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 Website Maintenance Tools

Free FTP Software

Filezilla

It's possible to manage all your uploads with Nvu or PSPad, but you really need a dedicated FTP client. FileZilla is an excellent all-around tool that supports proxy servers and SFTP.

More info here…

http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/

Free Windows Web Server Software

It's outside the scope of this article to get into the various server-side technologies available. Suffice it to say that the most common configuration for your typical small-to-medium size website is the combination of these three elements.

Windows 2000 and XP have IIS included. You don't necessarily have to have Apache running on your development box. But if you are using a standard host for your site, chances are they're running Apache with PHP. Why not make your workstation display your site exactly like the server?

It's unusual today to find a hosting service that doesn't offer PHP. Most simple sites with a back-end database use MySQL.

I'm not passing judgments, saying good or bad, but that's the way it is. You can configure your Windows box with the exact same elements in order to accurately reflect what will happen when you upload your site.

The easiest way to install these packages is to use WampServer. It's a single download and installation that will get your Windows box to act like a professional hosting server.

http://www.en.wampserver.com/

http://www.apache.org/

http://www.php.net/

http://www.mysql.com/

Free Telnet / SSH

PuTTY

You might be able to do everything you need with your FTP client, but if you're setting up cron jobs, or doing any kind of server-side work, PuTTY is the tool to use.

More information here...

http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/