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.


Malware Removal

IObit Malware Fighter
Advanced malware & spyware removal utility. The pro version comes 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.


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


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.
Auslogics Disk Defrag
Simple, reliable and quite fast. A must-have free PC tool. Considered no.1 by many.
IObit Advanced SystemCare Free
One-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC.
Audials One
Search for any song and it will find a radio playing that song and record it for you.
Audials Moviebox
an excellent choice for recording videos online and converting them into various formats to play on different devices.
IObit Malware Fighter
Advanced malware & spyware removal utility. The pro version comes with some really cool features.
deskPDF Creator 2012
Create new PDFs, convert to PDF, watermark and lock PDF documents. $34.99
PDF Select
The ultimate PDF bundle. Includes deskPDF Creator, deskPDF Editor and deskUNPDF Converter. $99


Defragmenters

Auslogics Disk Defrag
Simple, reliable and quite fast. A must-have free PC tool. Considered no.1 by many.
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.


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.


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.
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.
Cobian Backup
A backup program that supports scheduling on both local and networked machines.
SugarSync
A multi-platform syncing tool that features 5GB of free space and mobile compatibility.


PC Maintenance

IObit Advanced SystemCare Free
One-click approach to help protect, repair, clean, and optimize your PC.
CCleaner
Scores high points all around. The most popular choice at the moment. Not as many features as in others.
Soluto
Speed up Windows boot time by removing unnecessary apps from startup. Very effective.
Glary Utilities
Includes over 15 useful system maintenance tools. Been recommended by MakeUseOf several times!
Secunia Personal Software Inspector
A free utility that scans your PC for outdated programs in need of updates.


Browsers

Google Chrome
The fastest, minimal design browser (from Google) now with extension support. Growing extremely fast.
Firefox
More than 6,000 add-ons for every possible feature. The most customisable browser to date.
Safari
A web browser from Apple. Designed to emphasize browsing. Also features extensions.
Opera
The “fastest and most advanced” browser available today.
Maxthon
A fast and stable browser with support for multiple rendering engines.


Email Clients

Thunderbird
Increasingly popular email client from the same guys behind Firefox browser. One of the best email clients for Windows.
Postbox Express
A simple, yet powerful, new email application for Windows. Check it out.
Google Notifier
Alerts you when you have new Gmail messages. Simple and handy.


Communication

Skype
The most popular cross-platform VoIP application. Must-have for everyone online.
Pidgin
Easy-to-use, cross-platform, multi-protocol chat client. Supports all major chat programs.
Digsby
An alternative multi-protocol instant messaging app. Cross-platform. Extremely popular.
Trillian Astra
Popular multi-protocol instant messaging client.
Raptr
A social network and messaging service for gamers to keep in touch.
Google Talk
Google’s standalone GTalk client for Windows is a simple yet effective tool.
TeamSpeak
Built with the gamer in mind, TeamSpeak is a popular VoIP solution that works across a range of desktop and mobile devices.
Mumble
Intended for use with your favourite multiplayer game, Mumble is a great open source cross-platform low-latency VoIP client.


Image Editors

Paint.NET
Strong candidate as a potential substitute for Photoshop for beginner/intermediate users.
FastStone Image Viewer
One of the best image viewer, converter & editor bundles.
IrfanView
The Swiss Army knife of image viewers/editors. Extremely popular.
Google Picasa
Powerful photo manager software from Google. Includes 1-click photo retouching features. Easy online photo sharing.
GIMP
Very capable graphic editor with Photoshop-like features. Often labeled as free Photoshop alternative.
PhotoScape
Another good free and easy-to-use photo editing application.
Inkscape
An open source vector graphics editor that uses the Scaleable Vector Graphics (.SVG) format.
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.
XnView
A small utility for viewing and converting images that reads around 400 formats.
XnConvert
Easily batch convert, resize and apply effects to images with this open source software.
Zoner Photo Studio Free
Tweak, fix, manage and share your precious memories with Zoner, software that rivals paid software.


Audio Tools

foobar2000
Advanced audio player for Windows with highly customisable user interface.
Songbird
A popular music player based on Mozilla’s code. Includes some really useful plugins.
Audacity
Very popular open source software for recording and editing audio tracks and sounds.
iTunes
Music player and video library organiser. Hosts the iTunes Store.
MediaMonkey
Full-featured music player and music collection organiser.
Winamp
Well-known, lightweight, small-footprint media player.
CopyTrans Manager
Alternative iPod manager app. Sync and transfer music & files to iPod, iPhone, iPad.
TagScanner
A multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection.
Audials One
Search for any song and it will find a radio playing that song and record it for you.
MusicBee
A basic music player with a few thoughtful additions, including tag completion.
Tomahawk
A social music player that can pull content from a range of sources including YouTube and Soundcloud.
Spotify
Streaming music service client complete with Facebook integration and iDevice management.


