Free Programming Tools and Utilities
Editors, Debuggers, Help Authoring, Setup, Version Control, etc
Free Programming Tools / Resources
You can find tools, resources and utilities for a wide variety of programming tasks below.
If you don't see the category of tools you want listed in the index below, please check out the Miscellaneous Free Programming Tools page, a catch-all page for everything that does not have its own page. Note that compilers and interpreters, source code and libraries as well as documentation are listed separately on their own pages.
Help and Documentation
Text and Source Code Handling
- Free Programmers' Editors, ASCII Text Editors and IDEs
- Free Java IDE and Editors
- Free Online Editors and Integrated Development Environment (IDE)
- Free Text Search and Replace Utilities
- Free Text and Binary Comparison / Merging Utilities (Diff/Merge)
- Free Clipboard Extenders and Clipboard History Managers
- Free Source Code Beautifiers
- Free Version Control Software
- Free Interactive Regular Expression (Regex) Testers and Builders
- Free Static Code Analyzers (Static Source Code Analysis Tools/Lint)
- Free Programmer's Fonts
Debugging and Binary Code Management
- Free Debuggers and Bug Trackers
- Free Disassemblers, Binary and Hex Editors, Hex Viewers
- Free DOS Extenders (Protected Mode)
- Free Text and Binary Comparison / Merging Utilities (Diff/Merge)
- Free Executable Compressors - shrink your EXEs and Binaries
- Free Windows Resource Compilers, Resource Editors, Resource Hackers, Icon Editors
- Free File Patch Makers (for Delivering Small Updates)
Compiler Construction and Grammars
Miscellaneous
- Free 3D Software Box Image Makers
- Free Interactive Regular Expression (Regex) Testers and Builders
- Free File Patch Makers (for Delivering Small Updates)
- Free GUI Builders, Application Builders and Rapid Application Development (RAD) Software
- Free Make Utilities (Program Maintenance and Building Software)
- Free Setup / Installers / Uninstallers
- Free Autorun/Autoplay DVD and CD Menu Creation Software
- Free Command Line Shells
- Free Programmer's Fonts
- Free JavaScript Minifiers (Minimizers), Obfuscators and Compressors
- Free Java Resources and Tools
- Miscellaneous Free Programming Tools and Utilities
Engineering Software
Other Programming Resources
- Free Source Code and Programming Libraries - don't reinvent the wheel
- Free Compilers and Interpreters for Programming Languages
- Free Online Programming Documentation, Frequently Recommended Programming Books
- Free Emulators and Virtual Machines
Other Resources of Interest
- Free Security, Privacy, and Anonymity
- Free Utilities and Application Software
- Free Perl CGI Scripts
- Free PHP/Perl CGI Script Hosting
- Free PHP Scripts
- Free JavaScript, AJAX, DHTML and Web 2.0 Scripts
- Free Web Hosts, Budget Web Hosts
- More Free Webmaster Resources
- Free Tutorials and Articles for Webmasters
- Free POP3, IMAP, SMTP, Web Email
New Pages on thefreecountry.com
- Free EPUB Readers (Ebook Viewing Software)
- Free Software to Create Bootable and Multi-Boot USB drives
- Free Video Conferencing Software
- Free Geolocation Services
- Free Android Emulators
- Free Social Network / Media Software
- Free Static Code Analyzers (Static Source Code Analysis Tools/Lint)
- Free JavaScript Minifiers (Minimizers), Obfuscators and Compressors
- Free Image Pop-Up JavaScripts (Where Image Overlays Current Web Page)
- Free Royalty-Free Stock Photos
- Free PHP Compilers: compile PHP scripts to native code, .NET or Java bytecode
- Free Image/Photo Slide Show JavaScript
New Pages on thesitewizard.com
- How to Give Alternate Table Rows a Different Colour (HTML/CSS)
- How to Generate the Free Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate on Your Own (Windows) Computer
- How to Insert Meta Tags into a Web Page with BlueGriffon
- How to Play a Song (or Some Other Audio Clip) from a List on a Website
- How to Restore Expression Web's Design Panel and Layout to its Initial Default State
- How to Draw a Horizontal Line on a Web Page with Expression Web
- How to Embed a Background Image in CSS to Get a Self-Contained Web Page
- How to Create a Website Free of Charge
- How to Restore the Style Properties Panel in BlueGriffon if It Disappears
- How to Change the Colour (Color) of Links on a Website with Expression Web
- Why Can't I Make Up Any Domain I Want? Is There a Way to Do Away with a Registrar Altogether?
