Time Saving Tuesday
Hard drives are becoming huge these days, and most applications have begun to make use of the abundant space that barely ever gets filled up. I’m a big proponent to full-featured applications as long as they serve a purpose, but size isn’t always the best representation of quality. To prove that, I set out to find 15 top-notch apps that take up little to no room on your hard drive.
–Requirements–
The first thing I did was setup a few requirements for the applications that I was going to look for:
- A download size smaller than 250KB (I caved in and included one program that was 252 KB though)
- I preferred apps that didn’t require any installation
- They must run on Windows (at least compatible with XP, but most listed work on Vista as well)
- Has to be completely free
One of the problems I ran into is that many programs include installers with the download, and doing so often adds a considerable amount to the download size. After some careful deliberation I still decided to go with the download size as the deciding factor for this article, and not the actual size of the program once it is setup on your computer.
–The List–
I’ve listed each of the 15 programs below, and sorted them with the smallest program first. Next to all of the apps you’ll see the download size, and some of them also specify that they don’t require installation. A few of the programs we have also written about before, and we give links to our reviews on those apps. Some also have similar, but more feature-packed siblings, and we’ve listed those in case the small size isn’t the primary characteristic you look at.
Without further ado I present to you our top 15 ultra tiny apps:
- jRes [5KB] – No Installation Required
Description: Switch between all available resolutions using a simple System Tray icon.
- WinRoll [9KB] – No Installation Required – Our Review
Description: Roll windows up so that only the title bar of the window is visible.
- GhostIt [11KB] – No Installation Required
Description: You can assign certain windows to have a “ghosting” effect. When a ghosted window loses focus it stays on top but becomes ultra-transparent.
- Mouse Emulator [14KB] – No Installation Required – Thanks for the tip “s”!
Description: Control the mouse using the number-pad on your keyboard - SlimFTPd [59KB] – No Installation Required
Similar: Quick ’n Easy FTP Server
Description: There is no GUI for this FTP server application, but everything can be edited through a well-explained text configuration file. I’ve yet to see another FTP server that has a footprint as small as this one. - Switch Off [64KB]
Similar: WinOff, Power Manager, Shutter, and PowerOff
Description: Schedule your computer to shutdown at a specified time, or you can easily access the shutdown options from the System Tray.
- Taskix [64KB] – No Installation Required – Our Review
Similar: Taskbar Shuffle
Description: Rearrange Taskbar items using this super-small app. Prior to this I used Taskbar Shuffle, but this is much smaller and does the same thing.
- TinyResmeter [92KB] – No Installation Required
Description: Monitor your system’s resources with this customizable application. You can pick and choose which stats you want to see, and you can customize the look as well.
- TrayIt! [144KB] – No Installation Required
Similar: TrayDevil and DM2
Description: Minimize windows to the System Tray therefore decluttering your Taskbar!
- TweakUI [147KB]
Description: Customize dozens of hidden Windows XP options. This is a must-have for anyone running XP!
- winMd5Sum [181KB]
Similar: digestIT, HashOnClick, MD5 Column Display
Description: Calculate the MD5 checksum so that you can make sure files were downloaded without becoming corrupt.
- Unlocker [192KB]
Similar: WhoLockMe
Description: Unlock files that are still considered “in-use” by the operating system. That way you will be able to deleted them without restarting your computer.
- uTorrent [219KB] – No Installation Required – Our Review
Description: This is hands-down my favorite BitTorrent downloader.
- Notepad2 [243KB] – No Installation Required
Similar: Notepad++
Description: A great Windows Notepad replacement that has dozens of settings you can configure.
- Total Copy [252KB]
Similar: Copy Handler and TeraCopy
Description: This one barely broke the 250KB limit that I was shooting for, and so I thought I would include it. With this you’ll get a better file transfer manager that can pause and resume file transfers. You can also impose speed limitations so that the transfer doesn’t hog all of your network bandwidth.
–Overview–
Did you even realize that there were so many tiny apps that are this useful? I’ve only begun to scratch the surface, and there are hundreds more that are just as good if not better. I just wanted to diversify the list, and tried hard not to list programs that performed similar functions as one another.
If you know of any free tiny apps that you use on a regular basis, hit us up in the comments below. Let everyone benefit from your knowledge!
hey thats a nice list. i found some amazing apps in there. uTorrent and Winroll are my long time favorites. go to try out the others though..
How bout Startup Control Panel, a favorite useful one of mine.
