Latest drivers/useful stuff sticky

[larchy]

Graphics

Driver Cleaner - http://www.driverheaven.net/cleaner/

Ati Catalyst - http://www.ati.com/support/driver.html

Nvidia Forceware - http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

(NB Forceware is now - finally - a WHQL certified UDP. Still worth checking here for the latest drivers and beta releases if you're having problems)



Chipset

nForce - http://www.nvidia.com/content/drivers/drivers.asp

Intel - http://downloadfinder.intel.com/scripts ... nldID=7484

Via - http://www.viaarena.com/?PageID=300

Codecs

DefilerPak - http://hellninjacommando.com/defilerpak/
(that should have just about everything you need)

Real Alternative - http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Rea ... native.htm

Quicktime Alternative

VLC media player - plays most stuff (including partially completed downloads) without the need for codecs.

Useful apps

Mozilla Firefox - ditch IE for something vastly superior!

Opera - great Firefox alternative, also far superior to IE

Autopatcher - http://www.autopatcher.com/ (still ain't tried it but punkeh keeps recommending it, so it must be good )


Security

http://www.kaspersky.com/

nod32

There are no other antivirus programs out there anywhere near as effective as the above two.

Mcafee Stinger - http://vil.nai.com/vil/stinger/ , removes all the common virii.

If anyone has any good little apps/utilities they always use, please post 'em... I'll add stuff to this as I remember/come across them.

How to make a bootable flash drive

Courtesy of Cacker

File recovery

PhotoRec for photos from b0rked flash cards

Recuva is an alternative (thanks FBF)

[Jobabob]

Ive never been a fan of codec packs, they never seem to have the right stuff in them and enough apps go on about incompatabilities. If I need a codec I just download it now and keep them seperate, FFDshow and all that crap just annoys me as I have no idea what its doing.

Samurize - http://www.samurize.com/modules/mydownl ... .php?cid=1
(put a little floating window up of stats etc)

Miranda -
http://www.miranda-im.org/release/download.php
(least bloated all-format ICQ,MSN,IRC,AOL chat app out there)

Multi Renamer (SHAREWARE) -
http://www.coolutils.com/product.php?pr ... ltiRenamer
(good for renaming big lists of files, eg if you download a series in a torrent and some idiot cant name files properly)

AnyDvd (SHAREWARE) -
http://www.slysoft.com/en/download.html
(Remove all copy protection on a DVD on the fly, as well as menu restrictions, etc. Can even just copy the vob files straight off!)

Win2PDF -
http://www.daneprairie.com/download/download.htm
(good for turning dissertations into the more readable adobe format, at least on screen anyway)

Asterix Key -
http://www.lostpassword.com/asterisk.htm
(Find out what's hidden under the stars in any program or web page, you haxor you)

WINISO (SHAREWARE) -
http://www.winiso.com/download.htm
(Good for converting any CD format into the smaller and easier to manage ISO)

Note: Where it says shareware the programs are limited until paid for or you head over to *cough* http://astalavista.box.sk/ *cough* and 'buy' it through there

[Zeal]

Quicktime Alternative - http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Qui ... native.htm

[flump]

zonealarm is shit
http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm

[Brizie]

AVG http://www.grisoft.com lazy button here

[mYth]

Is there a way to install Quicktime and Real Alternative without duplicating the installation of the Windows Media Player Classic. I don't really want 3 instances of the same program on my machine if I can help it.

[Quinnbeast]

http://www.omegadrivers.net/
- A good alternative for either Catalyst or Detont0r based cards. They have more in the way of adjustable settings than the reference drivers. Me like.

[Tonster]

Flashget
http://www.amazesoft.com/download.htm
Ace download program

Avanti Browser
http://www.avantbrowser.com/
IE based tabbed browsing, pop-up killing web browser. My current browser of choice.

Filezilla
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... p_id=21558
Freeware FTP program, as good as or if not better than any program you will pay for.

CiDial
http://www.aldensoft.com/cidial/download.html
Utterly simple, free auto connection dialler. Drop this bad boy into startup and never have to double click for your ADSL connection again. It will retry as long as needed and redial if connection is lost.

DivX
http://www.divx.com
Widespread video playback codec.

Winrar
http://www.rarlab.com/download.htm
Winzip beating compression program.

Alchohol 120%
http://www.alcohol-soft.com/
Awesome CD/DVD writing software.

[BANSHEE]

Via drivers and 4.7 catalysts worth getting? Got the 4.5s cats and 4.1 (i think) Via drivers atm. Or is it a, "If it ain't broke don't fix" it job?

[larchy]

Up to 4.9's now actually (been meaning to update that ). If it was the nVidia drivers then I'd deffo say leave it if its working, but its probably worth installing the new Catalyst suite. It has a really good new interface and preview panel that makes settting all the image quality options a lot easier - lets you see the effect it has in a 3D preview box.

[Goksly]

4.10's just come out - sort it out larch

[larchy]

biatch

[Klors]

That new .NET Framework control panel is a bit wierd... preferred the old standard thing.

[Mister666]

Yeah and it seems to run lots of shady looking services in task manager too. I don't like seeing services I don't recognise in there. [/paranoid]

[Tuff]

Useful page, chairs!

[Mister666]

http://www.statbar.nl - A useful little stats bar utility which sits at the top or bottom of your screen with configurable modules like cpu/ram/hdd usage, uptime and network up/down stats. I use it both at home and work.

[Foxile]

Excellent thread. Loads to download and try....

[Pornstar]

Everest Home Edition

EVEREST Home Edition is a freeware hardware diagnostics and memory benchmarking solution for home PC users, based on the award-winning EVEREST Technology. It offers the world's most accurate hardware information and diagnostics capabilities, including online features, memory benchmarks, hardware monitoring, and low-level hardware information.

[punkmuppet]

Wasn't quite sure where to put this, here will do.

A site to measure your bandwidth. Very fast and it's good, far better than any other I've seen.

http://www.internetfrog.com/mypc/speedtest/

[Shimsham]

If your Norton/Mcaffee/GFI/Whatever is reporting clean system, yet you are still concerned, download the free 30 day trial of NOD32 from http://www.eset.com.

That should sort the buggers out.

While your there you might aswell purchase it, quite simply the best there is. (except perhaps kaspersky, but then you really need a seperate CPU and a gig of RAM to run that without noticing)