- How to Prevent Two or More Words from Being Split into Separate Lines (HTML/CSS)
- How to Add an Audio or Music File to a Web Page with BlueGriffon
- How to Start a List with a Number Other than 1 and Still Have it Automatically Numbered (HTML)
- What to do if a registrar quotes an exorbitant price for a domain
- Can I Change My Website's Address to HTTPS Without Getting an SSL Certificate?
- How to Prevent Your Website from being Placed in a Frame
- What's the Difference Between a Domain Name Registrar and a Web Host?
- How to Move Your Website to SSL (ie, Convert from HTTP to HTTPS)
- How to Make a Mobile-Friendly Website: Responsive Design in CSS
- What's the Difference Between a Content Management System (CMS), a Blog, a Web Editor and an Online Site Builder?
- How to Centre a DIV Block Using CSS
- What is MySQL? What is a Database? What is SQL?
- What is HTML, CSS, JavaScript, PHP and Perl? Do I Need to Learn Them to Create a Website?
New Pages on HowToHaven.com
- Two Ways to View a Binary File on Windows Without Installing Anything
- How to Get the Hash (MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512) of a File on Windows Without Installing Anything
- How to Solve the 0x80092004 Error When Installing a Windows 7 Security-Only/Monthly Update
- How to Record a Game Video
- How to Boot a CD or DVD in Windows 8.1
- How to Set Up a Standard User Account (or Limited Account) on Windows Vista and Windows 7 for Daily Use
- How to Back Up Your Hard Disk in Windows
- How to Securely Prepare Your Old Computer for Disposal
Popular Pages
- How to Create/Start Your Own Website: The Beginner's A-Z Guide
- How to Create a Blog
- Hard Disk Backup and Restore, Hard Disk Image and Cloning Utilities
- Free DVD Authoring and Creation Software
- Free Data Recovery, File and Partition Recovery, Undelete and Unformat Software
- Expression Web Tutorial: How to Design a Website with Microsoft Expression Web
- Dreamweaver Tutorial: How to Design a Website with Dreamweaver CS6
- BlueGriffon Tutorial: How to Design a Website with BlueGriffon 3
- How to Design and Publish Your Website with KompoZer
What's New
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Note: for historical reasons, this What's New column also includes information from
thesitewizard.com's news feed
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- Another open source program for Windows and macOS has been added to the Free Video Converters or Transcoders. Such software lets you convert video or movies between different formats.
- A parser generator (used by programmers who want to create language compilers and interpreters) that generates C# and Java source files has been added to the Free Compiler Construction Tools: Lexer and Parser Generators page.
- 4 new open source XML parsing libraries have been added to the Free XML Parser/Generator Libraries page. These programming libraries make it easier for you to write computer programs that handle XML files (whether they are configuration or data files).
- A new web hosting control panel has been added to the Free Web Hosting Control Panel Software page. Note that such software are only useful if you are running your own web server and want something convenient to manage it. If you merely want to start a website, see How to Set Up a Website instead.
- Another open source BASIC interpreter for Windows, Linux and Unix-like systems has been added to the Free BASIC Compilers and Interpreters page.
- New page: How to Give Alternate Table Rows a Different Colour (HTML/CSS). Give alternate rows of your tables a different colour ("color") to make it easier for your readers to distinguish which row is which. This article shows one way of doing this using CSS.
- Two replacement distributions for CentOS (with ready-to-use downloads) have been added to the the Free Linux Distributions page. These, like the CentOS of old, let you install systems that are binary compatible with the commercial Red Hat Enterprise Linux, thus letting you run programs (etc) that were designed for that system.
