Top Free Programs to Install on Your PC 2021 Edition By Scott Sekinger
With prices going up these days it would be nice if you could get free alternatives to popular software. In this article. I will give my top free programs to install on your PC or other device that you recently bought, or you have been using for years.
Office Suites
Below is my top pick of free offices suites.
- Libreoffice – Libreoffice is one of the popular free office suite. It includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, program a presentation program, a drawing program, a math program, and a database program.
- Freeoffice – Freeoffice is a free office suite from a company called Softmaker. It includes a word processor, a spreadsheet, program, and a presentation program. Freeoffice comes with an interface similar to MS Office.
- WPS – WPS is a great free office suite that includes word processor, a spreadsheet, program, and a presentation program
Image Programs
Below is my top pick of free image crating / editing programs.
- Gimp – The Gimp is a free alternative to Adobe’s Photoshop, which comes all of the bells and whistles that come with Photoshop.
- Paint.net – Paint.NET is a great image and photo editing software for PCs that run Windows.
- Inkscape – “Inkscape is a Free and open source vector graphics editor for GNU/Linux, Windows and MacOS X. It offers a rich set of features and is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming and flowcharting. It uses vector graphics to allow for sharp printouts and renderings at unlimited resolution and is not bound to a fixed number of pixels like raster graphics. Inkscape uses the standardized SVG file format as its main format, which is supported by many other applications including web browsers.”
Media Programs
- OBS Studio – OBS Studio aka Open Broadcaster Software is the best video recording and live streaming.. It works on Windows, MAC, and Linux
- AVC – a great free program that gives a Video Converter + YouTube Downloader + Video Editor + DVD Burner
- ActivePresenter-ActivePresenter free edition is a great screen recorder and screencast video editor with all the necessary editing tools for recording screen & creating engaging screen cast videos on Windows and macOS.
- Audacity – A free audio software.
- VLC – VLC media player is a the best free and open-source, portable, cross-platform media player software, and streaming media server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC is available for desktop operating systems, and mobile phones. It plays everything that is DRM free. It is a must if you play any media file, or stream media from the internet.
Linux Operating System
Below is what I consider the Linux Distros.
- Linuxmint – “The purpose of Linux Mint is to produce a modern, elegant and comfortable operating system which is both powerful and easy to use.”
- Pop_OS -”Pop!_OS is designed for fast navigation, easy workspace organization, and fluid, convenient workflow. Your operating system should encourage discovery, not obstruct it. “
- ZorinOS – “Zorin OS is the alternative to Windows and macOS designed to make your computer faster, more powerful, secure, and privacy-respecting.”
- Ubuntu – “is the modern, open source operating system on Linux for the enterprise server, desktop, cloud, and IoT”
- Raspberrypi OS – “Your Raspberry Pi needs an operating system to work. This is it. Raspberry Pi OS (previously called Raspbian) is our official supported operating system.”
Video Conferencing
Below is a list of what I consider the most popular video conferencing apps. These apps are available to install on your computer as well as your mobile devices.
- Teams – “Microsoft Teams is Where You Stay Connected, Organized, and Get Things Done Together.Cloud Phone System · Call From Anywhere · Video Conferencing · App Integrations
- Types: Video Calling, One-To-One Chatting, Shared Workspaces, File Sharing”
- Skype – “Create video calls with friends and family with one click! No sign ups. No downloads required.”
- Google Duo – “Duo is the highest quality1 video calling app. It’s free, simple and works on Android phones, iPhones, tablets, computers, and smart displays, like the Google Nest Hub Max.”
Web Browser
Below is some great web browsers.
- Firefox – “Mozilla Firefox is a free and open-source web browser. Developed and offered by the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation, Firefox can be downloaded and used by anyone, free-of-charge.”
- Chrome – Chrome is a great web browser from Google. It has a lot of add ins that gives it more power. It is available on every platform from Windows to Android devices.
- Brave – “Brave is a free and open-source web browser developed by Brave Software, Inc. based on the Chromium web browser. It blocks ads and website trackers, and provides a way for users to send cryptocurrency contributions in the form of Basic Attention Tokens to websites and content creators.”
Other
Below is a list of programs that do not fit in any one category.
- AutoRuns – AutoRuns is a great program that helps you see what is starting up when you Windows PC boots, and allows you to disable the ones you do not want to start up
- Rufis – “Rufus is a utility that helps format and create bootable USB flash drives, such as USB keys/pendrives, memory sticks, etc”
- Foxit Reader – A great alternative to Adobe Acrobat reader that reads PDFs
- Open Live Writer – Open Live Writer – is a great program to add / edit entries on your blog.
- Thunderbird – A great free email program
- Teamviewer – “Control, manage, monitor, and repair computers, mobile devices, network machines and more – from anywhere, anytime.”
- NoteTab light – NoteTab Light is a great free replacement for Window’s notepad.
- Dev-C++ – A great free C++ compiler.
- Free Pascal – “Free Pascal is a mature, versatile, open source Pascal compiler. It can target many processor architectures: Intel x86 (16 and 32 bit), AMD64/x86-64, PowerPC, PowerPC64, SPARC, SPARC64, ARM, AArch64, MIPS, Motorola 68k, AVR, and the JVM. Supported operating systems include Windows (16/32/64 bit, CE, and native NT), Linux, Mac OS X/iOS/iPhoneSimulator/Darwin, FreeBSD and other BSD flavors, DOS (16 bit, or 32 bit DPMI), OS/2, AIX, Android, Haiku, Nintendo GBA/DS/Wii, AmigaOS, MorphOS, AROS, Atari TOS, and various embedded platforms. Additionally, support for RISC-V (32/64), Xtensa, and Z80 architectures, and for the LLVM compiler infrastructure is available in the development version. Additionally, the Free Pascal team maintains a transpiler for pascal to Javascript called pas2js.”
- DBAN – Darik’s Boot and Nuke is the best program in my opinion that allows you to securely erase you hard drives.
- Todo Backup Free – This is a great free program that allows you to create a system image of your PC for fast recovery.
- PowerToys – PowerToys is a collection of useful power user utilities.
I hope after reading this article you find one or more programs you want find useful.