NirSoft web site provides a unique collection of small and useful freeware | Hacker News Reader

NirSoft web site provides a unique collection of small and useful freeware

nirsoft.net

153 pointsquyleanh23 comments

Most if the tools seem to be just a gui around some windows api call. Which is exactly what you sometimes want. Especially when diagnosing problems. Clear, no nonsense. Nirsoft has helped me so much. Thank you!

So much of the nirsoft stuff seems like it should just exist standard in windows.

I could be wrong, but I think some of the tools may also take advantage of undocumented Windows APIs.

Nirsoft utilities are invaluable. I usually always pull down some of their tools on a new build. DNS sniffer is one I use often these days to blacklist domains using Pihole.

As the seemingly designated computer person in the family, I always have them on a USB drive along with some stuff I wrote as well to help with repairing/reinstalling Windows.

I used their software when I was a Windows user. Simple GUI, and functional.

This is similar but for Mac.

https://objective-see.org/tools.html

I've found LuLu and OverSight to be useful. Application firewall and camera/mic monitor, respectively.

I love the nirsoft stuff.

For another interesting list of freeware with clean GUIs made by a smallish team (although all mostly dated now), check out AnalogX (https://www.analogx.com/).

Most of the stuff is no longer useful, but back in the 95/98/2k days this stuff was invaluable.

Don't forget about Sysinternals and GRC utilities.

https://www.grc.com/freepopular.htm

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/

yes! and also - tamosoft (in particular, essential net tools) - hlsw (more or less the traceroute app)

Thanks for the tip. If anyone is looking for audio tools, this place has them.

This is what we need more of. Simple, good, small freeware.

No electron, no hundreds of MB executables

The other one is sysinternals.

Third is power toys

Current PowerToys are really bloated in comparison. SVG thumbnailer gets stuck sometimes and Explorer stops responding, even when installed from MS Store it nags for updates when it should autoupdate and so on. It is not like old Win32 PowerToys where I haven't seen side effects just improvements to Windows behaviour.

Had high hopes but was underwhelmed with the new PowerToys, definitely some good stuff in there but I don't see why every product owner at Microsoft has to build a dashboard into their product and the fact it doesn't just have a seamless autoupdate option and instead becomes another thing I have to be nagged about and baby sit is a misstep

It’s always been an incredible resource

I've been very much enjoying WSCC for around 8 years. It has a nice interface to more than just NirSoft utilities, and allows for mass-updating. There's also portable version, which is convenient to have for diagnostics in remote areas.

https://www.kls-soft.com/wscc/

Nirsoft is timeless. Been using it for decades (although not lately). Volumemouse is as good today as it was in 2000. And highly as I regard Mark Russinovich (SysInternals), Nirsoft was way ahead of him.

I use Currports regularly, when forced to use windows. Amazing piece of software.

to say useful is an understatement, there are forensic collection tasks that can only be done, at least to my knowledge, only using a nirsoft tool.

Thank you Nirsoft, your simplicity has been invaluable. Hope it can keep going long in the future.

Kudos to NirSoft, and long live them as well!

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