- New page: Free EPUB Readers (Ebook Viewing Software). If you have obtained ebooks in the EPUB format, you are not restricted to reading it on your hardware ebook device or mobile phone. This page lists many free (and open source) EPUB viewers that you can install on your computer to read them.
- New page: How to Generate the Free Let's Encrypt SSL Certificate on Your Own (Windows) Computer. Find out how to generate an SSL certificate for a website on your own computer. (For those wondering, SSL certificates are needed so that your site can be accessed using HTTPS instead of HTTP.)
- A new program has been added to the Free Font Editors page. This software lets you create your own TrueType or SVG fonts, and it runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, OpenBSD and FreeBSD.
- New page: How to Insert Meta Tags into a Web Page with BlueGriffon. This article answers a question from a visitor on how to insert meta tags into a website using the free BlueGriffon web editor.
- Another Windows program has been added to the Free CD, DVD and Blu-Ray Burning Software page. This one lets you create ISO files from files/folders on your computer, burn them to CD, DVD or Blu-Ray media, copy discs, among other things.
- New page: How to Play a Song (or Some Other Audio Clip) from a List on a Website. One of my visitors wanted his users to be able to choose a song from a list, and have it play in an audio player on his web page. This article provides the JavaScript and HTML code for the task.
- The formerly-commercial DarkBASIC Professional, now free and open source, has been added to the Free BASIC Compilers and Interpreters page. If you are interested in writing computer games in the BASIC programming language, or any other type of program for that matter, check it out.
- A portable, open source C library that provides utility functions dealing with data structures, thread management, character set conversion, internationalization, and lots more, has been added to the Free C/C++ Libraries page. The library comes from the GNOME project, but is written to be independent of GNOME, and can be used on Linux, macOS, Windows and Unix-like systems.
- Two new lexical analyzer generators for Java have been added to the Free Compiler Construction Tools: Lexer and Parser Generators page. For those wondering, these are tools that make it easy for you to write computer programs that have to parse text input.
- New page: Two Ways to View a Binary File on Windows Without Installing Anything. This article shows you how to view a binary file, with hexadecimal code and its ASCII equivalent side-by-side, on Windows without having to install a third-party binary/hex viewer.
- New page: How to Restore Expression Web's Design Panel and Layout to its Initial Default State. This article deals with how you can reset the default positions and sizes of the various panels/sections in Expression Web so that the web editor appeared as it did when you first ran it.
- Four new email software for Windows, macOS, Android, and Linux have been added to the Free Email Clients page. These programs allow you to send/receive email directly from your own computer (or phone), without having to log into a web mail service.
- A C/C++ compiler suite from NVIDIA, offering support for parallel computing that use NVIDA GPUs, and full C++17 support, has been added to the Free C/C++ Compilers page. (C and C++ are popular programming languages used by many to write computer programs.)
- New page: How to Draw a Horizontal Line on a Web Page with Expression Web. This article shows you 2 different methods to draw horizontal lines on your web page (whether as a decoration or to separate content) using the free Expression Web editor.
- Two compilers have been added to the Free Modula-2 Compilers page. (For those wondering what the previous sentence means, Modula-2 is a programming language that you can use to write computer programs. And loosely speaking, compilers are the software that translate your programs, written in a particular language, into a form that can run on the computer.)
- Another service has been added to the Free File Sharing and Storage page. This site lets you share files of up to 2 GB, without the need to sign up for an account.
- A new emulator has been added to the Free Atari Emulators page. The Atari referred to here was a series of personal computers sold in the early days of computing, and is fondly remembered by those used it then. This emulator lets you run your old Atari programs on your modern computer. and it works on Windows, macOS, Linux, various BSDs and Solaris.
- New page: How to Embed a Background Image in CSS to Get a Self-Contained Web Page This article deals with how you can store an entire background image in the CSS of a web page for those situations where you need a self-contained web page.
- A Fortran compiler has been added to the Free Fortran Compilers page. It handles the Fortran 2003 language (as well as some features of Fortran 2008) but the next version will support the Fortran 2018 language specifications. This compiler only works on Linux but you can find Fortran compilers for other systems, such as Windows and macOS, on that page as well.
