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Anti-virus
 |
avast! Free Antivirus Expect great all-around protection against viruses and trojans. |
 |
AntiVir Free Version Lightweight and solid. Good ratings. Worth looking into. |
 |
AVG Antivirus Free Edition Not as good as Avast or Avira but with considerably less bloat. The most popular free antivirus. |
 |
Microsoft Security Essentials Simple, effective and lightweight protection suite. |
 |
Comodo Internet Security Free security suite, includes both a firewall and anti-virus protection. |
 |
Lavasoft Ad-Aware+ Free A complete anti-virus and anti-malware solution in one tidy free package. |
 |
Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition A capable cloud-based antivirus that’s relatively light on resources with decent detection rates. |
 |
BitDefender Free Antivirus Finally BitDefender has released a free version of their antivirus software, optimized for Windows 8. |
Malware Removal
 |
IObit Malware Fighter Advanced malware & spyware removal utility. The pro versioncomes with some really cool features. |
 |
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Easy-to-use, simple, and very effective anti-malware application. |
 |
Spybot S&D Detects and removes spyware. Compliments anti-virus apps. Has a very good reputation. |
 |
Threatfire Spyware removal tool with real-time antispyware protection. Lightweight and memory sparing. |
 |
Superantispyware Lightweight scanner to detect and remove spyware, adware, trojans, and other threats. |
 |
Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool A free tool for the removal of a variety of different viruses and malware, presented alongside virus-specific tools. |
 |
Dr.Web CureIt! A standalone virus removal tool that can be used alongside your existing virus scanner with no installation required. |
Firewall Apps
 |
PC Tools Firewall Plus 6 Powerful firewall capable of providing excellent protection. |
 |
Comodo Firewall (standalone) Long been considered one of the best free firewall tools available. |
 |
ZoneAlarm Free Firewall Provides the best overall firewall protection for advanced users. |
 |
Online Armor Free All of the normal features of a firewall and more. |
 |
Ashampoo FireWall Free Very easy to use and navigate. For intermediate users. |
 |
Peerblock Provides control over who your computer “talks” to online by blocking known bad addresses. |
 |
TinyWall A great free firewall solution that puts you in charge of whitelisting applications in a non-intrusive manner. |
Featured
The apps and services listed under “Featured” category participate in the MakeUseOf Rewards program. You can exchange your points for a free copy or subscription. Each product has been selected because of its quality, so check them out. We think you’ll like what you see.
 |
LastPass Secure plugin to store and synchronise login passwords across browsers. Comes auto-login and form filler. |
|
Lavasoft Ad-Aware+ Pro A full-featured security suite. This edition will protect one PC for one year. |
 |
IObit Advanced SystemCare Free One-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC. |
|
IObit Malware Fighter Advanced malware & spyware removal utility. The pro version comes with some really cool features. |
 |
RightNote Pro Create multiple types of notes; organize, store, schedule and even sync them with Evernote. $59.95 |
 |
MediaMonkey Full-featured music player and music collection organiser. |
 |
Glary Utilities PRO The premium version of Glary Utilities, costs $27.97. Adds background automation, 24/7 technical support and commercial use. |
 |
TuneUp All-purpose de-duper, title fixer, album art finder. One-time purchase of $49.95. |
 |
CyberGhost Classic VPN client that obscures your IP address. 1-year Classic subscription ($69.99) with access to premium servers |
 |
Bitdefender Internet Security Anti-virus protection, 2-way firewall and parental controls. 1-yr, 1PC subscription worth $49.95 |
 |
Super Easy Video Converter 2 Makes the transition between different format and devices a quick, intuitive process. |
 |
Switch Switch lets you schedule shutdowns or shutdown remotely; reboot, enter sleep mode and more. |
 |
InPaint his amazingly simple tool will help you remove unwanted elements from any photograph. |
 |
Crashplan+ One of the best backup solutions for home users. Backup 10 GB od data to the cloud. |
Defragmenters
 |
Defraggler Another excellent defrag tool. Portable. From the same guys behind hugely popular CCleaner. |
 |
IObit Smart Defrag Extremely easy to use. Works continuously in the background. |
File Recovery
 |
Recuva Very effective in restoring deleted files. Extremely popular. |
 |
FreeUndelete No frills, just focused on the zen of file recovery. |
 |
ADRC Data Recovery Software The Renaissance Man of free data recovery. Not as popular as Recuva but still has its own fans. |
 |
Pandora Recovery An easy to use yet powerful file recovery application. |
 |
PhotoRec Designed specifically for the recovery of lost photographs, PhotoRec is very powerful free software. |
 |
TestDisk Incredibly powerful free software for recovering whole lost partitions and making non-bootable disks bootable again. |
Uninstallers
 |
Revo Uninstaller Free Fast and very effective at uninstalling just about anything. Popular choice for the purpose. |
 |
IObit Uninstaller New kid on the block. Gaining popularity. Boasts a bunch of features not found on other uninstallers. |
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Absolute Uninstaller Less popular than the other two but probably the simplest to use one. |
 |
Advanced Uninstaller PRO It might say “PRO” in the title but this uninstaller is completely free and already Windows 8 friendly. |
 |
GeekUninstaller Tested by MakeUseOf to be one of the most effective uninstallers out there. |
Backup Apps
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Crashplan+ One of the best backup solutions for home users. Backup 10 GB od data to the cloud. |
 |
Mozy Incredibly smart, highly secure, set-it-and-forget-it backup solution. Backups data to web. |
 |
FBackup Easily backup important files and documents, personal settings and plugins. |
 |
Clonezilla Live CD to completely clone your hard drive. |
 |
SyncBack Freeware Selective synchronisation, local and remote backup to an FTP server. |
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FreeFileSync Open source folder comparison and sync tool. Optimised for speed and usability. |
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CopyTo Synchronizer Wide set of options for backing up, updating, and synchronizing files. |
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DriveImage XML Easily Backup or copy entire disks block-for-block directly to another drive without the need to reboot your computer to run the cloning process. |
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Cobian Backup A backup program that supports scheduling on both local and networked machines. |
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SugarSync A multi-platform syncing tool that features 5GB of free space and mobile compatibility. |
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ToolWiz Time Freeze A tool for creating cloned restore points for testing changes without risking your own system. |
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Todo Backup Able to backup the entire operating system, program settings, browser data, emails and other data. |
PC Maintenance
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IObit Advanced SystemCare Free One-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC. |
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CCleaner Scores high points all around. The most popular choice at the moment. Not as many features as in others. |
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Soluto Speed up Windows boot time by removing unnecessary apps from startup. Very effective. |
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Glary Utilities Includes over 15 useful system maintenance tools. Been recommended by MakeUseOf several times! |
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Secunia Personal Software Inspector A free utility that scans your PC for outdated programs in need of updates. |
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D7 The Swiss army knife of Windows utilities, D7 is powerful professional-grade software for diagnosing a huge variety of problems. |