Video Tools

VLC Media Player
Extremely popular cross-platform video player that can play almost any video file. Highly recommended by many.
Handbrake
Open source, cross-platform, video converter that can convert video files between many video formats.
VirtualDub
Open-source and portable video editor.
Media Player Classic
Replica of WM Player. Includes only the most basic controls but can play pretty much any video.
Freemake
Free video converter & DVD burner that’s easy to use.
Format Factory
Multifunctional audi and video converter. Supports MP4, AVI, WMV, FLV, SWF, RMVB and lots more.
KMPlayer
Highly customisable, popular, multi-format video player.
CamStudio
A high quality freeware screen capture utility with support for lossless video output.
XBMC
A powerful, mature open source media centre that rocks.
Plex
A great looking media centre solution that also works remotely and with mobile devices.
UMPlayer
A light video player with some great features and over 270 in-built codecs.
Audials Moviebox
an excellent choice for recording videos online and converting them into various formats to play on different devices.
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.


Files and Drives

FileMenu Tools
Customise the right-click context menu of Windows Explorer. Adds lots of useful functions and utilities.
FreeCommander
Free file browser and Windows Explorer replacement. Two-pane browsing, secure file deletion and more.
TeraCopy
Copy and move files at maximum speed. Pause and resume file transfers.
EASEUS Partition Master
All-in-one, easy to use disk partition manager. Create, resize and merge partitions.
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.
TreeSize Free
Shows you where your precious hard drive space has gone to. Easily view how much space is being used by each folder.
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.
Free Opener
An easy way to quickly open over 80 types of file types using one tiny program.
SyncToy
Free application that synchronizes files and folders between locations.
Filezilla
A free, lightweight and robust FTP client for transferring files to and from the web.
zeZebra
A cross-platform tool for sending and receiving files with absolutely no size limit.
MultiCommander
A feature-packed alternative file manager to Windows Explorer that uses a dual-panel layout.
Google Drive
The evolution of Google Docs keeps your documents synced between the cloud and your PC.
Skydrive
Microsoft’s cloud storage solution comes with 7GB of space for storing documents and images.
AxCrypt
A fuss-free encryption solution that also doubles as a deletion tool for eliminating any traces of a file.


Documents

LibreOffice
Microsoft Office alternative. Open source professional productivity and office suite.
Dropbox
Must-have for everyone. Sync folder with docs and files to web or other PCs / Macs. Share documents.
Notepad++
Popular open source text editor. Favoured by many, including programmers.
FoxIt Reader
Really light alternative to Adobe Reader. Open PDF files.
doPDF
Easily convert documents and pictures to PDF files from any Windows program with two clicks.
PDF Xchange viewer
Desktop and portable PDF viewer. Lightweight and fast.
Nitro PDF Reader
Read PDFs, create PDFs. Extract content, annotate and fill PDF forms.
PDFTK Builder
Free graphical interface version of PDFTK. Merge, split, decrypt, encrypt, watermark PDF files.
VIM Text Editor
Highly configurable text editor.
PDFsam
Easily split and merge PDF files.
Windows Live Writer
Compose then publish your blog posts with a click straight from Windows Live Writer.
deskPDF Creator 2012
Create new PDFs, convert to PDF, watermark and lock PDF documents. $34.99
PDF Select
The ultimate PDF bundle. Includes deskPDF Creator, deskPDF Editor and deskUNPDF Converter. $99


Productivity

Fences
Provides rectangular containers for your desktop to visually organize your icons. Very handy!
Rainlendar
Very easy to use and lightweight calendar for your Windows desktop.
Evernote
Save your ideas on the go and instantly take notes. Access notes from anywhere. Highly recommended!
VirtuaWin
Gives you multiple virtual desktops to organize your workflow. Highly customisable.
Launchy
A powerful keystroke based program launcher that lets you open program and files really quickly.
Send to Toys
Enhances the right-click ‘Send To’ system menu. Personalise and configure the Send To menu content.
Dexpot
Create virtual desktops to separate different running apps and Windows. Comparable to Spaces on Mac OS X.
Q-Dir
Free multi-pane file manager to save you time. Portable version available.
ClipX
Tiny, free clipboard history manager. Access up to 1024 items in your clipboard’s history.
Bruce’s Unusual Typing Wizard
Gain typing speed and accuracy with its unique touch-typing teaching program.
SendToSendTo
Easily add new entries to the right-click “Send To” menu.
Ditto
Saves each item placed on the clipboard allowing you access to any of those items at a later time.
Wunderlist
A multi-platform list syncing app for keeping track of your todo lists from any device.
FreeMind
An open-source mind mapping solution written in Java that can be as simple or as complex as you need.


