Top Free PC Programs Everyone Should Have

There are millions of free and open source projects available, many of them better than any commercially available product.
Below is a short listing of what we think is the best out there, broken down into ten categories.

free open source softwares

1. Antivirus and malware protection

Most PC users realize that they need protection on their computer or may have an installed antivirus program from their computer manufacturer. What most don't realize is that there are free programs that are just as good and in some cases better than the commercial products. Below are our recommendations

Antivirus program: Avast! or AVG

Malware and Spyware protection: Malwarebytes

2. Backup solutions

There are dozens of free and commercially available backup programs for computers. Unfortunately many of those backups are stored locally, meaning if your house were to catch fire, get robbed, or if you lost your backup discs all your data would be lost. This is why when dealing with important data we suggest users use online backup services.

Online backup solution: Mozy or Dropbox
 
3. Browsers

Although Microsoft Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on Windows computers. There are several excellent free alternatives that everyone should try. These free alternatives can often be faster, have more options, and in many cases be more secure than Internet Explorer.

Internet Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome
 
4.Compression utility

When downloading files on the Internet you'll eventually encounter a .zip, .rar, or other compressed file. Dealing with these files can be easy with our below free file compression utility.

File compression utility: 7-Zip

5. Disc ripper and creation utility
Creating an audio or data CD/DVD, ripping the data from an audio CD, or creating a CD from a .ISO file can also be done freely using our below free recommendation.

CD burner utility: CDBurnerXP

6. E-mail

E-mail is yet another service that can be done freely. Most users today use online e-mail solutions like the one listed below. However, for those still using an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook we strongly suggest one or both of the below suggestions.

E-mail client: Mozilla Thunderbird

Online e-mail: Gmail

7. FTP, SFTP, and SSH UtilityUsers who maintain their own web page or need to upload or download files to or from a server will have to use an FTP utility or a SSH client. There are many commercial programs capable of doing this but our below free recommendations beats them all.

FTP client: Filezilla

SSH client: Putty
 
8.Image editor, paint program, and picture organizer

There are many great free solutions for editing, creating, and organizing your images on your computer. Many of the programs capable of doing these tasks can be several hundred dollars, but all of the below programs are completely free.

Image editor: GIMP

Paint program: Paint.net

Picture organizer: Google Picasa

9. Multimedia

There are dozens of different multimedia programs with different capabilities and limitations. Below are our top free multimedia programs for watching video files and recording audio.

Audio editing and creating tool: Audacity

Video and DVD Player: VLC
 
10. Office Suite

An Office suite such as Microsoft Office is often one of the most expensive programs that a user can install on their computer. Why install these expensive programs when there are free solutions that are just as good.

Office suite: OpenOffice

Notepad and Source code editor: Notepad++

6 Amazing Things You Didn't Know About Your Computer

It's a ritual across the globe: somewhere between sticking the kettle on and complaining about last night's match, you'll probably hit the button on your ageing company PC and wait while it slowly thinks about turning on. Rather than take it for granted, though, it's worth taking a couple minutes to realize a few of the things that your poor robot slave does without you ever knowing.

1. Bits, Bytes, and Size

Next time you complain about the pitiful memory capacity of your old 8GB iPod Touch, it's worth remember what makes up eight whole gigabytes. Computer science grads will know that in every gigabyte, there's 1024 megabytes; 1024 kilobytes in a megabyte, and 1024 bytes in a kilobyte. Breaking it down to the lowest level, you've got 8 bits in a byte.

Why does that matter? Because on a flash drive, each bit of data is made up of eight separate floating gates, each comprising two physical transistors, which can basically record themselves as either a '1' or a '0'. (Want to be impressed ever further? Each floating gate actually relies on quantum mechanics to work.) That means that an 8GB iPod Touch – the one you were laughing at a minute ago for being puny – has, according to my back-of-the-napkin maths, 549,755,813,888 individual gates arrayed inside that svelte aluminium body. Mighty clever engineering indeed.

2. Everything you see or hear on the internet is actually on your computer

All your computer-whizz friends probably delight in telling you how having a 'library' of videos is so 2008, that no-one torrents any more, it's all Netflix and iPlayer and 'The Cloud', whatever that means. But, you might want to remind them: every time you stream a video or the week's latest Top 40 off the web, it's actually, technically playing off your computer.