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CPU-Z A simple tool for detecting a huge range of hardware information about your PC and the components inside it. |
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GPU-Z Get detailed information about your graphics card including memory type and speed, software versions and temperatures. |
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Process Explorer An advanced version of Windows Task Manager from Microsoft for a more detailed look at what’s running on your PC. |
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WinDirStat A free tool for visualising your disk space usage. |
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Speccy A complete system information tool for your Windows PC, Speccy tells you exactly what hardware you’ve got under the hood. |
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ToolWiz Care A complete maintenance program for Windows, with a ton of features for optimizing and cleaning up your PC. |
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CPUID PC Wizard The big brother to CPU-Z, PC Wizard is a complete benchmarking tool for your PC and its components. |
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SUMo Software Update Monitor does exactly that – monitors software for available updates and downloads them for you. |
Browsers
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Google Chrome The fastest, minimal design browser (from Google) now with extension support. Growing extremely fast. |
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Firefox More than 6,000 add-ons for every possible feature. The most customisable browser to date. |
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Safari A web browser from Apple. Designed to emphasize browsing. Also features extensions. |
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Opera The “fastest and most advanced” browser available today. |
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Maxthon A fast and stable browser with support for multiple rendering engines. |
Email Clients
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Thunderbird Increasingly popular email client from the same guys behind Firefox browser. One of the best email clients for Windows. |
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Postbox Express A simple, yet powerful, new email application for Windows. Check it out. |
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Google Notifier Alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. Simple and handy. |
Communication
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Skype The most popular cross-platform VoIP application. Must-have for everyone online. |
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Pidgin Easy-to-use, cross-platform, multi-protocol chat client. Supports all major chat programs. |
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Digsby An alternative multi-protocol instant messaging app. Cross-platform. Extremely popular. |
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Trillian Astra Popular multi-protocol instant messaging client. |
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Raptr A social network and messaging service for gamers to keep in touch. |
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Google Talk Google’s standalone GTalk client for Windows is a simple yet effective tool. |
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TeamSpeak Built with the gamer in mind, TeamSpeak is a popular VoIP solution that works across a range of desktop and mobile devices. |
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Mumble Intended for use with your favourite multiplayer game, Mumble is a great open source cross-platform low-latency VoIP client. |
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Dolby Axon A free VoIP program for gamers from Dolby, allowing for a unique surround-sound setup – a must try! |
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Free Video Call Recorder for Skype Just like the name says a free tool for recording video and audio conversations on Skype, Windows 8 ready. |
Image Tools
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Paint.NET Strong candidate as a potential substitute for Photoshop for beginner/intermediate users. |
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FastStone Image Viewer One of the best image viewer, converter & editor bundles. |
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IrfanView The Swiss Army knife of image viewers/editors. Extremely popular. |
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Google Picasa Powerful photo manager software from Google. Includes 1-click photo retouching features. Easy online photo sharing. |
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GIMP Very capable graphic editor with Photoshop-like features. Often labeled as free Photoshop alternative. |
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PhotoScape Another good free and easy-to-use photo editing application. |
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Inkscape An open source vector graphics editor that uses the Scaleable Vector Graphics (.SVG) format. |
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RIOT – Radical Image Optimization Tool A free tool that makes light work of optimising images for the web while maintaining quality and small file sizes. |
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XnView A small utility for viewing and converting images that reads around 400 formats. |
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XnConvert Easily batch convert, resize and apply effects to images with this open source software. |
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Zoner Photo Studio Free Tweak, fix, manage and share your precious memories with Zoner, software that rivals paid software. |
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Neox Screen A free and open source screenshot manager that’s lightweight yet powerful. |
Audio Tools
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foobar2000 Advanced audio player for Windows with highly customisable user interface. |
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Songbird A popular music player based on Mozilla’s code. Includes some really useful plugins. |
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Audacity Very popular open source software for recording and editing audio tracks and sounds. |
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iTunes Music player and video library organiser. Hosts the iTunes Store. |
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MediaMonkey Full-featured music player and music collection organiser. |
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Winamp Well-known, lightweight, small-footprint media player. |
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CopyTrans Manager Alternative iPod manager app. Sync and transfer music & files to iPod, iPhone, iPad. |
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TagScanner A multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection. |
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MusicBee A basic music player with a few thoughtful additions, including tag completion. |
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Tomahawk A social music player that can pull content from a range of sources including YouTube and Soundcloud. |
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Spotify Streaming music service client complete with Facebook integration and iDevice management. |
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AIMP Another full-featured audio player expandable with skins and plugins. |
Video Tools
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VLC Media Player Extremely popular cross-platform video player that can play almost any video file. Highly recommended by many. |
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Handbrake Open source, cross-platform, video converter that can convert video files between many video formats. |
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VirtualDub Open-source and portable video editor. |
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Media Player Classic Replica of WM Player. Includes only the most basic controls but can play pretty much any video. |