“Startup Control Panel is a nifty control panel applet that allows you to easily configure which programs run when your computer starts.”
No Installation Required, for the Standalone EXE Version, and its 34kb.
[mlin.net]
Note : Must be run as administrator on Vista to actually work.
Some great Apps, Utorrent has been my favourite client for a while now but I never looked at how small it was. Another app to consider is deskpins.[[users.forthnet.gr]]
It basically works like the options you see in programs to always stay on top.
BurnCDCC
This utility is used to burn an ISO file to a CD/DVD/BD disc. Many new systems come with a limited CD/DVD software package which lacks the ability to burn .ISO files.
[terabyteunlimited.com]
Or, Convert, another extremely useful favorite of mine.
“Convert is a free and easy to use unit conversion program that will convert the most popular units of distance, temperature, volume, time, speed, mass, power, density, pressure, energy and many others, including the ability to create custom conversions!”
[joshmadison.com]
Standalone exe version too, thats only 153kb, that extracts to bout 548kb tho, but its still tiny and extremely useful.
Gotta have WinAudit–[pxserver.com] can REALLY see what’s happening within your computer.
SIW–[gtopala.com]
WHAT’S RUNNING–[whatsrunning.net]
and
BELARC ADVISOR–[belarc.com]
WHAT’S RUNNING and BELARC ADVISOR do install but if you want to know what is going on in your computer you have to add those programs to your arsenal
Loved the original list…and glad to see UNLOCKER listed…saves so much frustration!
Similar to startup control panel is startup monitor which does roughly what spybot – teatimer does. monitor for programs that register themselves to run on system startup.
>> 4. Mouse Emulator
Windows has a little feature that does exactly the same thing. I believe that you can find it in Control Panel > Accessibility.
>> 11. winMd5Sum
I’ve found a tool that does the same thing, but it integrates with the Windows Explorer Properties window. I find that tool to be a little more user-friendly. It’s not portable though. You can check it out at [beeblebrox.org] .
Snippy just 84KB, an easy tool for taking screenshots
If you like this, you might like [tinyapps.org] .
i’m fond of trayplay, for playing audio files. a 37kb exe file that installs nothing on your computer but plays some files that itunes and mediaplayer won’t. small enough footprint that it doesn’t bog down the boat anchor i have at work.
[chime.tv]
Thank You mate. excellent site. Btw Ryan how the hell did u get ur hands on a 22 MHZ processor?(Tinyresmeter)
nice list!
I’m not a fan of tineresmeter myself, and much prefer this one:
[88.191.26.34]
makes everything sit in one single systray icon, for no cpu use & less than 1mb of ram
Awesome! I’m loving that.
That’s gotta be the smallest burning app that I’ve seen.
Pretty basic…but cool nonetheless.
We’ve actually written about that site before: [cybernetnews.com]
Ha, that was one of the few screenshots that I took from the developer’s site. That’s pretty funny though.
10 very small programs [computerra.ru] (russian)
LCISOCreator creates ISO files from CD/DVD-ROM.
For the latest version turn to: [lucersoft.com]
Maybe not (or not always) the most useful application around, but I think my MiniDumper is at least surely small (18KB). And free off course!
[mark0.net]
It’s a quick hex dumper (first 256 bytes / header), that can copy the results to the clipboard with BB code, ready to be pasted on a forum to ask “WTF is this file?”
Bye!
SpeedyStart is one of my top, time saving favorites. It’s just 117kb in size & doesn’t really need to be installed to actually work.
It adds frequently preformed tasks, apps and even folders to the Start Button’s content menu. It works on both XP & Vista in either 64-bit or 32-bit varieties. You can even add your own custom entries.
I feel lost at work without it.
[anythingyouwish4.goin.to]
That’s actually an awesome idea! I may have to write about that app.
This is because TinyResMeter can show the “real” CPU speed on notebooks or motherboard that have adaptative CPU clock.
True, but most don’t bring the CPU clock down that low. At least I’ve never seen it brought down that low on any of my computers. The lowest I’ve seen mine go is 400MHz.
I have an old PIII-1Ghz DELL notebook and it go down to 14Mhz if I load no applications, may be you have a much newer CPU or have a too much loaded applications that always do somthing that make your CPU never be really low.
StrokeIt and High Sign are very good too. I still haven’t decided which I am definitely gonna use, strokeit is better but keeps crashing sometimes. I haven’t tested its new version 0.96, though.