The Most Popular and FREE Windows Applications

In this topic we are going to be talking about free Windows applications such as web browsers, documents, text editors, image visuals, media players, music managers, voice chat, bit torrent client, compression, screen streaming, screen recording, audio tools, video tools, other tools and utilities.

Web Browsers
Opera - It is a web browser that offers nice features such as private browsing,  browser sessions, Speed Dial, built-in ad blocking, unlimited VPN feature, tabbed browsing. Opera was used by more than 291 million users worldwide in 2015 according to Slashgeek. It is also available for Windows Phone, Android, iOS, , Symbian, Maemo, Bada, BlackBerry Mac and Linux. http://www.opera.com/

 

Google Chrome – Probably the most used web browser today. This web browser was developed by Google. It was first developed as freeware software for Microsoft Windows in 2008 and later came available for MacOS, Linux and Android OS. Google Chrome is the main feature for Chrome OS web apps and includes a vast platform of other useful applications. It uses high levels of computer RAM during its operations. https://www.google.com/chrome/

 

Mozilla FireFox – Or just Firefox is a well-known web browser and has between 9% and 16% of worldwide usage. Its features include, smart bookmarks, spell checking, incremental find, a download manager, private browsing, location-aware browsing supported by Google services, tabbed browsing and live bookmarking. Firefox is available for Windows, macOS and Linux OS and Android. https://www.mozilla.org/

Documents & Text
Libre Office – It includes The Write (word processor), the Calc (spreadsheet application), the Impress (presentation), the Draw ( drawing editor for vector graphics), the Math for editing mathematics formulae and Base which is a database management program.  https://www.libreoffice.org

 

WPS Office – WPS stands for Write, Presentation and Spreadsheet. This is an office suite for Microsoft Windows, IOS, Linux and Android OS. It is very similar to Microsoft Office applications.

 

Open Office – It includes The Write (word processor), the Calc (spreadsheet application), the Impress (presentation), the Draw (drawing editor for vector graphics), the Math for editing mathematics formulae and Base which is a database management program.  Free and open source application for Microsoft Windows, Linux, OSX and Solaris.

Notepad++ - Notepad++ is a free simple source code/text editor that supports many languages. It has been available in many versions for Windows since Windows 1.0 in 1985.

Notepad 2 – It is an open source and another simple notepad for Microsoft Windows and supports several code languages, pretty similar to Notepad++. 

Atom – Atom is another desktop application text editor and code for Microsoft Windows and  MacOS and Linux. www.atom.io

 

Foxit Reader – Allows you to create and manage versions of connected PDF documents. It has a easy to operate  user interface and menu. https://www.foxitsoftware.com/
 Sumatra PDF – This is a very small but powerful PDF reader for windows that starts up really fast due to its light interface.

 

Nitro PDF - This is a PDF reader exclusively for Microsoft Windows in personal and professional use. It allows you to edit, create and convert onto many different formats. https://www.gonitro.com/

Images & Visuals
Gimp - Gimp is an open-source image editor for Microsoft Windows and many others that uses 3d party plugins. Another free application great for images, photos, logo and graphics work. https://www.gimp.org/

 

GetPaint - is a  photo and image editing that counts with many powerful tools similar to Adobe photoshop. http://www.getpaint.net/index.html

 

Inkscape – Free and open-source vector editor allows you to create incredible art work.https://inkscape.org/en/

 

Blender – Awesome 3D modulation, texturing, graphics editing, sculpting, animating, video editing and many more tools.

https://www.blender.org/

Sketchup – Free 3D modeling software for professional use or enthusiasts is available as freeware and paid version named Sketchup Pro. https://www.sketchup.com/download

Snipping Tool + Screen Shot - It can take screen shots of an open tab or open image whenever you need. You can add comments, marks, save or print the image right after. http://downloads.techradar.com/downloads/snipping-tool-plus

Media Players
VLC – This is probably one of the most used free DVD / audio players over the last few years. It supports and plays any physical or digital media file. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/

 

MPC Home Cinema - This is a classic and compact media player for 32-bit and 64-bit Microsoft Windows that brings most of latest features found in modern Media Players. If you like classic, simple and clean interface style this might be the one for you. https://mpc-hc.org/

 

PotPlayer – This is a cool player, modern interface and features, competes with VLC, MPC and many actual players. https://potplayer.en.softonic.com/

 

Kodi (XBMC) – This is a multi-platform home-theater PC application that brings an incredible interface, access to multiple streaming media content online. https://kodi.tv/download/

Music Managers
Clementine – Fast and easy user interface, Clementine is a multiplatform music player and organizer. http://clementine-player.org/

 

Music Bee – MusicBee is a very well rated music manager as it offers much more than a simple music player. It supports automatic tagging, cd ripping, automatic playlists, audiobook, music conversions, podcast and more. http://getmusicbee.com/

 

Nightingale – Multi-platform compatible with Windows XP, Vista, 7, Mac OS X, can play multiple formats with skinnable interface and its graphical user interface similar to iTunes.https://getnightingale.com/

Voice Chat
Mumble – Public and private key authentication, great for talking and gaming. https://wiki.mumble.info/

 

TeamSpeak - Software proprietary VoIP for audio communications, conferences call in chart channels for groups of people. Allows teams to play in multiplayer mode. https://teamspeak.com/

 

Ventrilo – Internet voice client and server, proprietary freeware VoIP for use to up to 8 people that includes text chat, available as freeware and rented server to up to 400 people. https://ventrilo.com/

Compression
PeaZip – File archiver and encryption, high compression ratio multi-format archiving with wide set of data security functions. http://www.peazip.org/

 

7-Zip – Open-source file archiver, compresses, read and write a large variety of formats. http://www.7-zip.org/

 

WinRar – Zip and unzip files, trusted AES encryption and direct sharing to cloud services and social media. http://www.winzip.com/

Screen Recording
Bandicam – Game and screen recorder. Allows players to record gameplay throughout long game sessions. https://www.bandicam.com/

 

Fraps – Software used for real time video capture, game capture with high resolution depending on the computer. http://fraps.com/

Audio Tools
Audacity – Software for multi-track recording and editing. Converts audio formats and can edit metadata tags. http://www.audacityteam.org/

 

MP3 Tag – Useful for editing metadata tags for a large number of files. http://www.mp3tag.de/en/

 

MusicBrainz Picard – This tool scans audio files in a variety of ways including AcoustID (Like Shazan or SoundHound) and existing data to provide meta tags: years, names, art & more. https://musicbrainz.org/

 

Video Tools
LightWorks -One of the best video recording software available offering very professional tool and video quality up to 4k also video in SD and HD formats and more. https://www.lwks.com/

 

HandBreak – Video multi-tool, it converts format and shrinks sizes, works perfectly for making phone movies sizes. https://handbrake.fr/

 

DVD Flick – For creating and burning DVDs. http://www.dvdflick.net/

Other Tools and utilities
Virtual Clone Driver – It is a great tool for creating ISO images and mounted onto a virtual drive from your hard disc or some network drive and behaves just like a real CD/DVD/Blu-Ray Drive. https://www.redfox.bz/en/virtual-clonedrive.html

 

ImgBurn – For creating “images”:  CD/DVD/BD 7 HDD’s whole into a single file.http://www.imgburn.com/

 

CCleaner – Deletes digital detritus, uninstalls, fixes registry issues and manages startup applications.  https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

 

TreeSize Free – It is a disk space manager that shows you the size of the folders and subfolders. https://www.jam-software.com/treesize_free/

 

CPU-Z – Detects important information about your computer’s processor, memory, motherboard and graphics card. http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html