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Freemake Free video converter & DVD burner that’s easy to use. |
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Format Factory Multifunctional audi and video converter. Supports MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, SWF, RMVB and lots more. |
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PotPlayer From the creator of the original KMPlayer comes PotPlayer, a faster and improved media player. |
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CamStudio A high quality freeware screen capture utility with support for lossless video output. |
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XBMC A powerful, mature open source media centre that rocks. |
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Plex A great looking media centre solution that also works remotely and with mobile devices. Download | Full review | eBook |
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UMPlayer A light video player with some great features and over 270 in-built codecs. |
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Freemake Video Converter Convert over 200 filetypes to formats that work on a plethora of mobile, media and gaming devices and the web via Flash and HTML5. |
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Miro A feature-packed alternative to iTunes for managing video, music and podcasts with ease. |
Files and Drives
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FileMenu Tools Customise the right-click context menu of Windows Explorer. Adds lots of useful functions and utilities. |
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FreeCommander Free file browser and Windows Explorer replacement. Two-pane browsing, secure file deletion and more. |
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TeraCopy Copy and move files at maximum speed. Pause and resume file transfers. |
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EASEUS Partition Master All-in-one, easy to use disk partition manager. Create, resize and merge partitions. |
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Unlocker Can’t delete a folder or a file? Getting an error that it’s being used by another program? Unlocker can easily delete it. |
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TreeSize Free Shows you where your precious hard drive space has gone to. Easily view how much space is being used by each folder. |
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DropIt Tiny tool to automate categorizing files and folders. Drag a file on top of it and it will place it for you where you need it. Portable version available. |
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Free Opener An easy way to quickly open over 80 types of file types using one tiny program. |
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SyncToy Free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations. |
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Filezilla A free, lightweight and robust FTP client for transferring files to and from the web. |
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zeZebra A cross-platform tool for sending and receiving files with absolutely no size limit. |
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MultiCommander A feature-packed alternative file manager to Windows Explorer that uses a dual-panel layout. |
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Google Drive The evolution of Google Docs keeps your documents synced between the cloud and your PC. |
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Skydrive Microsoft’s cloud storage solution comes with 7GB of space for storing documents and images. |
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AxCrypt A fuss-free encryption solution that also doubles as a deletion tool for eliminating any traces of a file. |
Documents
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LibreOffice Microsoft Office alternative. Open source professional productivity and office suite. |
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Dropbox Must-have for everyone. Sync folder with docs and files to web or other PCs / Macs. Share documents. |
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Notepad++ Popular open source text editor. Favoured by many, including programmers. |
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FoxIt Reader Really light alternative to Adobe Reader. Open PDF files. |
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doPDF Easily convert documents and pictures to PDF files from any Windows program with two clicks. |
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PDF Xchange viewer Desktop and portable PDF viewer. Lightweight and fast. |
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Nitro PDF Reader Read PDFs, create PDFs. Extract content, annotate and fill PDF forms. |
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PDFTK Builder Free graphical interface version of PDFTK. Merge, split, decrypt, encrypt, watermark PDF files. |
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VIM Text Editor Highly configurable text editor. |
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PDFsam Easily split and merge PDF files. |
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Windows Live Writer Compose then publish your blog posts with a click straight from Windows Live Writer. |  |
MartView Read PDFs and eBooks on your PC in style from MartView’s attractive interface. |
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Kindle Amazon’s Kindle app lets you read and manage your eBook collection from your Windows PC. |
Productivity
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Fences Provides rectangular containers for your desktop to visually organize your icons. Very handy! |
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Rainlendar Very easy to use and lightweight calendar for your Windows desktop. |
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Evernote Save your ideas on the go and instantly take notes. Access notes from anywhere. Highly recommended! |
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VirtuaWin Gives you multiple virtual desktops to organize your workflow. Highly customisable. |
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Launchy A powerful keystroke based program launcher that lets you open program and files really quickly. |
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Send to Toys Enhances the right-click ‘Send To’ system menu. Personalise and configure the Send To menu content. |
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Dexpot Create virtual desktops to separate different running apps and Windows. Comparable to Spaces on Mac OS X. |
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Q-Dir Free multi-pane file manager to save you time. Portable version available. |
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ClipX Tiny, free clipboard history manager. Access up to 1024 items in your clipboard’s history. |
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Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard Gain typing speed and accuracy with its unique touch-typing teaching program. |
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SendToSendTo Easily add new entries to the right-click “Send To” menu. |
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Ditto Saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. |
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Wunderlist A multi-platform list syncing app for keeping track of your todo lists from any device. |
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FreeMind An open-source mind mapping solution written in Java that can be as simple or as complex as you need. |
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RightNote Pro Create multiple types of notes; organize, store, schedule and even sync them with Evernote. $59.95 |
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ResophNotes A very simple and fast note-taking app for Windows that supports online sync with Simplenote. |
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Visual Understanding Environment VUE is a free and open source mind map application comparable to similar paid products. |
Archive Managers
