Our Growing Collection of High-Quality, Super-Small and Super-Fast, Freely Downloadable Programs & Resources
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GRC Project Chronology: A complete listing of my past, present, and probable future projects — presented in the order of their occurrence — may be found in the Projects section of "Steve's page".

Daily Average Count of files downloaded from this page:   3,599 Total Historical Count of files downloaded from this page:   50,494,349

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DNSBench Advanced DNS Benchmark utility.    Compare the performance and reliablity of your system's currently configured DNS servers to many publicly available alternatives. Last Updated: Size: 169k Apr 21, 2019 at 01:00 (1,998.96 days ago) Downloads/day: 1,293 Total downloads: 9,275,355 Current Rank: 1 Historical Rank: 1

ValiDrive Quickly spot-check any USB storage for fraud and errors    Fraudulent drives, which are FAR smaller than they claim, are being sold by major retailers. Since their FAT file systems place file directories at the front of the drive, files only APPEAR to be saved but the file's contents may never be recorded. ValiDrive quickly spot-checks 576 evenly spaced locations to verify the actual presence of data storage. Last Updated: Size: 104k Feb 27, 2024 at 21:39 (225.10 days ago) Downloads/day: 765 Total downloads: 340,827 Current Rank: 2 Historical Rank: 18

InSpectre Inspect Windows hardware and software for Meltdown and Spectre vulnerabilities    The Meltdown and Spectre vulnerbilities which swept the PC industry in early 2018 require both hardware and software updates. The combinations and permutations of CPU's motherboards, BIOS, firmware and Windows versions can be very difficult to untangle and understand. GRC's InSpectre utility makes it all very clear. Last Updated: Size: 135k Feb 27, 2024 at 21:41 (225.10 days ago) Downloads/day: 391 Total downloads: 3,021,702 Current Rank: 3 Historical Rank: 7

InControl Easily control Windows out-of-control updating and upgrading.    Many people are happy with their current version of Windows and dislike having Microsoft pushing feature releases and new versions any time they choose. InControl gives the Windows user control over if and when their Windows operating system is changed. (All monthly security updates will always be received.) Last Updated: Size: 96k Feb 27, 2024 at 21:39 (225.10 days ago) Downloads/day: 332 Total downloads: 431,605 Current Rank: 4 Historical Rank: 15

SecurAble Display processor's security features.    Quickly determine, display, and explore the availability and consequences of the state-of-the-art security-related features available in the system's processor. Last Updated: Size: 124k Feb 27, 2024 at 21:42 (225.10 days ago) Downloads/day: 286 Total downloads: 6,421,715 Current Rank: 5 Historical Rank: 3

IsBootSecure Quickly determine whether Windows was booted securely.    An estimated 10% of today's in-use PCs are known to be using a private key that has been disclosed because many manufacturers using AMI firmware never bothered to replace AMI's DO NOT TRUST and DO NOT SHIP sample boot security keys! This little utility allows any Windows user to quickly determine whether their system may be one of these definitely insecure keys. Last Updated: Size: 74k Aug 14, 2024 at 20:53 (56.13 days ago) Downloads/day: 102 Total downloads: 11,802 Current Rank: 6 Historical Rank: 36

BootAble Quickly & easily verify any PC compatible computer's ability to boot FreeDOS.    PC compatible computers were once able to easily boot any operating system. But some newer computers have dropped compatibility with the original BIOS and the addition of 'Secure Boot' to prevent malware from infecting the boot process can complicate the process of booting alternative operating systems. This BootAble freeware and IMG file allows users to easily experiment to verify and workout the process of booting FreeDOS on any computer. Last Updated: Size: 309k Apr 21, 2024 at 13:22 (171.45 days ago) Downloads/day: 95 Total downloads: 18,476 Current Rank: 7 Historical Rank: 35

LeakTest Personal firewall leakage tester    When LeakTest was released, most personal firewalls were easily fooled. Any malicious program could give itself the same name as a trusted program to gain access to the Internet. LeakTest demonstrates and tests for this simple application "masquerading" vulnerability. Last Updated: Size: 25k Mar 13, 2008 at 12:44 (6,054.47 days ago) Downloads/day: 55 Total downloads: 8,286,899 Current Rank: 8 Historical Rank: 2

