Best free pc software

Still, Recuva has saved my bacon on more than one occasion. If you need only basic functionality, go with Sumatra PDF instead. Sumatra lacks the fancy extras found in many full-featured PDF readers, but when it comes to straight-up reading Portable Document Format files, Sumatra PDF is blazing-fast and completely accurate. But they offer features that few people need such as the ability to edit PDFs, watermark, and annotate them. Sometimes, blasting tunes is the only thing that makes slogging through a spreadsheet or a stuffed inbox even remotely tolerable.

For musical neophytes I recommend two programs: iTunes and Spotify. The high-profile hack attacks of the past few years have driven home the point: You need strong passwords, and you need a different password for each site you visit. Rather than juggling dozens of alphanumeric codes in your noggin, download a password manager.

There are several options available, but our favorite is LastPass , a cloud-based password manager that generates strong, random passwords and keeps track of your credentials across all your devices for free.

Dashlane is another stellar option, but the free version is limited to a single device. Password managers are important tools, but you need them on all your devices to be effective and that means paying for the service. PCs excel at helping you Get Things Done—but few of them ship with a productivity suite installed.

Fix that, stat! Free—and good—alternatives abound, with LibreOffice pictured being the flagship free-and-open-source option. The online-only Google Docs also rocks. AutoHotKey lets you create customized keyboard shortcuts for any program or action on your PC.

With this software, you can extract all types of compressed files in a system. You can also compress files and pictures in many types of formats. This is the most important software for every windows and computer user. When we talk about free, that means totally free but best. For security, you need good antivirus for your computer.

Microsoft Company officially launches Microsoft Security Essentials. This software is simple and does every security task you want to real-time scanning, scan system, and Pendrive for viruses and trojans. Sumatra Pdf is free for all windows users. Sumatra pdf reader software is very light 4Mb.

This is totally free without any trial. So download this software for reading Pdf and Ebooks. For more convenience, you can also look at open source pdf editors that might be more helpful for some Windows users. Rainmeter is a desktop customize the tool for your computer. With this tool, you can easily customize every corner of your Windows desktop. For instance, you can create skins, themes, icons, etc. Technically, TeamViewer is free for all windows users. With this tool, you can control other computers for Technical Assistance.

You can help your friend with this software. Teamviewer also offers voice chat so that you can chat with your friends from this software. Now you need to speed up software for your Windows. CCleaner is one of the best software to clean all junk, temporary files, cache files, and other unused files from a computer. CCleaner also clears your bad registry files. It is a must-have app if you use the internet on your computer.

The Internet opens the doors for criminals to enter your PC. Therefore, having and good Antivirus with internet security is the must-have of the software. There is various free antivirus available on the internet, too, like Avira, Avast. If we talk about business, then the MS office comes first. You can try a program called Pandora Recovery to recover lost or deleted files or Recuva , a useful file recovery app. Ever heard of TestDisk? Speaking of file recovery, ever accidentally delete all the pictures off your memory card!?

It happens more often than you would think. In those cases, check out my list of 5 photo recovery app s. Ever forget your Outlook password? Or your password for a WiFi? If so, you can use some cool programs to reveal passwords and account details for various programs in Windows.

You can also use these 10 programs to recover a lost PST password. Speaking of passwords, have you ever needed to remove a password on an Office document like an Excel spreadsheet? Speaking of audio, if you are into music, you can use LMMS to create your own music tracks. Check out WinCDEmu and create an unlimited number of virtual drives. With all this password talk, ever thought about using a free password manager?

Ever heard of KeePass or RoboForm? Both are great media players for Windows. Also, GOM Player is good too.

If you take a lot of home videos, you probably need to edit and stitch them together right? If not that, you can also check out LightWorks and HitFilm Express , two free professional-grade video editing programs. Speaking of videos, there are many times when you need to convert from one format to another. Is there a Windows process that is causing spikes in your CPU or other problems.

Use Process Explorer and Process Monitor to help diagnose the issue. Work with PDF files a lot? Looking for a good PDF reader? If not, you should check out Easeus Todo Backup , a free program that lets you backup and clone your hard drives. Another program is Paragon Backup.

If you just want to backup your data and not image your entire hard drive, you can use Google Backup and Sync to backup files and folders to your Google Drive storage.

Whether you know it or not, you probably have a bunch of duplicate files on your computer! It just happens. You can use Duplicate Cleaner to find and remove those duplicate files. If you want to save more hard drive space, you should look into a program that will analyze hard disk space usage, like TreeSize.

Want to see every possible program or driver that loads when Windows starts? Check out Autoruns , which is a free tool from Microsoft. Been looking for a good free photo editor lately? NET , or Fotor! If you prefer an online photo editor, checkout Pixlr and BeFunky. Looking for detailed information about the hardware on your computer. It can also analyze and monitor your system too. You can share large files up to 2GB for free with friends and family using a program called WeTransfer.

Other programs include DropSend and pCloud. The popular notes app we all know is Evernote, but there are other great options like SimpleNote , Google Keep , and Notebook. Other good options include FileZilla and CyberDuck. It benchmarks your CPU through a variety of different tests, including a few that rely on newer applications like augmented reality and machine learning.

The benchmarking application also boasts the unique ability to perform cross-platform benchmark comparisons, which you can use to compare your Apple iPhone to your Android device, or your Windows computer to a Mac.

Geekbench is available on Windows, macOS, or Linux. You can buy a license that will let you run the software on either of three platforms for a single user.

Geekbench Pro is a professional-grade solution that lets you use the software commercially and features command-line tools and a standalone mode. MSI Afterburner is must-have software for anyone who wants to overclock their graphics card.

It is completely GPU-centric, with no support for CPUs, but the amount of control it provides is what makes it truly remarkable. Not only does it give you detailed hardware specifications for your graphics card, but it also gives you full control over your GPU, including aspects like fan speeds, voltage, and clock speeds. MSI Afterburner is a free utility. If you are looking for gold-standard software to safely overclock your GPU, it is the only tool you will need.

We've also featured the best free PC cleaner. Ritoban Mukherjee is a freelance journalist from West Bengal, India.