

chromium is light weight snappy and easy to transition from any other web based browsing method. With sideloading you can reenable H.264 Video, although not required. side loading is the ability to skirt the chrome app repository *** use at your own risk

please tell me if you use this program or if I have taught you something?

 

sideload out of my chromium

[Akitake]

All software below is free to use.

 

 

Drivers installation

I personally don't let windows update install any drivers and manage it with the following tools..

 

NVCleanInstall: https://www.techpowerup.com/download/techpowerup-nvcleanstall/

The first step is to install your graphics drivers. If on an NVIDIA system, I always go with NVCleanInstall to install and update them.

Usually I go for minimum install with a few expert tweaks ticked but nothing that ever breaks my experience.

If on an AMD system, the default drivers are fine to use.

 

DriversCloud: https://www.driverscloud.com/en/my-drivers

Then, rather than using Driver Booster, or the very dated Snappy driver installer (origin or not), I always go for DriversCloud.

It installs a small agent on your system to quickly scan your hardware, then opens up a webpage with downloads to your missing/outdated drivers.

It's served me well and I highly recommend it!

 

 

Lightweight utilities

These are must have on my system and some of the first software I install, setup, and forget even are third-party utilities.

 

AltDrag: https://stefansundin.github.io/altdrag/

AltDrag gives you the ability to move and resize windows in a similar way to Linux systems.

By default, hold the Alt key and left click on a window anywhere to move it, and right click to resize it by the closest corner.

Highly configurable, can run in the background, be hidden from tray, etc.. and low resource usage!

Note: Hasn't been updated in quite some time but fully open-source and works perfectly fine in my experience.

 

SuperF4: https://stefansundin.github.io/superf4/

SuperF4 enables a new shortcut: ctrl+alt+f4.

It will kill the focused window as if you ended the task in task manager!

Very useful when a fullscreen app freezes, or when you're simply too lazy to bring up task manager, search the process, etc..

 

Eartrumpet: https://eartrumpet.app/

Eartrumpet is a volume control tray icon applet that makes it very easy to control application volumes in an elegant way, with a modern design!

 

 

File management software

I like to keep photos and images in folders but sometimes save duplicates, and use the following tools to deal with them. They can do a lot more though!

 

Czkawka: https://github.com/qarmin/czkawka

Czkawka packs a punch behind its interesting name. It's a very versatile tool that allows you to find various things on your system and deal with them.

Such as: duplicate files, empty folders, big files, empty files, temporary files, similar images/music/videos, and more!

I mainly use it to find duplicate images and keep the best quality ones out of the pairs and it works wonderfully well.

 

XnConvert: https://www.xnview.com/en/xnconvert/

XnConvert is a fast, powerful and free cross-platform batch image converter.

It can also apply actions during conversion like cropping, rotation, color adjustments, filters, etc...

 

Bulk Rename Utility: https://www.bulkrenameutility.co.uk/

Bulk Rename Utility is a very powerful.. well.. bulk renaming utility.

Prepend/append, rename, convert case, add numbers, change file extensions, etc..

Allows filtering through a lot of parameters like EXIF data, file properties, regex expressions, etc..

 

 

Honorable mentions I was too lazy to make a bit about

Audacity, Handbrake, Olive, Kdenlive, Krita, Paint.NET, VLC, Blender, WizTree, Bulk Crap Uninstaller, Faststone Image Viewer, Joplin, Syncthing, PowerToys

[mtbboy1993]

On 8/24/2018 at 1:47 AM, Guest said:

Great idea!

 

I just want to put Ninite in here:

 

 

Ninite - https://ninite.com/

 

Allows you to install multiple commonly-used software at once.

 

 

Cheers!

The problem with it is it does not download correct bit version but 32bit version of some software, can't select it. So I've not been using it. There should have been 32bit and 64bit option to make it download all 64bit versions if you want.

[mtbboy1993]

wrong thread

[Dat Guy]

I wrote a software and I wonder if anyone might want to have it:

ws2markdown converts WordStar or WordTsar documents into Markdown. Pandoc still can't do that.

[Mark Kaine]

i asked a long time ago about (free) software to mix music and got a bunch of obscure, not really feasible or adequate suggestions (all in good faith i suppose,  but none of these "popular" choices seemed adequate or even accessible  - hence, obscure - lol)

 

 

Anyway randomly searched again since I'd really love to mix my music (basically make mix tapes on my pc) ... and low and behold: Virtal DJ, this is exactly what i was looking for! i suppose you can loop and do more sophisticated stuff too, but simply mixing my  music works exactly how I'd envisioned it... with minimal adjustments you can set loudness,  equalizer, etc, and the thing is you can make transitions smooth or abrupt.. as long you keep the equalization in check, the thing is magical... it always sounds professional,  and better than i would expect. 

 

And the best , for my purposes, no account or internet connection required !

 

 

tldr:  music mixing software:  Virtual DJ

 

10/10

 

 

 

ps: it took literally 5 minutes to "get it", helps if you have actual experience as DJ i guess

 

[TheLANguy]

Windows File Manager: https://github.com/microsoft/winfile

Windows File Manager is the original Windows 3.0 file manager with a few small changes. 

I have found it to make navigating directories faster than File Explorer. Or perhaps the speed comes from regularly using older systems.

[tomasklaen]

Drovp - https://drovp.app (github.com/drovp)

A cross-platform and extensible app for creating convenient drop zones for bulk operations such as:

- encoding, converting, resizing, cropping of video, images, or audio files (encode plugin)

- perceptually lossless image & svg optimization (optimize plugin)

- bulk renaming of files based on templates that support file meta such as artist/album/etc for audio files (rename plugin)

- running arbitrary CLI commands on dropped items (run plugin)

- upscaling images or video with ESRGAN or waifu2x (upscale plugin)

- uploading files to get a URL to share (share plugin)

- ... and others

 

There's even a 3rd party plugin for downloading videos with yt-dlp by simply dragging links or urls from browser directly into its dropzone.

