While this isn’t a full exhaustive list. It is mostly tools that aren’t built in or may not widely be known about.
Multi-Platform Tools:
- nmap
- Network Mapper is a free and open source utility for network discovery and security auditing.
- dig
- Command-line tool developed by BIND for querying DNS nameservers.
- Diagrams.net
- (Formerly known as Draw.io)
Free Open-Source Tool for designing diagrams and flow charts.
You can use the web app on their website without install nor signup.
Windows Tools:
- Chocolatey:
- Chocolatey is a package manager that makes it easier to install and upgrade software.
It downloads software from the source. Checks the hashes to ensure it wasn't tampered with.
Then does a full silent install.
You can also do a silent upgrade of all installed packages with one command.Programs I like to manage with Chocolatey:
- Web Browsers:
- Chromium and Firefox depending on what I need:
- Diagrams.net (Formerly Draw.io)
- Free Open Source Tool for designing diagrams and flow charts.
You can use the web app on their website without install nor signup.- VLC Media Player
- Plays most music and video files without the need for additional codecs
- MP3 Tag
- Tool to add/edit the tags on mp3 files such as Album Art, Artist, Title, Track #, CD #, ect.
- KeePass 2
- Free Open-Source password manager.
It encrypts your passwords into a database that consists of only one file that can be transferred from one computer to another easily.I also like some plugins like keeagent as you can store your ssh keys as attachments in the database. Keeagent can also load the key for your ssh sessions.
Note: I no longer like using agents such as keeagent or pagent as it auto submits keys which is a security issue as well as can cause logins to auto-fail.- 7Zip
- Tool to pack and unpack archives and compressed files of multiple formats such as rar,zip,tar and 7z.
- Greenshot
- Better replacement for snipping tool that has a built in annotation/edit tool for Highlighting, obscuring sensitive info, numbering steps, drawing arrows ect. It also allows easy export to clipboard, word, outlook, imgur, or save the file.
- Flux (f.lux)
- Make the screen easier on your eyes by reducing blue light at sunset and at night to help not interfere with your circadium rhythm.
- Paint.Net (Paint dot net)
- Free photo editor that supports layers, magic wand selector, and some light editing.
- OnTopReplica
- Picture in Picture overlay for any application window.
Also supports transparency.- 4k Video Downloader
- Download videos from youtube.
- Audacity
- Free Open-Source Audio Editor
I recommend installing these programs manually:Windows Terminal It is a more modern CLI terminal with tabs. It can also be customized.
It supports cmd, powershell, WSL.Sysinternals Utilities Tons of useful tools for Windows directly from Microsoft.
My favorites are Whois and Autoruns.BalenaEtcher ISO / Image installer that works for for multiple OS. For me it works better than Rufus when installing Rasbian on Raspberry Pi SD Cards. Steam Popular game client for connecting with friends and playing games on PC Discord Popular chat client for connecting communities and friends. Wireshark Network packet analyzer to view captured network traffic. Notepad++ 32bit Versatile notepad with extra features and plugins. Install the 32 bit version if you want to be able to use plugins. Spotify Recommend using the UWP Windows Store version if you want to add/sync tons of local files of media. Otherwise I'd recommend the regular non-UWP Windows Store version as it seems to have less lag on the controls.
Portable Programs:PuTTY Remote Terminal/Shell for SSH, Telnet, Serial.
Note: I will probably remove this recommendation in the future.
once I find a good modern alternative for Serial / Telnet.WinSCP Remote File Transfer GUI for FTP, SSH, SCP. WinSSHTerm Easily manage multiple putty windows, run scripts, and integrate PuTTY and WinSCP. YUMI Allows you to setup multiple boot images on a single usb device. TFTPD32 Portable TFTP Server that also includes DHCP and a few other tools
Android Tools:
- CIDR Calculator by Randy McEoin
- An easy to use subnet calculator that works with ipv4 and ipv6.
- Shows the network range,# of useable hosts, netmask, wildcard, and even the binary bits.
- KeePass2Android Password Safe by Croco Apps
- Password Manager that works with the encrypted .kdbx files
- NewPipe
- Youtube/Video player that can play audio in the background/screen lock. Along with other free features
- Not available on the Google Play store, you have to manually install the .APK file
Linux Tools:
- My Traceroute (mtr)
- A cleaner formatted traceroute
Tools I no longer use:
- Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL):
- An easy way to run some Linux tools on Windows 10.
Though it is not a fully fledged Linux environment so not everything works.
For example nmap won't work inside the WSL.
nmap does work on WSL Version 2 but not all features as it doesn't have Layer 2 network access.
I switched to just accessing a full linux virtual machine over SSH.