See, every internet media file has to make a local copy of itself on your machine, first. Ever wondered what that white buffering bar means on YouTube or Netflix? It's the amount of video that's been copied to the local cache, a.k.a. the amount you can still watch if your internet decides to up and die.

3. The distance data travels

A quick experiment for you: click this link, which should take you to Wikipedia. With one click, you've just fetched a bunch of data from servers in Ashburn, Virginia, about 6000km away. Your request has travelled from your computer, through a local Wi-Fi router or a modem, up to a local data centre, from there onwards (under the Atlantic Ocean, if you're in the UK), all the way to Virginia, and back again – in around 0.1 of a second, depending on how good your internet connection is.

By comparison, your body takes around 0.15 of a second for a signal to pass from your fingers, up your spinal cord to the brain, and back down again.

4. Counting Starts at Zero

At a base level, every computer's just a really big, complicated calculator. But thanks to the way its intrinsic circuitry works – with lots of little logic gates that are either 'on' or 'off' – every action that takes place at a base level is happening in binary, where things are either a 1 or a 0, with no shades of grey in between.

This actually translates up to a neat bit of programming trivia – in the computer science world, all counting (with the rather notable exceptions of Fortran and Visual Basic) starts at zero, not one.

It actually makes a lot more sense – ever thought about why the 20th century refers to the 1900s? It's because when historians decided on the dating system, they weren't clever enough to call the very first century (0-99AD) the 0th century. If they had, we'd probably have far fewer confused school children the world over.

5. The work that goes into a Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V

One rather under-appreciated fact about solid state drives (SSDs), regarded as the gold standard for fast, reliable storage, is the amount of copying they have to do. When you want to copy some data from one bit to another, it's not just a matter of shuffling the data from one part of the drive to another.

Because of the complicated way a SSD works, over-writing a block of old data with some shiny new data isn't as simple as just writing the new stuff in with a bigger, thicker Sharpie. Rather, the storage drive has to do some complicated shuffling around.


In practice, this can mean that writing a tiny 4KB file can require the drive to read 2MB (that's thousands of times more data that the 4KB file you're trying to write), store that temporarily, erase a whole tonne of blocks, then re-write all the data. It's rather labour-intensive, so think before you juggle your files around next time.

6. Code isn't as clean as you think

The majority of us put faith in bits of technology you don't quite understand – be it committing your life to a 747, or your dirty pics to Snapchat's auto-delete. When you do you generally tend to assume that the code's been scrupulously examined by teams of caffeine-fuelled programmers, with most of the niggling little bugs found and nixed.

The truth seems to be quite the opposite. One Quora user pointed out that buried within the source code for Java, one of the internet's fundamental bits of code, is this gem:

/**
* This method returns the Nth bit that is set in the bit array. The
* current position is cached in the following 4 variables and will
* help speed up a sequence of next() call in an index iterator. This
* method is a mess, but it is fast and it works, so don't f*ck with it.
*/
private int _pos = Integer.MAX_VALUE;
It just goes to show that even programmers rush things to get home for the next installment of Game of Thrones sometimes.

Password Protect USB Drive: Flash, Pen Drive, Removable Drives

If you don’t want to spend money for a secure flash drive, then these freeware utilities may be of interest to you, should you wish to password protect your USB Drive. These free software will help you lock and password protect your removable drives and help secure and protect it, by preventing unauthorized access.

Password protect USB Drive

Encrypt USB Flash Drives with BitLocker To Go. Microsoft has extended Bitlocker functionality in Windows 7. BitLocker To Go extends BitLocker data protection to USB storage devices, enabling them to be restricted with a passphrase. In addition to having control over passphrase length and complexity, IT administrators can set a policy that requires users to apply BitLocker protection to removable drives before being able to write to them.

USB Safeguard is a portable freeware that lets you lock you pen drive and make it write-protected. This will help prevent access to your removable drives should you ever misplace it and keep your data, safe and hidden. The software works by encrypting your data using the AES 256 bits encryption algorithm.

KASHU USB Flash Security is a program, a free utility for password protecting USB keys and other sensitive data stored in it.

Rohos Mini Drive creates hidden and encrypted partition on the USB flash drive memory. You work with the files on the hidden partition without opening a special program. Those who have megabytes of sensitive files on the USB drive and seriously concerned with a data security, cannot imagine their USB stick without the hidden volume that is created using this tool.