 

You can also do basic video/image/audio editing like cutting, cropping, resizing, and rotating by creating an encode dropzone, and holding Ctrl when dropping files into it. You can also concatenate by holding Alt or both concatenate and edit by holding Ctrl+Alt.

 

 

I'm the creator, and I've made a topic for it here if anyone wants to ask questions: https://linustechtips.com/topic/1545593-i-made-drovp/

[jre84]

Iv'e been using computers for 34 years, and in the last 30 the coolest program Iv'e come across which I just bought was Faronics DeepFreeze.

Now I can install a fresh load of windows 11 or 10 install all my apps and programs and set everything up exactly how I want then lock everything and I mean everything in, so that if I get hacked a virus or malware ect all i have to do is reboot and voila everrythings back to top performance again even when I change reg keys ect, everything.

[kasdashd]

The Bluestacks Android emulator is the best Android emulator for playing mobile games on your PC. 
 

it can utilize up to 8 CPU cores, 12GB RAM, 4K resolution, full GPU support, supports up to 240hz refresh rate, and up to uncapped fps, depending on the game.

 

It’s 100% free, and I personally use it for playing mobile games, that are limited to 60, or even 30fps on my Android phone, 240hz/fps gaming is the minimum for me, no matter the type of game. 
 

But with all emulation, stability will vary, and performance will be better, the better your hardware is, especially your CPU.

https://www.bluestacks.com

 

[Murasaki]

I heard its a pain to uninstall completely

[Hinjima]

9 minutes ago, Murasaki said:

I heard its a pain to uninstall completely

RevoUninstaller ftw!

[thevictor390]

The emulator itself is great but the app is full of ads and clutter.

[E-waste]

On 4/17/2020 at 9:51 PM, madmanbehindyou said:

f.lux

f.lux is incredible and it's basically one developer, and hin and his wife research the effects of light exposure on sleep, and really try to encourage you to go to bed.  They haven't updated the Linux build in over ten years, but with flatpak, snaps, and app images, I hope they do, but there is redshift with since version 1.09 has correct color numbers.

 

The f.lux program has a "backwards alarm clock" as it is called, which tells you how many hours remain until your set wake-time, to encourage you to turn off your device and sleep.  I wish more people were aware of the origins of all the "blue lighr filters" and apple's iOS 9 night shift implementation.  There is zero mention of f.lux, and apple even called on the phone the developers and told them that they could not have their app in the app store.

[jonRock]

@Crunchy Dragon

 

Hey! I recently developed a software that allows Windows 10 x64 and Windows 11 x64 users to immediately apply display resolution, bit depth, refresh rate, scaling mode, and scale percentage with user-defined hot keys.

 

I believe this tool will be useful for the members of this community.

 

Common use cases for Display Hot Keys:

• Switch refresh rates to quickly enable the Black Frame Insertion or Backlight Strobing capabilities of the display.

• Quickly switch between resolutions with different aspect ratios.

• Immediately apply a resolution without entering the in-game menus for video game benchmarking purposes.

• Enlarge or shrink the elements on screen by instantly changing the display scale percentage.

• Instantly set a display mode while in a video game. (This is useful if a video game does not support changing the resolution or refresh rate while in-game.)

Note: This software currently only works as expected with single-monitor display configurations. I don't currently have a multi-monitor setup to develop with. Also, please read the GitHub page for complete usage instructions. The app will launch minimized to the system tray in the taskbar.

 

Link to GitHub page:

Display Hot Keys

 

 

If you find this software useful, please consider giving the project a "Star" on the GitHub page. If you're feeling really generous, buy me a coffee with the donate button on the GitHub page. Thank you!

[Tan3l6]

OCCT is not mentioned in this thread?

Should certainly be.

Benchmarking and stress test tool like no other.  Doubles as monitoring software also.

[jonRock]

On 6/9/2021 at 10:09 AM, Real_Smoky said:

Every few months we, we see a post about must-have software. And everyone writes down MSI Afterburner, Malwarebytes and Chrome, and maybe the RGB software that they use.

What are some programs that you rarely see used, or are unknown, or are an alternative to existing software, that you personally can't live without?

Mine are the following: 1) Rem0o FanControl

 

This fan control software is absolutely amazing. Many other software solutions have problems or can only control case fans or the CPU fan or the GPU fan only. With this software, you can regulate all fan curves in a single program, it is easy to use, intuitive, you can assign sensors to different fans (for example, make your case fans ramp up when your GPU ramps up), etc.

It is not perfect. On some motherboards like mine, not all case fan headers get recognized (I had problems with 1 of my 3 case fan headers not being recognized, but the other 2 and the CPU fan header work perfectly fine).

I can really, really recommend it!

https://github.com/Rem0o/FanControl.Releases

2) FPS Monitor

Despite the name, you can monitor a lot of stuff, like CPU and GPU temps, fan RPMs etc.

It's easy to set up, easy to use, easy to customize, the free version has a small watermark on the bottom of the screen but it is not so bad if you want to first set your game up, then enjoy it. I found it easier to use and more customizable than other FPS monitoring apps.

https://fpsmon.com/en/

3) ClickMonitorDDC monitor brightness control with customizable hotkeys

 

This software is WICKED GOOD! I love it! I am a bit sensitive to monitor brightness and I love being able to set the brightness on the fly. You can map the keys to whatever you want.

Unfortunately, it seems the support for this software has ended, but you can still find some versions on Archive.Org, Softpedia and some other sites. I can't recommend it enough!

 

FanControl is a must! I've been using it for a few weeks, and it's amazing!