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There is a wonderful world of free software out there. Below are links to some of the best freeware and other useful / fun websites we have found. You can click on the headings to jump to the section you are interested in. All links open in a new page.
NB: To the best of our knowledge all the software listed here is free for personal use and safe, however please be aware that you download and use it at your own risk.
| accessibility freeware | art & graphics freeware | educational freeware | free games | internet freeware |
| multimedia freeware | office freeware | security freeware | utilities freeware | wonderful websites |
| Accessible Cinema | The Your Local Cinema website lists subtitled cinema and audio-described cinema – you can search by town / area (England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland are listed separately) to find a list of accessible showings, or click on a current film to see where accessible showings are being held. Alternatively you can search by cinema chain. |
| Click Aid | ClickAid is a free stand-alone on-screen mouse aid designed for anyone who has difficulty switching between mouse buttons or double clicking on a physical computer mouse. It will work with all mouse systems including head mouse and touch screen devices. ClickAid functions can be accessed by clicking on the form or optionally by using AutoSelect dwelling to enable the functions to be selected by hovering the mouse pointer over the buttons. |
| Click-N-Type | Click-N-Type is an on-screen virtual keyboard designed for anyone with a disability that prevents them from typing on a physical computer keyboard. As long as they can control a mouse, trackball, touch screen or other pointing device, this software keyboard allows them to send keystrokes to virtually any Windows application or DOS application that can run within a window. The Click-N-Type Virtual Keyboard is a 32 bit application that requires Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista or later. |
| Point-N-Click | Point-N-Click is a free stand-alone on-screen virtual mouse designed for anyone with a disability that makes it difficult or impossible to click a physical computer mouse. As long as they can move a mouse, trackball or other pointing device, they can send mouse clicks to virtually any Windows application or DOS application that can run within a window and even many that are full screen. |
| EduApps | EduApps consists of over 60 open source and freeware Windows applications, running from a USB stick. AccessApps provides a range of solutions to support writing, reading and planning as well as sensory, cognitive and physical difficulties. LearnApps is a range of applications with learning in mind (including some games). TeachApps includes applications specifically for developing and testing learning materials. |
| Deaf Blind Online | Sense Factory - Switch-activated software that lets you make slideshows and sequences of pictures, videos and sounds for use with one or two switches. Everyday Skills - Another switch-activated software that supports teachers in teaching the young people who are deafblind in learning everyday skills. EdWord is a talking word processor that allows you to combine text with symbols. EdWeb is a talking web browser that can display web pages as a combination of text and symbols. Symbol set maker is an accessory for making symbol sets for use in EdWord and EdWeb. It will instantly convert a file full of images into the correct format to be used in EdWord and EdWeb. Grid maker is an accessory for producing grids for use in EdWord and EdWeb. This can provide a list of words or symbols for the user to choose from when writing, as well as pictures, effects and web addresses. |
| OATsoft | The OATsoft website links to many pieces of open-source accessible software (including some listed individually here). You can: browse software based on the need that it meets, browse software by type, or see all software by title |
| One Switch | The One Switch website contains over 100 free 1-switch games. Some are online games, some can be downloaded – all can be played with just one switch (or one key press / mouse click). The level of difficulty is described for each. |
| Priory Wood School | The Priory Wood School website lets you download a wide variety of material including worksheets, curriculum documents, lesson plans and simple programs, which you are free to adapt and use in your school, college or home: cause and effect / targeting activities, interactive talking story books, useful educational programs, curriculum policies and other documents, lesson plans and teaching ideas. |
| Shiny Learning | The Shiny Learning website contains free switch-accessible games. The games can be played online in your browser or download stand-alone versions for Windows. All the games can be played by switch, keyboard or mouse. See the individual games for details. You need to have Adobe Flash Player installed to play these games (see utilities below). |
| A Sliding Puzzle for Helen | A Sliding Puzzle for Helen is a simple one-switch sliding puzzle game. |