- If you are thinking of putting a slideshow on your website, take a look at the newest addition to the Free Image/Photo Slide Show JavaScript page. This one does not depend on JQuery, and allows for slides that automatically advance after a specified period of time, or manual advancing by your visitors.
- New page: How to Create a Website Free of Charge. This article answers a visitor's question on how to build a website for free, without paying any money for it.
- A new software development suite has been added to the Free Common Lisp Compilers and Interpreters page. This one can generate native code for Windows. For those who don't know what I'm talking about here, Common Lisp is a general purpose, dynamic programming language that you can use to write computer programs.
- New page: Free Software to Create Bootable and Multi-Boot USB drives. If you have ever needed to boot from a rescue disk, or an operating system installation disk, only to find that they are distributed in the form of an ISO file or CD/DVD media, these utilities allow you to transfer them, in bootable form, onto a USB thumb/flash drive. In fact, some of them can even create bootable drives containing multiple ISOs, with a menu that appears on startup, letting you select which to boot from.
- New page: How to Restore the Style Properties Panel in BlueGriffon if It Disappears. This article deals with how you can restore the Style Properties panel in the BlueGriffon web editor should you find it missing or not visible when you enable it.
- Another source of free SSL certs has been added to the Free SSL Certificates for Websites page. If you are wondering what this is all about, such certificates let your website be accessed using HTTPS instead of HTTP. For more information, read How to Move Your Website to SSL (ie, Convert from HTTP to HTTPS).
- New page: How to Use Small Capital Letters for Lowercase and Large Capital Letters for Uppercase (CSS). This article answers a question from a visitor on how to display a sentence so that small (lowercase) letters are shown in capital letters, but have a height shorter than the actual capital (uppercase) letters.
- If you are developing a DirectX 12 game on Windows, take a look at the newest program to be added to the Free Debuggers and Bug Trackers page. This one is from Microsoft, and is both a debugging and profiling/performance tuning tool.
- Updated: The Feedback Form Wizard has been updated to include an additional CAPTCHA option. This one is not only free, it apparently even pays you when your visitors solve the CAPTCHA challenges. For those wondering, CAPTCHAs are those "I am not a robot" or "I am human" checkboxes on forms, used to make sure that a human is at the helm, and not some spam robot.
Updated: How to Add a CAPTCHA Test to Your Feedback Form Script: Reducing Spam in Your Contact Form. The article on how to add a CAPTCHA to your contact form has been updated to include information on how you can use the newest CAPTCHA option (the one that potentially pays you for using them) of the Feedback Form Wizard.
- A new program has been added to the Free Static Code Analyzers (Lint) page. Such tools scan the source code for your program, looking for potential bugs and vulnerabilities (even before you compile and test it). The latest addition can handle programs written in Java, JavaScript, C#, TypeScript, Kotlin, Ruby, Go, Scala, Flex, Python, PHP, HTML, CSS, XML and VB.NET. (If you use a different language, such as C, C++, Fortran, there are other tools listed on that page that can scan those too.)
- A program that lets you create 2D animation and other artwork has been added to the Free Drawing and Painting Software, Image and Photo Editing Programs page. This one works on Windows, macOS and Linux.
- New page: How to Change the Colour (Color) of Links on a Website with Expression Web. This article deals with how to change the colour of the links on a web page using the free Microsoft Expression Web editor. It also addresses how you can change the colour of a link that has been clicked, as well as its colour when a mouse pointer is hovering over it.
- If you are frustrated with how clumsy it is to work with Windows Explorer, when you want to copy or move files between two folders, you may want to use one of these new additions to the Free File Managers and Graphical Shells page. One of them makes multi-panel (dual-panel or four-panel) Windows Explorer windows, and the other creates tabbed Explorer windows. And yes, you read that right. They actually reuse Windows Explorer for the actual windows.
- New page: How to Get the Hash (MD5, SHA1, SHA256, SHA512) of a File on Windows Without Installing Anything. Sometimes, when you download a file, the website you get it from also lists its MD5, SHA1, SHA256 and SHA512 hashes, so that you can verify that the file you obtained has not been tampered with or corrupted in transit. This article shows you how you can check those hashes using Windows' built-in programs.