TrueCrypt lets you create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mounts it as a real disk. It encrypts an entire partition or storage device such as USB flash drive or hard drive. The encryption is automatic, real-time and transparent. It can encrypt a partition or drive where Windows is installed (pre-boot authentication) and provides for plausible deniability, in case an adversary forces you to reveal the password.

Cryptainer LE  is a freeware utility which creates encrypted vaults of upto 25 MB each to store any type of data. You can encrypt files and folders by simply dragging and dropping them into this vault. Additionally, it lets you create secure e-mail files that you can send to anyone. It also includes a ‘Mobile’ feature, which allows it to encrypt all media, including, USB, CD ROM, etc. It works on all 32 bit versions of Windows.

Know of any more such 3rd party freeware utilities? Do share!

Go here if you want to have a look at some free file encryption software. You can use them to protect your folders from prying eyes.

Stop Pen Drives From Getting Unwanted Files

very funny . is'nt it?

If you desire to protect your USB from getting unwanted files i.e. virus, worm, spy, Trojan etc than you are at the right place.
What I’m gonna tell you is that how to setup your registry to end a computer from saving files to your USB (It’ll block all of them)
If you contain windows XP with SP2, widows 7 then you can immobilize the writing option to USB drives. This trick is very helpful if you have virus in your computer and desire to copy files from a USB Drive but don’t desire to transfer virus to the USB. Follow the given steps to disable the USB writing option:

TO TURN ON THE DEFENCE

Open notepad and copy and paste the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlStorageDevicePolicies]

“WriteProtect”=dword:00000001

Now keep the file with the extension “.reg”.

Click on the file you presently saved. In the pop-up window chose YES and then OK.

That’s it your USB is now sheltered

To TURN DEFENCE OFF:

Open notepad and copy and paste the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEMCurrentControlSetControlStorageDevicePolicies]

“WriteProtect”=dword:00000000

Now put aside the file with the extension “.reg”.

Click on the file you presently saved. In the pop-up window click YES and then OK.

That’s it your defense is now disabled.

How To Turn Your Windows PC Into Wifi Hotspot

Windows 8 and 8.1 has a default feature to share a WiFi connection without using any third party apps. a few little tweaks in command prompt will make your Windows machine work as a WiFi Hotspot Easily.All you need is a working internet connection on your Windows machine. Either wired, USB or wireless connection can be used. Make sure you’ve a WiFi adapter on your device, especially desktop users.

Since most of the desktops only use ethernet connectivity, they won’t have WiFi adapter. So, if you don’t have WiFi connectivity on your machine, you cannot share WiFi with other devices. Lets have a look at the steps to convert your Windows machine into a WiFi hotspot.

So in this tutorial I will show 2 easy ways to share internet connection not just to create a wireless ad hoc connection in Windows 8.  One is By Using Third Party Tool and another one is without using any tool.

2 Methods to Turn Windows PC into Wifi Hotspot

Method 1. Using Connectify:

This is an Easy method so i will recommend you to first try this method. Simply follow the below simple steps.

Step 1: Download Connectify Hotspot for Free First of all.

Step 2: Install it and Restart your PC.

Step 3: If a Windows Security Alert of Windows Firewall appears, then you need to click Allow access button to add Connectify Hotspot to the list of allowed apps.

Step 4: On Next screens, you should click to choose Connectify Hotspot Lite to use it for free.

Step 5:  Hotspot Name: enter your desired hotspot name (SSID) after the "Connectify-" prefix. Only Hotspot PRO lets you choose any SSID you want. Input your desired network security key. Choose your available internet connection (Wi-Fi, LAN) that you want to share.

Then Choose Wi-Fi to create a Wi-Fi hotspot. Choose Ethernet to share over a wired connection (only available in Pro version)

Step 6: Almost Done now all you have to do is Click on Start Hotspot Button.

---

Method 2: Without Any Tool

Step 1: First you need to open “Command Prompt”. There will be two modes, one is normal mode and another one is Administrator mode. For this process, you need to open the Command Prompt in “Administrator Mode”.

Step 2: After you open the Window, type the following command in your Command Prompt. 

netsh wlan set hostednetwork mode=allow ssid=Hotspot key=Password123

The “ssid” represents your “WiFi Hot Spot’s name” and the “Key” represents your “WiFi Password”. You can change them, incase you need.