Never10 Easily disabe (or re-enable) automatic Windows 10 upgrading    Many people are happy with their current version of Windows and would rather than have Microsoft downloading and installing a three gigabyte upgrade to Windows 10. This simple utility uses Microsoft-approved and provided registry and group policy setting to tell 'Get Windows 10' (GWX) not to. It can be run at any time to re-verify or change those settings. Last Updated: Size: 85k Apr 21, 2019 at 13:41 (1,998.43 days ago) Downloads/day: 41 Total downloads: 3,207,825 Current Rank: 9 Historical Rank: 5

ID Serve Internet server identification utility    Can your favorite web sites be trusted with your personal and confidential financial and other data? With eCommerce activity growing, malicious hackers are becoming more interested in breaking into Internet servers. But many servers are not secure. This utility helps you to easily determine which Internet servers web sites are using. Last Updated: Size: 26k Aug 26, 2003 at 21:56 (7,715.09 days ago) Downloads/day: 39 Total downloads: 1,086,669 Current Rank: 10 Historical Rank: 12

InitDisk A fast, foolproof, reliable and easy-to-use USB drive FAT formatting utility.    InitDisk's technology was developed as part of the future SpinRite system. It is able to (re)format any USB drive and optionally make it bootable with the FreeDOS operating system. It has proven itself able to bring USB drives that were previously thought to be dead back to life (much like SpinRite). It is a command line utility, but it can be run by double-clicking its icon in Windows. Last Updated: Size: 161k Dec 19, 2020 at 20:40 (1,390.14 days ago) Downloads/day: 31 Total downloads: 49,248 Current Rank: 11 Historical Rank: 31

Wizmo Steve's multipurpose Windows gizmo    Wizmo is a multipurpose miscellaneous Windows utility that provides an array of single-click functions that are missing from Windows. Triggered by a single mouse click, it can do things like power down your system's displays, activate your screen saver, change or mute the audio volume, restart, reboot, or shutdown your system, and much more. It even includes a rather cool built-in "Graviton" screen saver that simulates the motion of any number of mutually gravitationally attracted celestial objects. Check out Wizmo's web page for the current (and growing) complete list of Wizmo's capabilities and features. Last Updated: Size: 38k Jun 25, 2008 at 13:25 (5,950.44 days ago) Downloads/day: 28 Total downloads: 1,311,654 Current Rank: 12 Historical Rank: 10

UnPlug n' Pray Universal Plug & Play management    At the end of 2001, Microsoft revealed a critical defect in Windows XP and ME: Windows' Universal Plug and Play service (UPnP) would allow a malicious hacker to remotely take over any system that was running and exposing the UPnP service to the Internet. This UnPlug n' Pray utility lets anyone check for the presence of the dangerous UPnP service in their system, then easily and safely enable and disable it as needed. Last Updated: Size: 22k Dec 28, 2001 at 15:47 (8,321.34 days ago) Downloads/day: 19 Total downloads: 4,491,210 Current Rank: 13 Historical Rank: 4

ClicKey Give your keyboard a bit of sound    A simple little utility to add a user-specifiable 'click' sound to any Windows keyboard. Last Updated: Size: 42k Oct 29, 2005 at 11:32 (6,920.52 days ago) Downloads/day: 15 Total downloads: 384,254 Current Rank: 14 Historical Rank: 16

ReadSpeed ReadSpeed for Windows.    GRC's Hyper-Accurate Mass Storage Benchmark for DOS. This is a Windows utility that will wipe, reformat and setup any USB thumb drive so that it will boot DOS and run the ReadSpeed benchmark. Last Updated: Size: 383k Dec 24, 2020 at 20:01 (1,385.17 days ago) Downloads/day: 12 Total downloads: 23,754 Current Rank: 15 Historical Rank: 34

DCOMbobulator Tame Windows insecure DCOM facility    Ever since Windows 98, a powerful, but unnecessary and rarely used facility known as DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) has been an integral part of Windows. The DCOMbobulator checks the effectiveness of Microsoft's security patches and allows the user to increase the security of their system by simply turning DCOM off. Last Updated: Size: 29k May 24, 2004 at 14:17 (7,443.41 days ago) Downloads/day: 11 Total downloads: 1,961,988 Current Rank: 16 Historical Rank: 9