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7-zip Takes care of most of your archive extracting/compression needs. Supports ZIP, RAR and many others formats. |
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Universal Extractor With over 50 supported file formats, Universal Extractor is superb. |
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IZArc One archive utility to rule them all. Supports almost all formats. |
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PeaZip User friendly, free and open source archive manager with enough features to satisfy power-users. |
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Hamster Lite Archiver Another freeware archive manager with a bold interface and good compatibility. |
Optical & Disc Image Tools
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ImgBurn CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning tool. Also, lets you easily create image files from CDs and DVDs. |
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CDBurnerXP The most popular free alternative to Nero Burning ROM. Burn CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. |
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bitRipper Back-up your DVDs as AVI files or MPEG to your hard drive. Excellent backup tool for DVDs. |
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CDex Open-source digital audio CD extractor. Saves CD tracks as MP3′s. |
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DuBaron CD2ISO A great tool to extract ISO images from CDs or DVDs. Very simple and easy to use. |
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Virtual CloneDrive Mount a virtual drive to open and playback ISO image files (CD/DVD images). |
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DVDShrink The easiest and one of the better free DVD ripping and backup tools. |
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Exact Audio Copy The most accurate and error-free audio CD extractor. Can extract MP3s from a CD. |
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DVD Flick Easy-to-use DVD creation software. Allows adding subtitles and making DVD menus as well. |
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WinCDEmu Mount ISO, CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF, CCD, IMG images by simply clicking on them in Windows Explorer. |
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DVDFab HD Decrypter One of the only free tools that supports the decrypting of Blu-Ray discs. |
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DaemonTools Lite Lightweight and free disk virtualization software for installing virtual drives and mounting disk images. |
Downloads
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uTorrent Speedy, efficient, and free. The most popular BitTorrent client. |
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Deluge An awesome but unappreciated cross-platform BitTorrent client. |
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YouTube Downloader HD Downloads YouTube videos with just a few clicks of the mouse button. |
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PeerBlock Control/block your PC’s communication with ad or spyware servers. Secures P2P activities. |
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Free Download Manager Open source download accelerator and manager. Increase download speeds and resume broken downloads. |
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Jdownloader The most popular download manager. Quickly and efficiently download files from sites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and many others. |
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FlashGet A download manager that supports HTTP, FTP and BitTorrent protocols amongst others. |
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MiPONY A download manager designed to facilitate downloading from file lockers like Rapidshare. |
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Freemake Video Downloader Download and keep embedded videos from thousands of websites, supports Facebook as well as YouTube and audio extraction. |
Others
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LastPass Secure plugin to store and synchronise login passwords across browsers. Comes auto-login and form filler. |
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TrueCrypt Free open-source, cross-platform disk and data encryption tool. Encrypt and hide sensitive files. |
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TeamViewer Request remote technical assistance. Connect to remote computer. Zero setup required. |
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PortableApps Suite A collection of useful portable apps that can be stored on USB stick. Carry the apps with you wherever you go on a thumbdrive. |
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Sticky Password Free password and identity manager. Browser add-on for automatic login and form-filling. |
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KeePass Free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager. |
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LiberKey Suite of over 300 free useful software apps that you can carry with you wherever you go. |
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Hiren’s BootCD All-in-one bootable CD providing an alternate boot environment to troubleshoot Windows problems. |
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Eraser Advanced security tool to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive. |
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iPrint Print multiple pages on each sheet of paper, delete unwanted pages. Lowers printing costs. |
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Antirun Protects your PC by blocking viruses and malware from infected USB thumbsticks and flash drives. |
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Everything Locates files and folders by name instantly. |
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Game Booster 3 Speeds up your PC for faster gaming. |
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DriverPack Solution 11 Makes the job of finding and automatically installing drivers really easy. |
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XAMPP Easy to install Apache distribution with MySQL, PHP and Perl. No manual setup required! |
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Calibre Free open source eBook management software with support for conversion and syncing. |
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Rainmeter A desktop customisation tool with support for functional skins. |
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Rocketdock An elegant dock solution for Windows with support for add-ons. |
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VirtualBox Free virtualisation software for creating and running virtual machines. |
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TunnelBear Need to access a website that’s restricted to the US or UK? Try TunnelBear. |
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f.lux This small program adapts your PC’s display to the time of day in order to reduce eye strain and fatigue. |
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Connectify Easily create your own adhoc wireless networks to share your ethernet internet connection wirelessly. Free and commercial ($29.99) versions available |
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Copernic Desktop Search Home A powerful and customizable desktop search solution. |
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Classic Shell Upgraded to Windows 8 but missing the Start Menu? Classic Shell is the freeware software you’ve been looking for. |
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VMWare Player Run virtual PCs with ease using VMWare Player, simple virtualisation software that is free for personal use. |
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ObjectDock Like the Mac OS X dock but using Windows? ObjectDock is free for personal use. |
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SpeedFan A free utility for checking the speed of fans, as well as system temperatures. |
Disclaimer: All applications listed were thoroughly reviewed. MakeUseOf is not responsible for any damage and/or data loss
that might result from use of any of the above mentioned applications.