Step 3: Next, enter the following command and press enter to start your virtual WiFi hotspot. It should show a message that “The hosted network started”.

netsh wlan start hostednetwork

Step 4: Now, go to Control Panel -> Network and Sharing Center -> Network Connections. There you will see the newly listed “Virtual Local Area Connection”.

Step 5: Get back to the “Network and Sharing Center” and click the “Ethernet” or whatever shows in the “Connections” section. A new window will pop-up, in that select “Properties” and go to “Sharing” tab on the top.

Step 6: Enable “Allow other users to connect through this computer’s Internet Connection” option on the top. In the drop down list below, select the newly listed “Virtual Local Area Connection”. Click “Ok” and you are good to go.

Now your Windows machine will act as a virtual router, to connect all your devices. This option will be very helpful when you have an ethernet connection or a USB Connection, you can easily share WiFi and connect your other devices using this method. Try this on your Windows 8 machine and share your experience with us.

How To Become A Cyber-Forensics Expert

                                         

Cyber Forensics (or ‘Digital Forensics’) deals with evidence found on computers and digital storage media that’s related to crime scene investigations. If the idea of tracing back a crime to unravel the truth gets your adrenaline pumping, this is the job for you. While the skills required to collect digital evidence and data may  be difficult to acquire, once you’ve mastered them, you can proudly call yourself the Sherlock Holmes of cyber crime. Though on the façade, digital forensics may appear different from real-world forensics, the sciences are quite similar at the conceptual level. 

Information retrieval

Gathering evidence without contaminating the scene is a key part of the process. If you contaminate the source of evidence, the rest of the case is on an unsure track already. Which is why it is of foremost importance that evidence media − called “exhibit” in legal terminology − is examined with care. This means that the investigator must take a raw image of the media because doing so might reveal the tracks of the crime. If the original image doesn’t match this duplicate image at a later stage of analysis, forensics experts will know. The devil is in the details, so let us break down for you how information retrieval works:

• Data storage: 

This part involves maintaining a file structure index and allocating actual data somewhere else. Technically, a B-Tree is maintained for storing the directory structure on each partition (letting users know which file and folder is inside which file/folder). The space for this B-Tree index is normally preallocated.

When you normally delete a file, it’s sent to your Trash/Recycle Bin which is just another folder maintained exclusively by your operating system. When you delete the file from your recycle bin, it remains on your computer because the only thing the operating system deletes is the entry from the folder structure (the B-Tree Index); the data remains in place. This leaves the window to retrieve deleted data open. This is the window that data-recovery tools use. Undoubtedly, data retrieval in crime scene investigation is of higher importance than mere recovery of photos, thus the demand for highly skilled recruits.

Mac OS X lets you remove the files in Trash securely without a third-party tool (just press Command key to show the option)

• Physical storage: 

Data stored on a hard disk is stored as a sequence of bits, and each bit is physically stored by altering the magnetic value of a very tiny point on the disk. As imperfect as the world is, the magnetic value on the disk doesn’t reflect a perfect binary value. For example, if the original state of a bit was at perfect 0, firing an electromagnetic pulse corresponding to 1 will cause the value to come to 0.92. Now, if you fire an electromagnetic signal to set that value to 0, it would come to a state that would probably indicate a value of 0.1 and then again you fire the pulse to set the bit to 1. This time, it goes to 0.95. 

                                                              

Now, these values are fairly away from 0.5 and are easy to be determined as 1 or 0. However, if you notice the numbers above, a particular bit value can represent fair number of value overwrites on the same place. The accuracy of guessing the right value after x number of overwrites decreases as x increases. There are tools that do this fairly well. For one of these tools to work, they would need the exact magnetic value on the disk platter for each bit.
Not a lot of  thought is required to conclude that to safely erase data from a disk. You’d need to overwrite the same disk portion where the data was stored, multiple times. The more random these values and more the number of overwrites, the lower the chance of correctly guessing the original value. The process of copying the bit-level detail of magnetic values on the disk is called “imaging”. This is done by taking a snapshot of the entire disk/partition and saving it as a file. There are tools available for this process and a typical imaging session takes a lot of time because of the excruciating level of detail required. Speaking technically, imaging must always be done on the evidence-disk (the disk on which the evidence of crime is suspected to be present) in the read-only mode.

