Freeware Mission – Best Free CD/DVD Burner

by Mike 24 July 2008 25 Comments

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Rating: 5.0/5 (1 vote cast)

The Freeware Mission continues! My goal is to have only freeware in my computer, except the Windows XP operating system. Now, after having installed the best free web browser, best free BitTorrent client, best free antivirus, best free zip utility, best free movie collection manager, best free office suite, I’m trying to find the best free CD/DVD burner, to replace Nero. Curious to find out which one it will be?

After a few tests only two freeware programs grabbed my attention: CD Burner XP and StarBurn 10. These two seem to be the best alternatives to Nero, but only one of the two will be my choice. Looking at the feature list CD Burner XP has only a few things that StarBurn hasn’t: it supports LightScribe and has an integrated audio player. On the other hand, StarBurn has some interesting features: can split DVD9 into two DVD5 with automatic main movie extraction, can rip the tracks form audio cds into wma or waw, dvd-video authoring from vob files and the capability to create virtual drives (a little bit like Daemon Tools, but with less features).

The conclusion! It’s StarBurn 10, much more suited to my needs, better interface and some interesting features. And it supports HD-DVD and Blu-Ray discs too. You can download StarBurn 10 from here, it’s free!

My Evaluation	8.0
Operating System	Windows XP SP2
Size	9.68 MB
Author	Rocket Division Software
Version Tested	10

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25 Comments »

Luis Bastos said:

what the diference between the limited mode ande the total mode?

# 22 August 2008 at 11:16 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Luis Bastos
The paid version is StarBurn Network, and has network burning features. That’s the only limitation I know of, and I think it’s not very important for a home user.

# 23 August 2008 at 3:12 am

Luis Bastos said:

Thanks for answering me. you have a great site. And starburn is a wonderful software. thanks for finding him for me.
well, I saw they have a pay version, starburn network.But
when i install starburn (free version) i have two icon in the desktop, one “starburn (limited)” and another icon “starburn (total)”. I open both but i really don´t see the diference.
I have vista 64.

# 24 August 2008 at 7:29 am

Johnny Karp said:

@Luis
Don’t know about Vista. On my Windows XP PC only one shortcut shows up, that with (total).
Anyway, I’m happy that you like the website and that you found StarBurn useful. Cheers.

# 24 August 2008 at 9:23 am

Luis Bastos said:

Hello johnny.
I just receive the answer from the developper:
“Limited will not ask for Administrator priviledges (and will not have access to the StarPort-controlled features) and Total will ask for priviledges raise and also will provide access to StarPort-controlled features.”

# 25 August 2008 at 11:10 am

Johnny Karp said:

@luis
Thanks for the info. But just to make it clear, the “total” version is not a paid version, it’s included in StarBurn 10 – free! I know because I was just using the Star Port stuff the other day and it works just fine.

# 25 August 2008 at 3:03 pm

hyenad said:

Does it have a gapless feature?

# 1 September 2008 at 6:31 am

Johnny Karp said:

@hyenad
Yes, the product features include gap-less audio CD burning. I didn’t this feature yet though.

# 1 September 2008 at 7:59 am

Anonymous said:

@johnny

have you tried using ashampoo burning studio 6 free? i was actually looking for the best free burner before and ended up with cdburnerxp and ashampoo, i chose ashampoo because its faster, i never heard of starburn, im going to try this out.

# 16 September 2008 at 6:42 am

Johnny Karp said:

You should try StarBurn, I’m very happy with the way it works so far. I burned about 150 DVDs with it.

# 22 September 2008 at 11:26 am

Dorin Vieru said:

Is StarBurn capable of overburning CDs/DVDs? I’ve searched for this option and I have not found it.

# 26 September 2008 at 4:58 am

Johnny Karp said:

Salut Dorin. I don’t think it has that option.

# 26 September 2008 at 8:56 am

Fritura said:

Well Starburn is oke but not all features I need are there.
I couldn’t find gapless audio burning. Further the burn audio wizard is pretty annoying. When adding files for example 01 till 012 it starts with 012,01,02,03 enz.
For now I’ll stay by Nero Lite which has all the features I need.

# 17 October 2008 at 11:18 am

BlueAvatar said:

I’ve used an older version of StarBurn and thought it was too cluttered. I prefer InfraRecorder (open source
http://infrarecorder.org/
also InfraRecorder can be run off a USB key without installing in which can be handy.

# 30 December 2008 at 1:26 am

Johnny Karp said:

@BlueAvatar
I didn’t know about InfraRecorder until now. I’ll give it a try although I got used to StarBurn (I agree, it is too cluttered, but it does the job)

# 30 December 2008 at 2:40 am

shoyu said:

There is a StarBurn Portable version too (official version, from Rocket Division website)

# 2 January 2009 at 3:38 pm

Johnny Karp said:

@Shoyu
Indeed, they made a portable version too. The future looks good for this program.

# 2 January 2009 at 3:54 pm

JcD said:

Hi Johnny
Thanks for a great site. Keep up the good work.
Have you had a look at BurnAware Free yet?
http://www.burnaware.com
Very simplistic but it gets the job done.

# 23 January 2009 at 11:33 am

Johnny Karp said:

@Jcd
Thanks for visiting. I didn’t try BurnAware so far, but by looking at the features list there’s something that I don’t like: doesn’t make CD/DVD copies, ISO images and so on. That would be a major minus. Anyway, I downloaded it and I’ll give it a go soon.

# 23 January 2009 at 12:18 pm

Bilgisayarınız İçin 72 Ücretsiz Yazılım | catlakses.com said:

[...] password manager. Alternatifler: Everest Home Edition, PC Wizard 2008 EN İYİ BEDAVA DVD BURNER StarBurn – I?ve been using Nero before. I don?t need it anymore, StarBurn is free and pretty good. I?ve [...]

# 23 January 2009 at 10:16 pm

Kamal said:

Starburn is great but it lacks one important feature which is DVD/CD copying.

# 16 February 2009 at 1:16 am

Johnny Karp said:

@Kamal
I think you’re wrong. Although it doesn’t have a feature called exactly “copy CD/DVD” it has the “Grab Image” feature which is basically the same thing – it creates an ISO image of your CD/DVD.

# 16 February 2009 at 11:35 am

Ashampoo Office 2008 said:

Ashampoo Office 2008 …

An interesting post by a bloger made me ……

# 5 November 2009 at 4:32 am

Alex said:

I’ve tried(and I’m using it) StarBurn, but I couldn’t find the option to split a DVD9 into 2 DVD5.Maybe could someone help me?

# 6 December 2009 at 9:44 pm

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# 12 June 2010 at 1:36 am