Archive Managers

7-zip
Takes care of most of your archive extracting/compression needs. Supports ZIP, RAR and many others formats.
Universal Extractor
With over 50 supported file formats, Universal Extractor is superb.
IZArc
One archive utility to rule them all. Supports almost all formats.
PeaZip
User friendly, free and open source archive manager with enough features to satisfy power-users.


CD/DVD Tools

ImgBurn
CD/DVD/HD-DVD/Blu-ray burning tool. Also, lets you easily create image files from CDs and DVDs.
CDBurnerXP
The most popular free alternative to Nero Burning ROM. Burn CDs, DVDs, Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs.
bitRipper
Back-up your DVDs as AVI files or MPEG to your hard drive. Excellent backup tool for DVDs.
CDex
Open-source digital audio CD extractor. Saves CD tracks as MP3′s.
DuBaron CD2ISO
A great tool to extract ISO images from CDs or DVDs. Very simple and easy to use.
Virtual CloneDrive
Mount a virtual drive to open and playback ISO image files (CD/DVD images).
DVDShrink
The easiest and one of the better free DVD ripping and backup tools.
Exact Audio Copy
The most accurate and error-free audio CD extractor.
Can extract MP3s from a CD.
DVD Flick
Easy-to-use DVD creation software. Allows adding subtitles and making DVD menus as well.
WinCDEmu
Mount ISO, CUE, NRG, MDS/MDF, CCD, IMG images by simply clicking on them in Windows Explorer.
DVDFab HD Decrypter
One of the only free tools that supports the decrypting of Blu-Ray discs.
DaemonTools Lite
Lightweight and free disk virtualization software for installing virtual drives and mounting disk images.


Downloads

uTorrent
Speedy, efficient, and free. The most popular BitTorrent client.
Deluge
An awesome but unappreciated cross-platform BitTorrent client.
YouTube Downloader HD
Downloads YouTube videos with just a few clicks of the mouse button.
PeerBlock
Control/block your PC’s communication with ad or spyware servers. Secures P2P activities.
Free Download Manager
Open source download accelerator and manager. Increase download speeds and resume broken downloads.
Jdownloader
The most popular download manager. Quickly and efficiently download files from sites such as Rapidshare, Megaupload and many others.
FlashGet
A download manager that supports HTTP, FTP and BitTorrent protocols amongst others.
MiPONY
A download manager designed to facilitate downloading from file lockers like Rapidshare.
Freemake Video Downloader
Download and keep embedded videos from thousands of websites, supports Facebook as well as YouTube and audio extraction.


Others

LastPass
Secure plugin to store and synchronise login passwords across browsers. Comes auto-login and form filler.
TrueCrypt
Free open-source, cross-platform disk and data encryption tool. Encrypt and hide sensitive files.
TeamViewer
Request remote technical assistance. Connect to remote computer. Zero setup required.
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.
Sticky Password
Free password and identity manager. Browser add-on for automatic login and form-filling.
KeePass
Free, open source, lightweight and easy-to-use password manager.
LiberKey
Suite of over 300 free useful software apps that you can carry with you wherever you go.
Hiren’s BootCD
All-in-one bootable CD providing an alternate boot environment to troubleshoot Windows problems.
Eraser
Advanced security tool to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive.
iPrint
Print multiple pages on each sheet of paper, delete unwanted pages. Lowers printing costs.
Antirun
Protects your PC by blocking viruses and malware from infected USB thumbsticks and flash drives.
Everything
Locates files and folders by name instantly.
Game Booster 3
Speeds up your PC for faster gaming.
DriverPack Solution 11
Makes the job of finding and automatically installing drivers really easy.
XAMPP
Easy to install Apache distribution with MySQL, PHP and Perl. No manual setup required!
Calibre
Free open source eBook management software with support for conversion and syncing.
Rainmeter
A desktop customisation tool with support for functional skins.
Rocketdock
An elegant dock solution for Windows with support for add-ons.
VirtualBox
Free virtualisation software for creating and running virtual machines.
TunnelBear
Need to access a website that’s restricted to the US or UK? Try TunnelBear.
f.lux
This small program adapts your PC’s display to the time of day in order to reduce eye strain and fatigue.
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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