| Word Talk | Word Talk is a free text-to-speech plugin for Microsoft Word For people with reading and writing difficulties. System Requirements:
- Microsoft Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, or Vista. - Microsoft Office (or Word on its own) 97, 2000, 2003, or 2007. In order for WordTalk to work, the Microsoft .NET Framework package is required on your PC. The WordTalk installer will detect if this is currently on your machine and if it not it will direct you to a website where you can download it – or there is a direct link from the WordTalk download page. |
| Tux Paint | Tux Paint is a free, award-winning drawing program for children ages 3 to 12 (for example, key stages 1 and 2). It combines an easy-to-use interface, fun sound effects, and an encouraging cartoon mascot who guides children as they use the program. Kids are presented with a blank canvas and a variety of drawing tools to help them be creative. Can be used with Mac OS X, Windows, Linux and more! We strongly recommend that you also download and install the optional “rubber stamps” collection (you will see the link to this download once you choose the operating system you require) – which makes the program much more fun. |
| Gimp | GIMP is the GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed piece of software for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages. It is very powerful and can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. |
| Picasa | Picasa is free photo editing software from Google. It helps you organise all your photos into albums (with tags), import photos from a digital camera or a phone, scan, perform basic editing and touch-up, print custom or standard sized pictures, and upload your photos into web albums (1Gb free storage) which you can share, list publicly or keep private |
| Just Color Picker | Just Color Picker lets you find out the exact colour value of any pixel anywhere on your screen. It features: - Five formats of colour value: HTML, RGB, HEX, HSB/HSV, and HSL. - 3x, 9x and 15x magnifier to see precisely which color you want to pick. - Picked colours history to save and reuse picked colours. - RGB and RYB colour wheels to display triads and complementary colours. - Two harmonious colour finders. With this feature you can easily find a good combination of colours, for example, for your web site. Just choose the primary colour of your design, and the colour picker will find the best colours harmoniously matching with it. - RGB & HSV colour mixers to adjust and edit colours. - Gradient between two latest-picked colours to allow you to pick a colour from a wide range between the chosen colours. - Optional stay-on-top. - User-defined hotkey to capture colour info (Alt+X by default). - Copying the colour value or its selected part to the clipboard just by button click. - Conversion of HTML, HEX or RGB colour codes into corresponding colours. - No installation required. Just Color Picker is a portable application and can be run directly from a USB stick. |
| screenhunter | ScreenHunter 5 Free is a completely free screen capture software for you to easily take screenshots. |
| TuxTyping | TuxTyping - Tux the penguin is hungry, and loves to eat fish. But Tux can only catch the fish if you type the right letters in time! Can you help Tux? |
| Kiran's Typing Tutor | Kiran's Typing Tutor for Windows lets you learn Touch Typing and improve your typing skills. It includes features like Typing Lessons, Typing Practice, Typing Tests, Numeric Typing, Kids Typing, Typing Games, statistical graphs, finger preview and key preview. |
| Stamina Typing Tutor | Stamina is an amusing, yet multifunctional touch-typing tutor with support for several layouts: QWERTY (US, UK, ...), Dvorak, AZERTY etc. The program is perfect for novice as well as advanced users. Instead of the traditional finger positioning on the keyboard you can choose to learn an alternative typing method in order to reduce hand stress. |
| Tree House TV | Tree House TV website contains a huge number of activities for young children – online puzzles, colouring, printable activities, videos and more. Includes “In the Night Garden”, “Fifi and the Flowertots”, “My Friend Rabbit”, “The Backyardigans” |
| A Game | The A Game website has literally thousands of online games (encompassing a huge range of skill levels) and more games are added all the time. Games are divided into the following categories: - Racing - Sports - Skill - Action - Adventure - Puzzle - Multiplayer - Board & Card |
| CBeebies | The CBeebies Websiteis for young children. There are: - stories & rhymes - print & colour - fun & games (including a section of mouse-only, keyboard-only and switch operated games) - music & songs - make & do… |
| CBBC | The CBBC Website is for older children and includes: - watch - create - games (including some switch operated games) - grab (screensavers, downloads, wallpapers etc) - links to other sites |
Internet Freeware links will appear here soon.
Multimedia Freeware links will appear here soon.
Office Freeware links will appear here soon.
Security Freeware links will appear here soon.
Utilities Freeware links will appear here soon.
Links to Wonderful Websites will appear here soon.
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last updated: November 2011