10 Free Apps You Can't Live Without

Everybody – and we mean everybody – needs this collection of free tools and apps, curated by Nick Peers

- Nick Peers

Whenever we reinstall Windows, there’s always a collection of apps that we install as a matter of urgency. These programs are essential for a variety of reasons, and we’d like to share them with you in case any have slipped through the gaps in your PC knowledge.

The ten applications we’ve chosen for this roundup are all free to install and use – some may have additional features locked behind a one-time purchase, but their core functionality (and the sole reason they’re in this list) is completely free to use.

Turn the page and you’ll find our recommendations for such diverse activities as browsing the web, editing office-based files, editing video and listening to music. There are also tools for backing up, increasing your PC’s security, editing text files and improving your photos. Throw in the ultimate media player and free data recovery tool and your list is complete.

Or is it? For every single application we suggest, we’ve thrown in a bonus program. In some cases, these are simple alternatives to our main recommendation, to give you more choice in case our main suggestion doesn’t float your boat. But in others, they’re companion apps that you should install alongside your main application for additional functionality.

Ready to discover the apps you’ve been missing all your (computing) life? Turn the page to get started.

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