|
|||||
Anti-virus
|
avast! Free Antivirus Expect great all-around protection against viruses and trojans. |
|
AntiVir Free Version Lightweight and solid. Good ratings. Worth looking into. |
|
AVG Antivirus Free Edition Not as good as Avast or Avira but with considerably less bloat. The most popular free antivirus. |
|
Microsoft Security Essentials Simple, effective and lightweight protection suite. |
|
Comodo Internet Security Free security suite, includes both a firewall and anti-virus protection. |
|
Lavasoft Ad-Aware+ Free A complete anti-virus and anti-malware solution in one tidy free package. |
|
Panda Cloud Antivirus Free Edition A capable cloud-based antivirus that’s relatively light on resources with decent detection rates. |
|
BitDefender Free Antivirus Finally BitDefender has released a free version of their antivirus software, optimized for Windows 8. |
Malware Removal
|
IObit Malware Fighter Advanced malware & spyware removal utility. The pro versioncomes with some really cool features. |
|
Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware Easy-to-use, simple, and very effective anti-malware application. |
|
Spybot S&D Detects and removes spyware. Compliments anti-virus apps. Has a very good reputation. |
|
Threatfire Spyware removal tool with real-time antispyware protection. Lightweight and memory sparing. |
|
Superantispyware Lightweight scanner to detect and remove spyware, adware, trojans, and other threats. |
|
Kaspersky Virus Removal Tool A free tool for the removal of a variety of different viruses and malware, presented alongside virus-specific tools. |
|
Dr.Web CureIt! A standalone virus removal tool that can be used alongside your existing virus scanner with no installation required. |
Firewall Apps
|
PC Tools Firewall Plus 6 Powerful firewall capable of providing excellent protection. |
|
Comodo Firewall (standalone) Long been considered one of the best free firewall tools available. |
|
ZoneAlarm Free Firewall Provides the best overall firewall protection for advanced users. |
|
Online Armor Free All of the normal features of a firewall and more. |
|
Ashampoo FireWall Free Very easy to use and navigate. For intermediate users. |
|
Peerblock Provides control over who your computer “talks” to online by blocking known bad addresses. |
|
TinyWall A great free firewall solution that puts you in charge of whitelisting applications in a non-intrusive manner. |
Featured
The apps and services listed under “Featured” category participate in the MakeUseOf Rewards program. You can exchange your points for a free copy or subscription. Each product has been selected because of its quality, so check them out. We think you’ll like what you see.
|
LastPass Secure plugin to store and synchronise login passwords across browsers. Comes auto-login and form filler. |
|
Lavasoft Ad-Aware+ Pro A full-featured security suite. This edition will protect one PC for one year. |
|
IObit Advanced SystemCare Free One-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC. |
|
IObit Malware Fighter Advanced malware & spyware removal utility. The pro version comes with some really cool features. |
|
RightNote Pro Create multiple types of notes; organize, store, schedule and even sync them with Evernote. $59.95 |
|
MediaMonkey Full-featured music player and music collection organiser. |
|
Glary Utilities PRO The premium version of Glary Utilities, costs $27.97. Adds background automation, 24/7 technical support and commercial use. |
|
TuneUp All-purpose de-duper, title fixer, album art finder. One-time purchase of $49.95. |
|
CyberGhost Classic VPN client that obscures your IP address. 1-year Classic subscription ($69.99) with access to premium servers |
|
Bitdefender Internet Security Anti-virus protection, 2-way firewall and parental controls. 1-yr, 1PC subscription worth $49.95 |
|
Super Easy Video Converter 2 Makes the transition between different format and devices a quick, intuitive process. |
|
Switch Switch lets you schedule shutdowns or shutdown remotely; reboot, enter sleep mode and more. |
|
InPaint his amazingly simple tool will help you remove unwanted elements from any photograph. |
Defragmenters
|
Defraggler Another excellent defrag tool. Portable. From the same guys behind hugely popular CCleaner. |
|
IObit Smart Defrag Extremely easy to use. Works continuously in the background. |
File Recovery
|
Recuva Very effective in restoring deleted files. Extremely popular. |
|
FreeUndelete No frills, just focused on the zen of file recovery. |
|
ADRC Data Recovery Software The Renaissance Man of free data recovery. Not as popular as Recuva but still has its own fans. |
|
Pandora Recovery An easy to use yet powerful file recovery application. |
|
PhotoRec Designed specifically for the recovery of lost photographs, PhotoRec is very powerful free software. |
|
TestDisk Incredibly powerful free software for recovering whole lost partitions and making non-bootable disks bootable again. |
Uninstallers
|
Revo Uninstaller Free Fast and very effective at uninstalling just about anything. Popular choice for the purpose. |
|
IObit Uninstaller New kid on the block. Gaining popularity. Boasts a bunch of features not found on other uninstallers. |
|
Absolute Uninstaller Less popular than the other two but probably the simplest to use one. |
|
Advanced Uninstaller PRO It might say “PRO” in the title but this uninstaller is completely free and already Windows 8 friendly. |
|
GeekUninstaller Tested by MakeUseOf to be one of the most effective uninstallers out there. |
Backup Apps
|
Mozy Incredibly smart, highly secure, set-it-and-forget-it backup solution. Backups data to web. |
|
FBackup Easily backup important files and documents, personal settings and plugins. |
|
Todo Backup Able to backup the entire operating system, program settings, browser data, emails and other data. |
|
Clonezilla Live CD to completely clone your hard drive. |
|
SyncBack Freeware Selective synchronisation, local and remote backup to an FTP server. |
|
FreeFileSync Open source folder comparison and sync tool. Optimised for speed and usability. |
|
CopyTo Synchronizer Wide set of options for backing up, updating, and synchronizing files. |
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DriveImage XML Easily Backup or copy entire disks block-for-block directly to another drive without the need to reboot your computer to run the cloning process. |
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Cobian Backup A backup program that supports scheduling on both local and networked machines. |
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SugarSync A multi-platform syncing tool that features 5GB of free space and mobile compatibility. |
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ToolWiz Time Freeze A tool for creating cloned restore points for testing changes without risking your own system. |
PC Maintenance
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IObit Advanced SystemCare Free One-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC. |
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CCleaner Scores high points all around. The most popular choice at the moment. Not as many features as in others. |
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Soluto Speed up Windows boot time by removing unnecessary apps from startup. Very effective. |
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Glary Utilities Includes over 15 useful system maintenance tools. Been recommended by MakeUseOf several times! |
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Secunia Personal Software Inspector A free utility that scans your PC for outdated programs in need of updates. |
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D7 The Swiss army knife of Windows utilities, D7 is powerful professional-grade software for diagnosing a huge variety of problems. |
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CPU-Z A simple tool for detecting a huge range of hardware information about your PC and the components inside it. |
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GPU-Z Get detailed information about your graphics card including memory type and speed, software versions and temperatures. |