MouseTrap Check your system for MICE!    Quickly check your Windows systems for the presence of potentially dangerous MICE: Metafile Image Code Execution. Last Updated: Size: 29k Jan 19, 2006 at 03:39 (6,838.85 days ago) Downloads/day: 11 Total downloads: 325,847 Current Rank: 17 Historical Rank: 19

OptOut   (retired & obsolete) The original spyware removal tool    My discovery that "Aureate/Radiate" advertising spyware had been installed in tens of millions of PCs without their owners' knowledge or permission led me to create OptOut, the first spyware removal tool. When the Lavasoft folks created the much more comprehensive Ad-Aware freeware, I turned spyware policing over to them. This file remains on our site only because so many off-site web links still point to it. Last Updated: Size: 9k Mar 03, 2001 at 00:00 (8,622.00 days ago) Downloads/day: 9 Total downloads: 3,064,550 Current Rank: 18 Historical Rank: 6

Shoot The Messenger Simple Messenger Service Disable/Enable    Windows NT, 2000, and XP hide an hidden Internet server that is running by default. It receives and accepts, among other things, unsolicited network messages that cause pop-up dialog boxes to appear on the desktop. Internet Spammers have discovered this and are spraying pop-up Spam across the Internet. The Windows Messenger server should never have been running by default, and Microsoft has finally fixed that in Windows 2003, but users of previous Windows need to take responsibility for this themselves. Last Updated: Size: 22k Apr 26, 2003 at 07:52 (7,837.67 days ago) Downloads/day: 8 Total downloads: 2,449,794 Current Rank: 19 Historical Rank: 8

ReadSpeed for DOS (zip) ReadSpeed for DOS (zipfile)    GRC's Hyper-Accurate Mass Storage Benchmark for DOS. This is a Windows utility that will wipe, reformat and setup any USB thumb drive so that it will boot DOS and run the ReadSpeed benchmark. Last Updated: Size: 19k Dec 26, 2020 at 12:59 (1,383.46 days ago) Downloads/day: 5 Total downloads: 4,536 Current Rank: 20 Historical Rank: 39

SQRL SQRL sign-in app for Windows.    A fully working, super secure system for eliminating all usernames, eMail, passwords, authenticators for website account sign-in. Last Updated: Size: 284k Feb 23, 2022 at 20:38 (959.14 days ago) Downloads/day: 5 Total downloads: 27,537 Current Rank: 21 Historical Rank: 33

SpinRite 5.0 Owner's Guide SpinRite's operation manual    This is SpinRite's owners guide which all SpinRite owners should download and print. However, this manual is oriented toward getting the job done, which is fine once you own SpinRite. SpinRite's "What it Does" Technical Note is a much better guide to understanding SpinRite's functions, operation, and benefits. Last Updated: Size: 170k Jan 01, 2024 at 10:25 (282.57 days ago) Downloads/day: 5 Total downloads: 443,180 Current Rank: 22 Historical Rank: 14

ReadSpeed for DOS (img) ReadSpeed for DOS (boot img file)    GRC's Hyper-Accurate Mass Storage Benchmark for DOS. This is a Windows utility that will wipe, reformat and setup any USB thumb drive so that it will boot DOS and run the ReadSpeed benchmark. Last Updated: Size: 345k Dec 26, 2020 at 12:56 (1,383.46 days ago) Downloads/day: 4 Total downloads: 6,609 Current Rank: 23 Historical Rank: 38

SpinRite 5.0: What it Does How SpinRite performs its magic    This "What SpinRite does" technical note describes SpinRite's many unique technologies and explains why SpinRite is every bit as useful and necessary today (though for very different reasons) as it was when I first wrote it. Last Updated: Size: 191k Mar 29, 1998 at 23:07 (9,691.04 days ago) Downloads/day: 4 Total downloads: 464,079 Current Rank: 24 Historical Rank: 13

Free & Clear Font Demo Sub-pixel font rendering demo    A sub-pixel font rendering demonstration illustrating the technology of splitting LCD pixels for the purpose of enhancing font readability. The details are described on our Free & Clear web site pages. Last Updated: Size: 23k Apr 03, 2000 at 13:48 (8,955.43 days ago) Downloads/day: 3 Total downloads: 183,170 Current Rank: 25 Historical Rank: 25

