Best Free Windows Software

Must-Have Free Outlook Add-ins

2009-05-27T00:43:29+00:00

Extending Outlook with add-ins is a great way to maximize your productivity, as long as you choose wisely. In the list below, we include a bunch of handy features with an added benefit - all these add-ins are free.

Reader's Choice Free Text Editor

2008-10-01T12:39:54+00:00

A text editor is something I use more than anything else on my computer, so having one I like is fairly important. I frequently switch between writing articles, tweaking HTML code, and filtering information I gather into organized chunks all from some kind of text entry interface. Choosing a notepad that meets your personal needs is a serious commitment, because once you've accepted the quirks of your text editor, it's tough to switch to a new one even if you know there might be something better. Readers suggested a total of 92 solutions in this category.

Reader's Choice Free Download Manager

2008-10-01T12:03:22+00:00

Download managers seemed more important in days of slower Internet connection speeds, where maximizing your Kbps was vital. They still come in handy for pulling down big files, but things like BitTorrent clients seem to fill a big part of that gap. If you need to accelerate your downloading, here are some great reader selected choices.

Reader's Choice Free Screen Capture Utility

2008-10-01T11:15:52+00:00

As a tutorial writer, screen capture is something I can't live without. My personal preference is for the pay product SnagIt, which includes extensive annotations tools not available in free screen capture apps. That doesn't mean there aren't great features in some of the free screen capture solutions. If you're willing to sacrifice convenience or use multiple free apps to handle all the potential aspects of screen capture, any of the free tools can work nicely.

Best Free Desktop Search

2008-09-30T23:59:09+00:00

Desktop search is one of those handy features I find hard to live without. I have some many documents, files, and other data buried in hundreds of folders, that I need an easy way to filter it all to recall exactly what I'm looking for. Rather than needing to remember the exact name of a Word document I wrote last year, I can do a quick search and recover exactly what I need fairly quickly with surprising accuracy. This is a category with a few usual suspects and the dependability of built-in Windows features.

Reader's Choice Free Browser Toolbar

2008-09-30T23:46:27+00:00

So many browser toolbars are available you could easily reduce your ability to see anything in a browser to almost zero by installing them all. Several useful toolbars exist and there are even some I've found I really enjoy having on my own computers. Reader's participating in the survey were largely in agreement on a favorite toolbar, with only 3 toolbars putting up numbers that were more than a blip on the map.

Reader's Choice Free Backup Program

2008-09-30T23:05:40+00:00

Backup software is one of those things we all wish we never needed. Sadly, many of us also never use a backup application until after a catastrophic data loss occurs. Here's your chance to be proactive and grab a popular free backup solution before disaster strikes. And if you don't want to install anything, there's always the option to backup files using a scheduled task. I've become a fan of backing up to online storage, simply because I can access my data from anywhere, but whatever you do, pick something and backup. ;)

Reader's Choice Free Instant Messenger

2008-09-30T22:30:53+00:00

Instant messaging has become an important part of most people's computing. A way to chat with friends around the city and around the globe, finding an IM client that escapes the notice of corporate IT watchdogs is gold when you want to plan lunch or waste some company time. Used properly, instant messaging clients can also be a handy way to accomplish work efficiently too. While there are many messenger clients with incompatible buddy lists, you might be surprised to find that the top client isn't one of the IM utilities bridging that gap.

Reader's Choice Free Email Client or PIM

2008-07-31T15:14:24+00:00

I remain an Outlook user because I have years invested in managing contacts, email, calendar, a tasks in one common location. I migrated some of the data to Plaxo to assist in automatic updates, but it ties directly back to Outlook. Still, it's easy to see that most people could get by without Outlook and find something free with almost as much power. What's most interesting in this category is three of the top seven solutions in this category are Web apps. Here are the most popular email solutions chosen by readers in this year's reader survey.

Reader's Choice Free Media Player

2008-07-30T13:55:12+00:00

Windows Media Player might seem like the runaway winner in this category, simply because it ships on every Windows computer. iTunes also seems like a likely choice because of the millions of iPods and iPhones. Neither of these popular applications was rated best by reader's in the survey. Instead that honor goes to an open source audio and video player that solves many problems commercial applications from Microsoft and Apple simply don't touch. A total of 56 different applications were selected by readers, but most votes were concentrated on the top 8 apps.

Reader's Choice DVD Catalog

2008-06-27T17:16:17+00:00

There are plenty of reasons you might want to catalog your DVD collection. If you frequently loan things to friends, having cataloging software makes it easy to keep track of who has your DVDs. If you have a large collection, making a list of what you have makes it easier to recover if you ever make an insurance claim. Or you might simply be interested in keeping a running tally of every movie you ever watched, which is my primary motivation for using this type of software. Finding a great application for cataloging your movie collection should be a little easier by starting with this list of reader's favorite DVD cataloging software.

Reader's Choice Photo Organizer

2008-06-18T20:38:37+00:00

Great photo organizing apps for Windows are few and far between, although I find myself doing most of my organization online by uploading images to Flickr, so maybe this category of software will eventually fade away. Still it's helpful to be able to quickly filter images on your computer, so there's a good chance organizing tools will survive until we are truly always connected. Here are the reader selected best-of-the-best photo organizers for Windows.

Reader's Choice Free Photo Editor

2008-06-18T15:49:17+00:00

Photo Editing is something I've always used purchased products for - not because there aren't great free alternatives; I'm simply used to the work flow in Photoshop, which is an invaluable time savings I find worth the price. As part of the annual reader survey, reader's selected some of their favorite free apps, all of which provide great features and in some cases rival Photoshop in ability. Unless you're like me and simply want the familiar shortcuts and layout of your favorite pay product, there's really almost no reason to purchase an image editor when you could opt for one of these awesome free choices instead.

Reader's Choice BitTorrent Client

2008-06-17T19:01:14+00:00

BitTorrent changed the way we download movies, television, music, and software. The original tools for using BitTorrent, while functional, seem archaic compared with many of the available choices. RSS subscriptions for automatic downloads, bandwidth throttling, remote interfaces, there's so much more than simple downloading in many of the alternatives to the original BitTorrent client. Reader's selected 48 different apps for this category, but the bulk of reader's choice votes fell on four specific software applications.

Reader's Choice Free CD and DVD Burning Software

2008-06-14T20:43:34+00:00

CD and DVD burning software is an indispensable part of having a computer. From making backups, to creating music CDs, to sharing files with friends and family, I still burn many disks every week. Burning integration in Windows and apps like iTunes and Windows Media Player hasn't done away with the need to have an standalone application specifically for burning because those tools are hobbled to the point they only work for certain functions. As part of the reader survey, 102 different burning applications were recommended. The following list is the most popular from that group.