BEST FREE SOFTWARE

Your phone is full of apps, but don't neglect your computer. These free programs can make your life better on the PC, your browser, and beyond

- Eric Griffith

It’s becoming a mobile world, but we haven’t fully abandoned the stationary computer. The real work (and a lot of the play) of computing requires a full personal-computer system. To get the most out of that, you need software. Software can be expensive, but you can save money by being smart about what you really need. Free programs have been a mainstay of the desktop experience for decades, and today’s offerings are pretty powerful. Software developers can make money by adopting ad-based models, donation-ware models, and shareware/freemium models that charge for extra features.

Something to always watch out for with free software is crapware installers. To make ends meet, many creators of otherwise great free software—or the services that offer the programs for download—bundle in things you don’t want. Worse, the installation routine obfuscates the steps, so you provide the unwanted program tacit permission to be installed. For more about how to spot and avoid this problem, check out the Uninstaller section below.

Pro tip: Download desktop software only from the maker of the software. It’s not foolproof, but it is safer. That’s why one of the criteria for inclusion in this story is that the program must be available directly from its maker.

Here’s the full list of criteria:

• The software must be available directly from the developer/creator/original publisher.

• The software typically should have a Windows-based download, although we’ve included web-based apps that are as good or better than some downloadable programs.

• If the software is on a tiered sales model, the free version cannot be trialware—it has to have a free-for-life option.

• Preferably, the software has had an update in the last year or two (at most).