Windows Freeware

The Best Free Software for Windows

No shareware, no nagware, no adware. Reviewed constantly. Categorized conveniently.

This page is updated regularly. Last update: September 27, 2005.

Free HTML Editors / Website Creators

There are many, many html editors, both WYSIWYG and otherwise. It would be a daunting task to compile a list of all of them, and a largely useless one. You need the best freeware option available, not every option available.

Free HTML Editor - WYSIWYG

Nvu Nvu

Nvu is the best free WYSIWYG HTML editor ever created.

It got its start from the Mozilla Composer codebase. The original plan for the World Wide Web was for it to be used much more interactively, and early browsers such as Netscape had HTML editors built-in. Netscape morphed into Mozilla, and the full Mozilla suite still has an integrated HTML editor.

Daniel Glazman was the architect of Mozilla Composer and became the lead developer of Nvu. Nvu has matured into an excellent, fully developed web authoring system that rivals Dreamweaver or FrontPage in many respects. Many people will prefer Nvu because it is not bogged down with feature-bloat, and runs much more efficiently than either of the commercial applications.

Nvu is extremely easy to use for the non-technical user. If your needs are simple, you can build and maintain sites using no other tool than Nvu.

More advanced developers will take advantage of the four different views available: Normal (WYSIWYG mode), HTML Tags (Tags are outlined and represented by icons), Source, and Preview. Source allows you to edit the code directly with color-coded syntax.

In addition to HTML authoring, Nvu also has a built-in CSS editor and site manager. Other features include template support, table wizards, and even a table of contents generator. It's integrated ftp client allows you to upload your site to your server using the site manager.

http://www.nvu.com/

Free HTML Editor - Text Based

PSPad PSPad

PSPad is a text / code editor. You might not need it if you use Nvu, but I believe you should have it anyway, even if you use any other site development application. It's perfect for making last minute changes or rapid touch-up of HTML code.

Many, many developers use it exclusively for developing web sites. It is not WYSIWYG (some developers hate WYSIWYG), but it does have a HTML page preview option. It even has a web server built-in for checking your web applications without uploading them to the server.

It also has a number of extremely convenient tools such as HTML TiDy, a library for checking, formatting, cleaning HTML code. HTML TiDy can analyze HTML and report errors, it can upgrade HTML formatting to CSS styles, and it can convert HTML to XML and XHTML.

Other tools include the ability to import rtf files and to compress your html code. PSPad also fully integrates with TopStyle Lite, allowing you to edit your CSS with that application.

http://pspad.com/

Free Alternative HTML Editors

HTML-Kit HTML-Kit

DHE Editor DHE Editor 1.8

Not quite as intuitive as Nvu or as clean as PSPad, HTML-Kit's main claim to fame is it's large body of pre-built plug-ins that allow you to insert such things as scraps of PHP/MySQL code or to create slide shows. These can be enormous time-savers. It has a large and loyal user base to help you along the way.

DHE Editor is designed for non-coders. It is unique among WYSIWYG web page creators in that it exclusively uses style sheets to layout pages. In essence, you draw out the areas where you want your content to be, much like a page layout or desktop publishing tool. Quite nice.

http://www.chami.com/html-kit/

http://www.hexagora.com/en_dw_dhe_dw.asp#dhefree

Free CSS Editor

TopStyle LIte TopStyle Lite 3.10

You can edit the CSS for your site in Nvu if you like (or any plain text editor for that matter), but I recommend you get the dedicated tool, TopStyle Lite. It's extremely easy to use and gives immediate visual feedback during your style creation. Developers that have never tried it are always surprised at how helpful it is.

http://www.bradsoft.com/download/index.asp

Free Simple Web Site Creator

AbiWord AbiWord

OpenOffice OpenOffice

"Wait, wait!" I hear you say, "Isn't AbiWord a word processor? And OpenOffice? It's an office application suite!"

Yes, yes. You're right, but if you are mainly interested in creating a few, simple web pages, please don't worry about a web-authoring system or learning HTML. Just type your papers and save as html with either of these choices.

OpenOffice saves to HTML from any of its applications, including Impress. It's a very easy way to make a web-based slide show.

Even if you have a more complex site, please, please, please, first type your content in a good word processor. The web is already full enough of typos and misspellings. This will at least help a little.

Learn more about these applications here.

http://www.abisource.com/

http://OpenOffice.org

Free PHP Editor

PHP Designer 2005

Extremely powerful, extremely customizable.

It includes syntax schemes for practically everything: PHP, HTML, XHTML, CSS, Perl, C#, JavaScript, VB, Java and SQL (Ingres, Interbase, MSSQL, MySQL, Oracle, Sybase and Standard SQL).

You can debug your scripts with the PHP interpreter. A PHP manual is built-in, and it includes all the standard coding goodies like parameter hints, auto indent, auto close brackets, etc.

It also has a built-in project manager, file manager, and ftp client.

I'm very, very happy with this product.

http://www.mpsoftware.dk/phpdesigner.php

Free Web Photo Album Creator

JAlbumJAlbum

If you are managing huge catalogs of photographs that are updated regularly, you should consider a server-side solution such as the excellent Gallery.

For creating static HTML pages, you can't go wrong with JAlbum, the most powerful tool in its class. It doesn't get easier than this. Drag and drop album creation, customizable album appearance, multi-language support, hierarchal folders, wizards, EXIF support, image filters, you name it, it's got it.

http://jalbum.net/index.jsp

Free Javascript Code Snippets

Javascript Vault

You want a "check all" option on your forms. Or maybe a pop-up calendar date picker. This is an excellent, downloadable resource for all those common javascript utilities that every web developer needs.

The author has compiled them into an easy-to navigate set of web pages that reside locally on your computer, with working examples of each.

http://www.davidpye.com/freeware/index.shtml

Free RSS Generator

FeedSpring FeedSpring

Straightforward, efficient way to create RSS feeds for your site. Simply fill in the form fields, and it creates a synctactically correct RSS 2 feed. Simple and useful.

http://www.usablelabs.com/productFeedSpring.html