What are the best free software products that improve productivity?

Open Source

Open Source Problem Overview

What are the best free software products that improve productivity?

Open Source Solutions

Solution 1 - Open Source

One of the best compilation of productivity tools for developers -- at least for Windows -- is

http://www.hanselman.com/tools"> Scott Hanselman's Ultimate Developer and Power Users Tool List for Windows

Many, but not all of them, are free.

Solution 2 - Open Source

Google Reader.

No, really.

I use it to read the blogs of tons of great programmers, which is a great learning tool in and of itself.

But, then, when I find a particularly interesting tidbit, I'll tag it and save it for later.

I have different tags for different areas of development, so when I need help or advice in a particular area I go to that tag and I have a treasure trove of applicable advice and code-samples waiting for me.

Solution 3 - Open Source

Obviously everyone's environment is very different, but I use the following all the time and find each of them very useful:

Of course there are many other products that I use day-to-day, especially the Google products and sites like this, but this list includes things that I use all the time and I think are amazing free packages in their own right.

Solution 4 - Open Source

stackoverflow :-)

Solution 5 - Open Source

Firefox and its extensions.

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

such as:

(I'm sure there are many, many more)

Solution 6 - Open Source

All currently free of charge and all outstanding:

  • putty (ssh client)
  • vlc (everything video)
  • vmware player (for development servers)
  • filezilla (s/ftp client)
  • intype (free alpha/beta editor inspired by textmate)
  • sketchup (google 3d cad)
  • foxit (pdf fu)
  • gimp (images)
  • gnumeric (nice spreadsheet)
  • virtualbox (free and open source virtualization that creates new vm's)
  • launchy (awesomeness launcher)
  • mysql (just disable UAC to install on Vista, otherwise great)
  • MSYS + MinGW (C compiler and gnu basics for Windows)
  • pdf creator (print to pdf under windows)
  • postgresql (not ideal for intensive use on windows but better SQL standard compliance)
  • prism (make desktop apps from web apps)
  • r (statistics)
  • skype
  • tortoiseSVN
  • truecrypt
  • vim
  • winSCP

Solution 7 - Open Source

Has to be said: Emacs.

Solution 8 - Open Source

Ones I like and find great value in:

Source Code Help:

Productivity Help

Solution 9 - Open Source

Paint.NET - I use it for all of my graphics needs.

<http://getpaint.net>

Solution 10 - Open Source

The winner is GNU/Linux/Debian/Ubuntu in a landslide!

Solution 11 - Open Source

I'd say LaTeX. It's a document markup language. It makes writing anything involving mathematical symbols a breeze, and the documents can be immediately compiled into postscript or pdf format. It's the standard tool of choice for scientists publishing research papers. Personally, I've used it to write math homework, my resume, personal letters...once you learn it you'll never use MS Word again. Download and documentation can be found here. Best of all it's completely free, both as in speech and as in beer!

Solution 12 - Open Source

Launchy (Windows & Linux) AutoComplete for running programs.

Smart and zero effort UI. You press Alt-Spacebar an start typing an app name or folder, etc. And Launch auto completes for you.

http://www.launchy.net/

Solution 13 - Open Source

The GNU tools, from the helpful non-standard switches (-q on grep) to bash, I don't miss the bad old days of using a non-GNU userland.

Linux has already been mentioned, but only once.

vim and gvim, especially with the :vsp (vertical split screen).

Eclipse is big and heavy, but it can be very handy as a window manager when working on big projects on large multi-monitor desktops. Strange, but that's how I use it.

OpenOffice has been the standard office suite for documentation the last few start-ups I've done. OpenOffice 3.0 is a HUGE improvement, especially on the Mac. It also finally supports side-by-side pages (2-up editing) in the word processor.

Bugzilla isn't pretty but has nearly everything I want in a bug tracking system to be able to quantify bug metrics.

Solution 14 - Open Source

GCC, definitely. As a Mac programmer, I can't do my job without it.

Solution 15 - Open Source

My favorites:

Solution 16 - Open Source

  1. .Net Reflector

Solution 17 - Open Source

Beside the above answers, I would mention some free general utilities (for Windows) that are time saver in my life of programmer, even if they are not necessarily programming tools:

  • CLCL, an excellent clipboard manager
  • MWSnap for my screen capture needs
  • Zoom+ to look closely at pixels and measure them
  • VirtuaWin, to have multiple windows with one monitor
  • WinMerge for file comparing
  • HxD to inspect binary files
  • 7-Zip to compress and decompress files (shines on big files!)
  • FileZilla for my FTP needs
  • PuTTY for doing telnet
  • Wireshark for sniffing network and seeing what is going on
  • BabelMap to look up Unicode characters
  • Flexible Renamer to changes names of files, using regexes or lot of other methods
  • grepWin to find and replace in files
  • FileMenu Tools for lot of little tasks
  • WinSpy++ to watch Windows messages
  • WinDirStat to see where the space on my hard disk is gone!
  • All Sysinternals utilities!
  • SlickRun to run all the above!

and lot more, but I listed most of those I use daily. I omitted text editors (SciTE) and graphic editors (mostly Gimp).

Solution 18 - Open Source

There are lots of great free software tools I use to keep my productivity high, but the software I use continuously all through the day is OpenSSH and VI.

Solution 19 - Open Source

On OSX:

GUI SVN Client - http://www.versionsapp.com

GUI MySQL Client - http://code.google.com/p/sequel-pro/

GUI Vi - http://code.google.com/p/macvim/

IRC client - http://colloquy.info/ <= IRC, especially freenode.net has a wealth of resources available for most of your OSS projects. Often, you'll actually run into the devs as well...