FIX-CIH Virus Recovery Total recovery from CIH virus damage    Every April, the CIH virus resurfaces and wipes out thousands of hard disk drives by deliberately zeroing their partition, boot, and FAT tables. The first time this happened I wrote this complete post-CIH hard drive recovery utility. Last Updated: Size: 21k Jan 24, 2002 at 11:29 (8,294.52 days ago) Downloads/day: 3 Total downloads: 345,104 Current Rank: 26 Historical Rank: 17

IDentify ASPI Devices Simple ASPI device display utility    ID checks the visibility of peripheral devices to aid in the diagnosis of ASPI driver problems. Devices shown by ID are visible to the ASPI driver layer and, if they are Iomega drives, can be tested by TIP (Trouble In Paradise). Last Updated: Size: 14k Aug 18, 1998 at 22:07 (9,549.08 days ago) Downloads/day: 3 Total downloads: 223,648 Current Rank: 27 Historical Rank: 22

LetShare Quick and simple NetBIOS enabler    When the ShieldsUP! system was first created, I had not discovered how to safely "rebind" network transports as a means for closing the NetBIOS TCP/IP vulnerabilities. So I wrote the LetShare & NoShare utilities to do this quickly and easily (although in a non-standard fashion). Today, the manual rebinding described on the ShieldsUP! pages is the preferred method. LetShare & NoShare still work and can be useful for allowing quick NetBIOS on/off testing. Last Updated: Size: 6k Jan 19, 2002 at 22:55 (8,299.05 days ago) Downloads/day: 3 Total downloads: 146,594 Current Rank: 28 Historical Rank: 26

Gravity Setup (v3.0.11) Gravity Newsgroups Client.    Gravity is THE BEST newsgroups (NNTP USENET) client for Windows. STEVE DID NOT WRITE IT. But it stopped working and it had been abandoned. So Steve obtained the open source, fixed it, added a few features, rebuilt and signed the executable... and he'll be maintaining it from now on. Last Updated: Size: 7,587k May 02, 2021 at 12:46 (1,256.47 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 7,128 Current Rank: 29 Historical Rank: 37

Click of Death Audio #1 David Hellier introduces himself    During a live telephone conversation with Leo Laporte on TechTV's Screensavers program, Iomega spokesman David Hellier introduces himself. Last Updated: Size: 77k Jun 28, 1998 at 12:12 (9,600.49 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 122,129 Current Rank: 30 Historical Rank: 27

MDFYSR60 A patch to fix a SpinRite bug until v6.1 is released.    SpinRite v6.0 has always (since its first publication in 2004) had a bug which could result in an internal division overflow when DynaStat engaged for data recovery and repair on drives larger than ~549GB. This recently came to light near the end of the development of v6.1 (v6.0's replacement, which will soon be made available to all v6.0 owners at no charge). So, although v6.1 will soon make this patch unnecessary, we wanted to publish it to resolve the only known problem that v6.0 has had since its last update in 2004. Last Updated: Size: 2k May 20, 2023 at 12:10 (508.50 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 3,517 Current Rank: 31 Historical Rank: 40

MouseTrapCmd Check your system for MICE!    A command-line version of MouseTrap, to quickly check your Windows systems for the presence of potentially dangerous MICE: Metafile Image Code Execution. Last Updated: Size: 15k Jan 19, 2006 at 03:41 (6,838.85 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 54,494 Current Rank: 32 Historical Rank: 30

NoShare Quick and simple NetBIOS disabler    When the ShieldsUP! system was first created, I had not discovered how to safely "rebind" network transports as a means for closing the NetBIOS TCP/IP vulnerabilities. So I wrote the LetShare & NoShare utilities to do this quickly and easily (although in a non-standard fashion). Today, the manual rebinding described on the ShieldsUP! pages is the preferred method. LetShare & NoShare still work and can be useful for allowing quick NetBIOS on/off testing. Last Updated: Size: 6k Jan 19, 2002 at 22:54 (8,299.05 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 209,757 Current Rank: 33 Historical Rank: 23

