These tools provide a ton of value for the money (free)!
— For Apple macOS (aka Mac OS X) —
Audio and Visual Tools
- HandBrake – converts video from nearly any format to a selection of modern, widely supported codecs. Can also rip DVDs.
Network Tools
- NetSpot – discovers nearby Wi-Fi hotspots and for each, shows SSID, channel, band, encryption, and signal strength.
- inSSIDer for Mac Beta – Alternative for those who prefer the inSSIDer interface with its nice graphical chart and don’t mind the beta status.
Battery and Temperature Management Tools
- coconutBattery – shows info about the battery in your Mac and connected iOS device (iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch).
- gfxCardStatus – restrict MacBook to using the built-in graphics card, instead of the discrete (power-hungry) graphics card, to save battery power.
- HWSensors (aka HWMonitor) – displays info from hardware sensors, including CPU temperature sensors.
- Macs Fan Control – allows you to manually control the CPU fan (or set back to automatic)
— For Microsoft Windows —
Disk Management Tools
- ImgBurn – Solid, lightweight burning program to read (to image) and write to CD, DVD, HD DVD, and Blu-ray discs. Interface is not very intuitive but there are a lot of online tutorials. (I no longer recommend the unreliable CDBurnerXP because it started trashing 75% of my blank DVDs and claiming they were bad.)
- EaseUS Partition Master Free – re-size partitions without destroying data.
- MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition – Looks and works like EaseUS Partition Master but includes additional operations like copying the EFT system partition.
- Macrium Reflect Free – supports live disk (or “on the fly”) cloning and includes a boot repair tool. Supports cloning to SSD drives.
- Rufus – creates bootable USB flash drive for Windows and Linux.
File Management Tools
- WinDirStat – Drive space usage: shows how much space on your hard drive is used by each directory.
- WinEraser – Secure erase: securely remove data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times.
- Unlocker – An explorer extension that lets you unlock files so you can move or delete them when Windows can’t.
- Pandora Recovery – find and recover deleted files. You need to install this before you need it.
Audio and Visual Tools
- VLC Media Player – plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
- Audacity – easy-to-use, multi-track audio editor and recorder.
- Audiograbber – Digitally rip audio tracks from a music CD and mic/line inputs.
- Combined Community Codec Pack (CCCP) – All the audio and video codecs that your Windows PC could need to play anything.
- CCCP Insurgent – Show which codecs (video and audio) are required to play a movie file. Some alternatives are:
- MP3Gain – analyzes and adjusts gain on MP3 files directly (without decoding and re-encoding) so that they have the same volume.
- MPTrim – remove silence or unwanted parts from MP3 files directly (without decoding and re-encoding).
Network Tools
- inSSIDer Home (3.1.2.1 is the last free version) – discovers every 802.11a/b/g/n wireless hotspot’s MAC address, encryption, signal strength and channel.
- Netstumbler – Alternative to inSSIDer.
- Spiceworks – Scans your local network and catalogs all connected machines.
- PuTTY – a Telnet/SSH Client with xterm terminal emulator, including command line tools like SCP.
- Wireshark (Previously known as Ethereal) – Network protocol analyzer and packet sniffer.
File Viewer Tools
- Calibre – Read and convert all the major e-book formats (including EPUB, MOBI, and PDF).
- GNU Emacs – extensible, customizable text editor and more.
- PDF995 – Creates PDF files by simply printing.
- Ghostscript – Interpreter and viewer for PostScript language.
Battery and Temperature Management Tools