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Process Explorer An advanced version of Windows Task Manager from Microsoft for a more detailed look at what’s running on your PC. |
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WinDirStat A free tool for visualising your disk space usage. |
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Speccy A complete system information tool for your Windows PC, Speccy tells you exactly what hardware you’ve got under the hood. |
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ToolWiz Care A complete maintenance program for Windows, with a ton of features for optimizing and cleaning up your PC. |
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CPUID PC Wizard The big brother to CPU-Z, PC Wizard is a complete benchmarking tool for your PC and its components. |
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SUMo Software Update Monitor does exactly that – monitors software for available updates and downloads them for you. |
Browsers
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Google Chrome The fastest, minimal design browser (from Google) now with extension support. Growing extremely fast. |
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Firefox More than 6,000 add-ons for every possible feature. The most customisable browser to date. |
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Safari A web browser from Apple. Designed to emphasize browsing. Also features extensions. |
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Opera The “fastest and most advanced” browser available today. |
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Maxthon A fast and stable browser with support for multiple rendering engines. |
Email Clients
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Thunderbird Increasingly popular email client from the same guys behind Firefox browser. One of the best email clients for Windows. |
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Postbox Express A simple, yet powerful, new email application for Windows. Check it out. |
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Google Notifier Alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. Simple and handy. |
Communication
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Skype The most popular cross-platform VoIP application. Must-have for everyone online. |
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Pidgin Easy-to-use, cross-platform, multi-protocol chat client. Supports all major chat programs. |
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Digsby An alternative multi-protocol instant messaging app. Cross-platform. Extremely popular. |
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Trillian Astra Popular multi-protocol instant messaging client. |
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Raptr A social network and messaging service for gamers to keep in touch. |
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Google Talk Google’s standalone GTalk client for Windows is a simple yet effective tool. |
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TeamSpeak Built with the gamer in mind, TeamSpeak is a popular VoIP solution that works across a range of desktop and mobile devices. |
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Mumble Intended for use with your favourite multiplayer game, Mumble is a great open source cross-platform low-latency VoIP client. |
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Dolby Axon A free VoIP program for gamers from Dolby, allowing for a unique surround-sound setup – a must try! |
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Free Video Call Recorder for Skype Just like the name says a free tool for recording video and audio conversations on Skype, Windows 8 ready. |
Image Tools
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Paint.NET Strong candidate as a potential substitute for Photoshop for beginner/intermediate users. |
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FastStone Image Viewer One of the best image viewer, converter & editor bundles. |
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IrfanView The Swiss Army knife of image viewers/editors. Extremely popular. |
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Google Picasa Powerful photo manager software from Google. Includes 1-click photo retouching features. Easy online photo sharing. |
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GIMP Very capable graphic editor with Photoshop-like features. Often labeled as free Photoshop alternative. |
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PhotoScape Another good free and easy-to-use photo editing application. |
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Inkscape An open source vector graphics editor that uses the Scaleable Vector Graphics (.SVG) format. |
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RIOT – Radical Image Optimization Tool A free tool that makes light work of optimising images for the web while maintaining quality and small file sizes. |
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XnView A small utility for viewing and converting images that reads around 400 formats. |
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XnConvert Easily batch convert, resize and apply effects to images with this open source software. |
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Zoner Photo Studio Free Tweak, fix, manage and share your precious memories with Zoner, software that rivals paid software. |
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Neox Screen A free and open source screenshot manager that’s lightweight yet powerful. |
Audio Tools
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foobar2000 Advanced audio player for Windows with highly customisable user interface. |
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Songbird A popular music player based on Mozilla’s code. Includes some really useful plugins. |
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Audacity Very popular open source software for recording and editing audio tracks and sounds. |
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iTunes Music player and video library organiser. Hosts the iTunes Store. |
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MediaMonkey Full-featured music player and music collection organiser. |
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Winamp Well-known, lightweight, small-footprint media player. |
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CopyTrans Manager Alternative iPod manager app. Sync and transfer music & files to iPod, iPhone, iPad. |
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TagScanner A multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection. |
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MusicBee A basic music player with a few thoughtful additions, including tag completion. |
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Tomahawk A social music player that can pull content from a range of sources including YouTube and Soundcloud. |
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Spotify Streaming music service client complete with Facebook integration and iDevice management. |
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AIMP Another full-featured audio player expandable with skins and plugins. |
Video Tools
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VLC Media Player Extremely popular cross-platform video player that can play almost any video file. Highly recommended by many. |
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Handbrake Open source, cross-platform, video converter that can convert video files between many video formats. |
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VirtualDub Open-source and portable video editor. |
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Media Player Classic Replica of WM Player. Includes only the most basic controls but can play pretty much any video. |
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Freemake Free video converter & DVD burner that’s easy to use. |
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Format Factory Multifunctional audi and video converter. Supports MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, SWF, RMVB and lots more. |
