10 useful tools for admins which are free
Firebrand Training
30 May, 2013
There are several pricey tools out there, but why waste money when these free and easy to use tools do the same job?
Here is a list of 10 of the most popular free tools most admins use in their day to day roles.
Winrar is widely for anyone who knows about compressed files. It handles several compressed types and formats. It is one of those programs you know to install as soon as you get your new computer. Winrar states on its web-site that there are "Over 500 million users worldwide make WinRAR the world's most popular compression tool today".
This piece of software will really impress you. It has advanced features that can deal with virtually all image formats available in the market. It is reliable and easily creates virtual drives on your computer, giving you the possibility to have endless virtual CDs and DVDs for instant access. ISO is widely used on the internet now, and although many go for MagicISO, Daemon tools does the job seamlessly without any problems. Just mount your image and you’re done.
With the security issues of today, it is important to keep a long list of different passwords for each of the accounts in order to isolate potential hacking incidents. But with so many accounts, it can be a pain to remember more than five at a time. This is where KeePass comes in. It will securely hold all your passwords in one place, taking that headache away from managing all of them. It has military grade encryption, ensuring they remain safe.
Xirrus saves time and work by checksing your WiFi network and by checking for rogue devices. It also troubleshoots connections, identifies calming connections and spots rogue networks or hotspots
Notepad++ is a handy source code editor which supports several languages. You can use it to create your html emails, scripts, compare files, etc... It’s a simple tool that does exactly what you need.
This helpful program tells you what is taking up the space on your hard drive. When your C drive is beginning to get too full and its performance starts to fall, this is the program you need. It quickly shows you what areas are taking up the most space making it easy to clean and remove unnecessarily bulky files on your computer.
This is tool you use when all else fails. Those moments where the standard antivirus/malware software can’t help or fix the problem, ComboFix is there to help. It finds and removes almost all rootkits and Trojans. Note that just like with all anti-viruses, before using it, you must make sure the others are completely disabled.
This tool allows you to quickly and easily create virtual hard disks. It also works with Hyper-V and Virtual PC. The difference between Disk2vhd and other physical-to-virtual tools is that you can run Disk2vhd on a system that’s online.
FileZilla is an FTP client, and is one of the best ones out there. It can easily move files to the network and is also cross platform. It Manages FTPS and FSTP protocols.
10. CCleaner
Most of us know CCleaner very well; it does the important task of getting rid of temporary files and Windows Registry problems. It does it much faster than most other tools, which if you have used any before, you would know the headache it causes watching that slow process bar move to the right. This is the tool to use when you feel your computer is not performing like it should and you know it’s not because of a virus. So get rid of your cookies and trackers and keep your computer smooth and secure.
Which free tool do you use the most?
Comment if you think we missed one, we would love to know more…