Perfect Paper Passwords GRC's Open, Secure, Remote Authentication System    This ZIP file contains the PPP.DLL and PPP.EXE which fully implement the CryptoSystem for GRC's Perfect Paper Passwords, one-time password (OTP) remote Internet service authentication system. These files may be freely used to implement identical or similar authentication systems and they are provided for that purpose. Last Updated: Size: 24k Feb 10, 2008 at 16:16 (6,086.33 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 28,502 Current Rank: 34 Historical Rank: 32

Small Is Beautiful (SIB) Windows assembly language starter kit    I write all of my Windows and other utilities in 100% pure assembly language. This results in the smallest, fastest, and most efficient programs possible. I created the "Small is Beautiful" kit to help interested assembly language programmers get started writing Windows programs in pure assembly language. Last Updated: Size: 20k Nov 17, 1996 at 21:11 (10,188.12 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 258,795 Current Rank: 35 Historical Rank: 20

SpinRite 5.0 Literature Description of SpinRite features    In the old days before the Internet, product literature was often printed and mailed through the postal system. Although our SpinRite web pages provide similar information, this printable SpinRite literature PDF file provides a nice four-page summary of SpinRite's operation and features. Last Updated: Size: 140k Jan 01, 2024 at 10:25 (282.57 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 249,134 Current Rank: 36 Historical Rank: 21

XPdite Crucial Windows XP Vulnerability Fixer    Windows XP has always contained an extremely serious vulnerability which allows any malicious hacker to cause the files contained in any directory to be deleted. This vulnerability can be cured by installing XP's large (50 to 140 MB) Service Pack 1 — which is preferable whenever possible. But this free and lightweight XPdite utility fixes the problem quickly and easily for systems not yet running Service Pack 1. A silent running option also makes it ideal for corporate deployment. Last Updated: Size: 30k Sep 17, 2002 at 10:22 (8,058.57 days ago) Downloads/day: 2 Total downloads: 1,144,039 Current Rank: 37 Historical Rank: 11

SpinRite 5.0 Addendum Updates to SpinRite's owner's guide    Important operational notes and feature enhancements for owners of SpinRite 5.0 covering improvements and features added since SpinRite 3.1. Last Updated: Size: 89k Jan 01, 2024 at 10:25 (282.57 days ago) Downloads/day: 1 Total downloads: 187,607 Current Rank: 38 Historical Rank: 24

ASPI_ME Media Demo Demo of on-the-fly audio synthesis    A small executable demonstration that synthesizes a complex polyphonic sound, using a software FM synthesizer, while unscrambling a sliding tile puzzle. After the puzzle is solved, the resulting wave file is played. Last Updated: Size: 14k Aug 11, 1999 at 00:01 (9,192.00 days ago) Downloads/day: 1 Total downloads: 118,546 Current Rank: 39 Historical Rank: 28

Gravity Update (v3.0.11) Gravity Newsgroups Client Update.    Gravity is THE BEST newsgroups (NNTP USENET) client for Windows. STEVE DID NOT WRITE IT. But it stopped working and it had been abandoned. So Steve obtained the open source, fixed it, added a few features, rebuilt and signed the executable... and he'll be maintaining it from now on. THIS Gravity.exe is ONLY the executable, intended to replace any already installed earlier version. Last Updated: Size: 1,004k May 02, 2021 at 12:36 (1,256.48 days ago) Downloads/day: 1 Total downloads: 2,584 Current Rank: 40 Historical Rank: 41

Click of Death Audio #2 David Hellier's free replacement promise    During a live telephone conversation with Leo Laporte on TechTV's Screensavers program, Iomega spokesman David Hellier promises to replace ANY defective IOmega ZIP or JAZ drives whether or not they are still in warranty. Last Updated: Size: 69k Jun 28, 1998 at 12:07 (9,600.50 days ago) Downloads/day: 1 Total downloads: 98,486 Current Rank: 41 Historical Rank: 29

Gibson Research Corporation is owned and operated by Steve Gibson.  The contents of this page are Copyright (c) 2024 Gibson Research Corporation. SpinRite, ShieldsUP, NanoProbe, and any other indicated trademarks are registered trademarks of Gibson Research Corporation, Laguna Hills, CA, USA. GRC's web and customer privacy policy.

Last Edit: Oct 10, 2024 at 00:04 (0.12 days ago)

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