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PotPlayer From the creator of the original KMPlayer comes PotPlayer, a faster and improved media player. |
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CamStudio A high quality freeware screen capture utility with support for lossless video output. |
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XBMC A powerful, mature open source media centre that rocks. |
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Plex A great looking media centre solution that also works remotely and with mobile devices. Download | Full review | eBook |
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UMPlayer A light video player with some great features and over 270 in-built codecs. |
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Freemake Video Converter Convert over 200 filetypes to formats that work on a plethora of mobile, media and gaming devices and the web via Flash and HTML5. |
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Miro A feature-packed alternative to iTunes for managing video, music and podcasts with ease. |
Files and Drives
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FileMenu Tools Customise the right-click context menu of Windows Explorer. Adds lots of useful functions and utilities. |
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FreeCommander Free file browser and Windows Explorer replacement. Two-pane browsing, secure file deletion and more. |
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TeraCopy Copy and move files at maximum speed. Pause and resume file transfers. |
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EASEUS Partition Master All-in-one, easy to use disk partition manager. Create, resize and merge partitions. |
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Unlocker Can’t delete a folder or a file? Getting an error that it’s being used by another program? Unlocker can easily delete it. |
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TreeSize Free Shows you where your precious hard drive space has gone to. Easily view how much space is being used by each folder. |
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DropIt Tiny tool to automate categorizing files and folders. Drag a file on top of it and it will place it for you where you need it. Portable version available. |
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Free Opener An easy way to quickly open over 80 types of file types using one tiny program. |
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SyncToy Free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations. |
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Filezilla A free, lightweight and robust FTP client for transferring files to and from the web. |
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zeZebra A cross-platform tool for sending and receiving files with absolutely no size limit. |
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MultiCommander A feature-packed alternative file manager to Windows Explorer that uses a dual-panel layout. |
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Google Drive The evolution of Google Docs keeps your documents synced between the cloud and your PC. |
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Skydrive Microsoft’s cloud storage solution comes with 7GB of space for storing documents and images. |
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AxCrypt A fuss-free encryption solution that also doubles as a deletion tool for eliminating any traces of a file. |
Documents
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LibreOffice Microsoft Office alternative. Open source professional productivity and office suite. |
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Dropbox Must-have for everyone. Sync folder with docs and files to web or other PCs / Macs. Share documents. |
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Notepad++ Popular open source text editor. Favoured by many, including programmers. |
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FoxIt Reader Really light alternative to Adobe Reader. Open PDF files. |
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doPDF Easily convert documents and pictures to PDF files from any Windows program with two clicks. |
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PDF Xchange viewer Desktop and portable PDF viewer. Lightweight and fast. |
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Nitro PDF Reader Read PDFs, create PDFs. Extract content, annotate and fill PDF forms. |
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PDFTK Builder Free graphical interface version of PDFTK. Merge, split, decrypt, encrypt, watermark PDF files. |
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VIM Text Editor Highly configurable text editor. |
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PDFsam Easily split and merge PDF files. |
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Windows Live Writer Compose then publish your blog posts with a click straight from Windows Live Writer. | |
MartView Read PDFs and eBooks on your PC in style from MartView’s attractive interface. |
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Kindle Amazon’s Kindle app lets you read and manage your eBook collection from your Windows PC. |
Productivity
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Fences Provides rectangular containers for your desktop to visually organize your icons. Very handy! |
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Rainlendar Very easy to use and lightweight calendar for your Windows desktop. |
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Evernote Save your ideas on the go and instantly take notes. Access notes from anywhere. Highly recommended! |
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VirtuaWin Gives you multiple virtual desktops to organize your workflow. Highly customisable. |
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Launchy A powerful keystroke based program launcher that lets you open program and files really quickly. |
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Send to Toys Enhances the right-click ‘Send To’ system menu. Personalise and configure the Send To menu content. |
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Dexpot Create virtual desktops to separate different running apps and Windows. Comparable to Spaces on Mac OS X. |
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Q-Dir Free multi-pane file manager to save you time. Portable version available. |
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ClipX Tiny, free clipboard history manager. Access up to 1024 items in your clipboard’s history. |
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Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard Gain typing speed and accuracy with its unique touch-typing teaching program. |
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SendToSendTo Easily add new entries to the right-click “Send To” menu. |
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Ditto Saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time. |
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Wunderlist A multi-platform list syncing app for keeping track of your todo lists from any device. |
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FreeMind An open-source mind mapping solution written in Java that can be as simple or as complex as you need. |
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RightNote Pro Create multiple types of notes; organize, store, schedule and even sync them with Evernote. $59.95 |
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ResophNotes A very simple and fast note-taking app for Windows that supports online sync with Simplenote. |
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Visual Understanding Environment VUE is a free and open source mind map application comparable to similar paid products. |
Archive Managers
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7-zip Takes care of most of your archive extracting/compression needs. Supports ZIP, RAR and many others formats. |