Teamviewer - http://www.teamviewer.com - Crossplatform 'VNC' over firewalls, great for remote support

MacPorts - http://www.macports.com - Decently sized library of BSD/Unix apps for your OSX machine. Easiest way of installing Wireshark.

Neta - http://code.google.com/p/neta/ - Network Analyzer, a Wireshark light implementation

Charles - http://www.charlesproxy.com/ - My favorite webdebugging proxy. (free for demo, anyhow.)

Macfuse - http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/ - Mount remote filesystems via a number of different protocols - http://code.google.com/p/macfuse/

Solution 20 - Open Source

NetBeans (or Eclipse), SVN, and Firefox.

Solution 21 - Open Source

  • editors:

    • Kate
    • Quanta+
    • KDevelop

  • languages:

    • Python
    • Lua
    • Bash

  • libraries:

    • Django

  • general UI:

    • KDE
    • ssh
    • screens

Solution 22 - Open Source

Besides many already mentioned tools, I use:

  • ClipX for multiple clipboard support in any program, not only inside Visual Studio

  • SlickRun for quick command execution

  • Find and Run Robot for fast desktop/start menu search or filesystem search with Locate32 plugin

  • AutoHotkey for keyboard remappings, with my own keyboard mappings,

    F4+F4 To close any window Alt+Alt To open Find and Run Robot process list (similar to Alt+Tab but with filters)

    Alt+1 Send active window to half up screen (useful for comparisons in one monitor)

    Alt+2 Send active window to half down screen

    Alt+0 Switch active window to monitor 1-2

    ...

  • MouseGestures (AutoHotkey script) to enable mouse gestures across applications

  • AutoIt as a general automation tool

Solution 23 - Open Source

Code::Blocks. It works and looks the same in Windows and Linux, plus has a profiler built in and all the bells and whistles you need from a good C/C++ IDE. It's much snappier than Eclipse or Visual Studio.

Solution 24 - Open Source

ProGuard Java code obfuscator/shrinker.

Shameless self plug: I also find my own RefactorBuddy invaluable.

Solution 25 - Open Source

ECLIPSE is by far the best IDE that I've used. And because I've started a few months ago developing RCP applications it's proven to be more than an IDE.

Solution 26 - Open Source

This one is for distribution, but we can't forget Inno Setup

Solution 27 - Open Source

There is an article that I wrote on this very subject a few years ago. Called Top OSS For Coders, I can't really say that I would change the list all that much except for this update that I posted later.

Solution 28 - Open Source

http://www.taskcoach.org/ and google docs are good for organising self.

Having good clipboard control is also a great time saver. http://clipdiary.com

Solution 29 - Open Source

A really nice tool is WinMover, which allows you to move windows (except the Command Prompt window - argh!) by Alt + clicking anywhere in the window and dragging (just like in Linux). Half the usefulness is lost because it can't move the Command Prompt window, but still a great tool.

Also in the "getting cool stuff from Linux to Windows" camp, Virtual Dimension comes in handy for using multiple desktops. This isn't the only solution out there, but it's as good as any, perhaps better. Unintrusive, reasonably configurable & gets the job done.

Another tool, useful for screen sharing, is CrossLoop. It makes it very easy to give someone access to your desktop (including allowing them to share control of your mouse/keyboard) and it works well through firewalls (i.e., you just get an access code from the other party, you paste it & bang!, you're connected).

Fans of Total Commander looking for a free(r) alternative might be interested in FreeCommander. Not so smooth-looking as TC, but almost on par feature-wise, and even with some extra features (or better implementations of the same features).

Solution 30 - Open Source

Another very essential tool is junit.

Solution 31 - Open Source

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned the one truly indispensible tool for the modern programmer, google.com!

Solution 32 - Open Source

For diff'ing and merging, SourceGear's DiffMerge is the best I've found for free (though not open source). WinMerge and KDiff3 also have their merits for certain tasks.

Solution 33 - Open Source

I use frequently the editor jEdit.

Solution 34 - Open Source

Subversion have been the most importent OSS tool for me. Whenever I write code that is not in subversion I feel vulnerable and uneasy.

NUnit is a strong #2

Solution 35 - Open Source

Lot's of good answers. Two I use that I haven't seen mentioned:

Solution 36 - Open Source

I'm a bit surprised by this question, and even more by most answers. It's like asking: I need a new car, which one should I buy?

Of course there are some general answers, but the open source world is already so huge that it's difficult to tell you what is best.

Solution 37 - Open Source

For a Mac, it would have to be TextWrangler. Great all around programmers text editor.

Solution 38 - Open Source

For Windows

  • Reflector - best .NET tool ever
  • Vim and ViEmu for Visual Studio
  • GNU Unix tools (find, grep, tail, wc, etc.)
  • SysInternals tools (pslist, pskill, all the cool monitors, etc.)
  • WinDbg, Sos.dll and sosex.dll - great debugging tools
  • ActiveState Perl

Solution 39 - Open Source

The library which I maintain, and which has been created exactly for this reason: SixPack

Solution 40 - Open Source

On Mac OS X: TextWrangler, Firefox, Firebug. Also MAMP for local PHP/MySQL development.

Solution 41 - Open Source

Nobody said jQuery ??

Solution 42 - Open Source

a freeware pixel ruler I wrote:

A Ruler For Windows

enjoy!

Solution 43 - Open Source

For Web Developers such as I, Firebug helps alot. Downside it's only available for Mozilla Firefox.

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