Sphider is a free and customisable search engine script written in PHP that can used to index a website(s). Its main use is to add a site search feature to your website or create a custom search engine. It is easy to install, supports multiple sites, themable and using it is straightforward and doesn’t require any technical skills. Plugins are available to add new features like mp3 search. You can get technical support at their forum.
License : GPL
Download sphider here
Sphider Plus is an extended version of sphider with even more features and themes. I recommed using it instead of sphider
Download Sphider Plus
Free/Opensource Scripts
Adobe/Macromedia Flash is a commercial flash creator that most of you are already aware of. It costs hundreds of dollars and those web developers like me who can’t afford it normally go for warez downloads. There is a free/opensource alternative to adobe flash that is very useful for experienced flash programmers.
Liveswif is an opensource flash creator licensed under LGPL. According to their website, the original creator of this handy tool initially put it for sale for $40. Then, after a while he licensed it under LGPL and disappeared. Liveswif only supports flash 5, but it is worth saving 700 bucks. It supports Action script too.
Pros: Free, Supports scripts, Lightweight
Cons: Lacks some features, Supports only Flash 5
The full version of Liveswif can be downloaded by clicking the following link.
Download Now
Free/Opensource Software
Arcade sites are very famous these days and all the paid arcade scripts are too costly for a starter webmaster. Finding a free arcade script is a pain the ass let alone an opensource one.
Rgamescript was an opensource arcade script licensed under GPL. The owner kept it free till version 1.1 and then licensed the future ones under a commercial license. He made sure that the free one is not available anymore and removed the download link from his sourceforge project. I found a copy of the script and used for my site . Trust me, it was an awesome script with many features and perfectly optimised for search engines.
It lacks certain features of commercial arcade scripts like comments and users, but it has an easy to use admin interface and a template different from normal arcade sites. Moreover, it is licensed under GPL and there is a scope for improving it if some interested programmer decides to continue the project. So, I decided to upload the script to my site.
NOTE: There is also a gamepack available for that script, but I cannot upload it as it will eat up my bandwidth. So, if you need it, reply to this post with your email and I’ll email you the link.
Download the script here
There is a vulnerability in the original script that lets hackers to take control of your server. Thanks to Jay Shah, it has been fixed. If you downloaded this script before 5:40 PM GMT, January 24th, please redownload it again.
The game pack can be downloaded here
Free/Opensource Scripts, General