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Universal Extractor With over 50 supported file formats, Universal Extractor is superb. |
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IZArc One archive utility to rule them all. Supports almost all formats. |
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PeaZip User friendly, free and open source archive manager with enough features to satisfy power-users. |
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Hamster Lite Archiver Another freeware archive manager with a bold interface and good compatibility. |
Optical & Disc Image Tools
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ImgBurn CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning tool. Also, lets you easily create image files from CDs and DVDs. |
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CDBurnerXP The most popular free alternative to Nero Burning ROM. Burn CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. |
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bitRipper Back-up your DVDs as AVI files or MPEG to your hard drive. Excellent backup tool for DVDs. |
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CDex Open-source digital audio CD extractor. Saves CD tracks as MP3′s. |
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DuBaron CD2ISO A great tool to extract ISO images from CDs or DVDs. Very simple and easy to use. |
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Virtual CloneDrive Mount a virtual drive to open and playback ISO image files (CD/DVD images). |
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DVDShrink The easiest and one of the better free DVD ripping and backup tools. |
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Exact Audio Copy The most accurate and error-free audio CD extractor. Can extract MP3s from a CD. |
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DVD Flick Easy-to-use DVD creation software. Allows adding subtitles and making DVD menus as well. |
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WinCDEmu Mount ISO, CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF, CCD, IMG images by simply clicking on them in Windows Explorer. |
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DVDFab HD Decrypter One of the only free tools that supports the decrypting of Blu-Ray discs. |
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DaemonTools Lite Lightweight and free disk virtualization software for installing virtual drives and mounting disk images. |
Downloads
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uTorrent Speedy, efficient, and free. The most popular BitTorrent client. |
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Deluge An awesome but unappreciated cross-platform BitTorrent client. |
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YouTube Downloader HD Downloads YouTube videos with just a few clicks of the mouse button. |
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PeerBlock Control/block your PC’s communication with ad or spyware servers. Secures P2P activities. |
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Free Download Manager Open source download accelerator and manager. Increase download speeds and resume broken downloads. |
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Jdownloader The most popular download manager. Quickly and efficiently download files from sites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and many others. |
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FlashGet A download manager that supports HTTP, FTP and BitTorrent protocols amongst others. |
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MiPONY A download manager designed to facilitate downloading from file lockers like Rapidshare. |
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Freemake Video Downloader Download and keep embedded videos from thousands of websites, supports Facebook as well as YouTube and audio extraction. |
Others
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LastPass Secure plugin to store and synchronise login passwords across browsers. Comes auto-login and form filler. |
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TrueCrypt Free open-source, cross-platform disk and data encryption tool. Encrypt and hide sensitive files. |
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TeamViewer Request remote technical assistance. Connect to remote computer. Zero setup required. |
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PortableApps Suite A collection of useful portable apps that can be stored on USB stick. Carry the apps with you wherever you go on a thumbdrive. |
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Sticky Password Free password and identity manager. Browser add-on for automatic login and form-filling. |
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KeePass Free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager. |
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LiberKey Suite of over 300 free useful software apps that you can carry with you wherever you go. |
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Hiren’s BootCD All-in-one bootable CD providing an alternate boot environment to troubleshoot Windows problems. |
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Eraser Advanced security tool to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive. |
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iPrint Print multiple pages on each sheet of paper, delete unwanted pages. Lowers printing costs. |
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Antirun Protects your PC by blocking viruses and malware from infected USB thumbsticks and flash drives. |
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Everything Locates files and folders by name instantly. |
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Game Booster 3 Speeds up your PC for faster gaming. |
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DriverPack Solution 11 Makes the job of finding and automatically installing drivers really easy. |
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XAMPP Easy to install Apache distribution with MySQL, PHP and Perl. No manual setup required! |
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Calibre Free open source eBook management software with support for conversion and syncing. |
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Rainmeter A desktop customisation tool with support for functional skins. |
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Rocketdock An elegant dock solution for Windows with support for add-ons. |
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VirtualBox Free virtualisation software for creating and running virtual machines. |
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TunnelBear Need to access a website that’s restricted to the US or UK? Try TunnelBear. |
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f.lux This small program adapts your PC’s display to the time of day in order to reduce eye strain and fatigue. |
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Connectify Easily create your own adhoc wireless networks to share your ethernet internet connection wirelessly. Free and commercial ($29.99) versions available |
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Copernic Desktop Search Home A powerful and customizable desktop search solution. |
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Classic Shell Upgraded to Windows 8 but missing the Start Menu? Classic Shell is the freeware software you’ve been looking for. |
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VMWare Player Run virtual PCs with ease using VMWare Player, simple virtualisation software that is free for personal use. |
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ObjectDock Like the Mac OS X dock but using Windows? ObjectDock is free for personal use. |
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SpeedFan A free utility for checking the speed of fans, as well as system temperatures. |
Disclaimer: All applications listed were thoroughly reviewed. MakeUseOf is not responsible for any damage and/or data loss
that might result from use of any of the above mentioned applications.