Information/Data interpretation

Once the disk image has been taken, the next task is to understand what the data means. This step involves many tools and in-depth comprehension of the way
different pieces of software interact with each other to trace back the circumstances of the felony. You may also be required to understand the operation of the OS and/ or certain applications, which might have been used to commit the crime. While data interpretation is a complex process, we’ll lightly touch upon it to give you an idea of the work involved in this step: 

1. Know the OS:

Data logged by operating systems sometimes plays a key role in determining what happened. Depending on the OS, the investigation areas might drastically change. Take Windows, for example; it stores a decent log of things that you try to do on the system. Activities such as installing an application and failed network login attempts are logged, and they can give a boost to an investigator’s perception of what happened. Sometimes, one has to look into the registry to ascertain the tools that were used or their settings (many tools on Windows store their settings in registry).

2. Fish for hidden file content:

                                                                       

The data stored on the disk makes up the largest part of the investigation. A number of times you may have to look at a stockpile of files that may appear useless to their original user, but will eventually prove quite useful. Autosave information saved by Microsoft Word or backup files generated when editing files by Linux OS are some of the mildest examples. The good as well as bad thing about these files is that they’re not visible to a user and normally just left on the disk by the OS or the program that creates them. In case they’re deleted, the normal deletion method is used. This would be the same as deleting a file from Trash or Recycle Bin, which means they can be eventually recovered.

3. Rely on tools to assist you:

At this point, you’re probably wondering how you’ll be able to read a Word document’s auto-save backup file. If you try to read the file in its raw form, your brain is bound to cheat you. That’s because it isn’t a plain text file. Registry is one of the creators of such a file. Interpreting the file will be impossible if you rely on our brains alone. You’ll need tools that can interpret the data you found on the disk. A simple example, here – MS Word can open a Word file recovered from a disk. Tools, formats and rights For dealing with data, you’ll need appropriate tools at each step. For example, if you want to extract the disk image from an evidence disk, there are many tools that can help you get the image. To create an image as well there are multiple tools available, from free and well known tools such as the ‘dd’ command on Linux to a complete set of forensic tools such as EnCase. Oftentimes, a single tool can’t be relied upon and one might need to, say, create an image using different tools. 

File formats are crucial largely because they’re involved at almost every level of the investigation process. From extracting images to reading the data, one needs to deal with an extremely vast set of formats. Hypothetically, if you took the disk image using EnCase, then you would need EnCase to read the format in which the image file was stored. Assuming that your evidence disk was taken from an iMac machine, you’d need a way to read the HFS+ file system used by Mac OS X. Once the data is extracted, you’d again need software to read the data. If it’s a .dwg file, only AutoCAD would be able to open that file. You’d have to deal with a plethora of formats all the way. Lastly, you can’t simply start off with a forensic investigation and not have the required rights. you need to be a part of the police force or an investigative agency authorised to handle the case. And of course, you must have the right to use the software/tools involved.

Careers in Cyber Forensics

It’s by the virtue of the career opportunities that the attractiveness of a discipline is determined. Though not a popular field, Digital Forensics has opportunities in both the private and public sector. Interestingly, there are positions in both sectors where one needs to use this knowledge to destroy data, as well as recover it.

• Revenue Department: 

Organisations dealing with money directly, both private and public need to trace financial crimes. This involves digging the data graves on the disk and creating the
timeline of who did what and in what order – challenging, interesting and intellectually rewarding.

• Malware Analysis:

Companies trying to create anti-viruses often need to inspect the patterns of data destruction as well trace malwares that may have deleted themselves after their mission was complete. Forensics experts are certainly a necessity here. 

• Government and Police:

Crime investigations conducted by intelligence agencies, police and cyber security cells often require a forensics expert to help them walk a tightrope without falling off. With time, as electronic media takes over our lives, forensics is supposed to take over a large share of crime and thus, investigative processes.

• Private Auditing Companies: 

There are companies that dedicate themselves to the job of Forensics Consultation needed by other entities. You guessed it right. These are private detectives.

• Trainer: 

There certainly is a lack of talent in this field. Trainers are required at all of the prior mentioned organisations. And as it happens in many cases, being a trainer on rare and intellectually challenging cases is quite rewarding. 

That being said, Cyber Forensics is an ever-changing landscape. New types of storage media and software are introduced all the time, ensuring new challenges to overcome keeping those in the field on their toes. You can rest assured that the environment will keep you updated on the latest in technology and in touch with a very wide array of technology.