Gizmo's Freeware

January 21, 2012 9:14 AM

Gizmo's Freeware is a non-commercial community website staffed entirely by volunteers. Our primary function is to help you select the best freeware product for your particular needs.
posted by Trurl (8 comments total)

I have been using Gizmo's as a resource for years. They have rarely, if ever, steered me wrong.
posted by holdkris99 at 9:16 AM on January 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

perfect timing, thanks!
posted by chapps at 9:19 AM on January 21, 2012

How did I never know about this?
posted by howfar at 9:20 AM on January 21, 2012 [1 favorite]

Best Free Personal Information Manager -- Palm Desktop: Yeah, that's got a future.
posted by leotrotsky at 9:46 AM on January 21, 2012 [3 favorites]

I was immediately frustrated by the fact that the separated "text editors" from "programmers' text editors." The best text editors are programmers' text editors, because we use them every day for every text manipulation task you can imagine. Just because they might have features that the average user doesn't learn to use for a while doesn't mean that NotePad++ isn't better than EditPad Lite. There's also a preponderance of questionable utilities (CCleaner, Glary Utilities, Registry Cleaner, WinPatrol) aimed squarely at people who know nothing about their computer, and the PIM section seems to ignore the possibility of things like TiddlyWiki or Zim.

Those objections make me less likely to trust the site in categories with which I'm less familiar.
posted by sonic meat machine at 12:32 PM on January 21, 2012

Palm Desktop: Yeah, that's got a future.

Does any PIM software for running locally have a future in the age of web apps and smart phones? Palm desktop is dying, but while it's here it's pretty full-featured, rock solid, and was popular enough that there are tools to sync it with just about anything. Also it has good import/export utilities and customizability. I know people who don't have a Palm anymore that still use it as their primary contact management and scheduling tool. I think they are crazy, but it definitely does what they need for their business.
posted by BrotherCaine at 2:28 PM on January 21, 2012

It's a little out of date -- it lists both "Firefox 4" and OpenOffice, as opposed to LibreOffice.
posted by JHarris at 3:15 PM on January 21, 2012

My go-to source for freeware is: apt-cache search <search terms>
posted by DU at 11:34 AM on January 23, 2012