Freeware & open-source software

Internet

Vivaldi

Chromium-based browser from the creators of old-school Opera (R.I.P.) – with built-in e-mail client, calendar, tab stacking and a bunch of unique goodies ••• privacy-focused alternative: Ungoogled Chromium

Firefox

open-source browser with great web standards support, customizability and decent speed – though recently, the bulwark against Google's total dominance has seen some feature creep ••• privacy-focused alternative: LibreWolf

JDownloader

downloading tool with powerful media file extraction capabilities, fine-grained handling of downloads and bandwidth, integration of paid file hosting services and more

Tixati

peer-to-peer file sharing software using the BitTorrent protocol – on the bleeding edge of technology, customizable and free of ad-ware or other annoyances

WinSCP

FTP manager with extensive file synchronization capabilities and a plethora of connectivity options/protocols – certainly the best of its kind for Windows

Wayback Machine

regularly archives websites from all over the net – find information that got changed/deleted or recover software from abandoned sites, provided by the amazing Internet Archive

Office

LibreOffice

word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and flowcharts, databases and maths – the continuously enhanced and refined standard of free office suites

WPS Office

alternative to LibreOffice with an interface more similar to Microsoft Office, better compatibility with its file formats and neat usability – definitely worth checking out

PDF-XChange Editor

PDF viewer/editor with a considerable feature set for a freebie, including OCR – you can disable all buttons that would normally trigger a »paid feature« prompt

PDFsam Basic

offers (almost) everything you need to work with PDF files, since you can split or merge documents, extract and rotate pages etc. – it's easy to handle via its well-crafted interface

Language

GoldenDict

dictionary software with support for a plethora of dictionary files and virtually all languages, featuring a history, a scan pop-up for looking up words in applications etc.

DeepL Translator

browser-based service for translating texts (via form input or document upload) in a growing number of languages – the output is nothing short of amazing and delivered very quickly

LanguageTool

proofreads your texts in 27 languages – an excellent service that is also available as a browser extension for Chrome or Chromium-based browsers like Vivaldi

Urban Dictionary

slang words and contemporary phrases missing in ordinary dictionaries, largely user-driven with simple voting of submitted entries – enlightening and entertaining

BabelMap

Unicode – The World Standard for Text and Emoji Unicode character map application for browsing through the entire repertoire of ~144,000 letters and symbols – search by name/code, set bookmarks and more

Files & folders

XYplorerFree

file manager with tabs, multiple panes, breadcrumb navigation, renaming tools and much more - discontinued since 2017, yet still more powerful than other freebies

PeaZip

fully-featured file archiver utility relying on open-source technologies (and proprietary ones through extensions), handling all common and most, if not all archive formats

XnShell

image thumbnails right in the file context menu of Windows explorer and other applications – you can also add context menu entries for image conversion, resizing and rotation

Everything

blazingly fast search tool (»find as you type«) that supports wildcards and regular expressions as well as sorting by size/date/type/... – with FSearch, there's an equivalent for Linux users

FSearch

a search tool very much akin to the aforementioned Windows application Everything – with similar features and speed, it's a prime candidate for Linux power users

DocFetcher

search within the content of common document types with multiple indices for different folders – useful for research and learning ••• superb alternative (and more) for Windows: dnGrep dnGrep

Security & Privacy

KeePassXC

store your passwords in one place, thoroughly encrypted – features a (rule-based) random password generator, advanced website form filling and frequent updates backed by a thriving community

O&O ShutUp10++

small and simple tool for more privacy and disabling unnecessary Windows features/apps – all settings are explained briefly and you can inspect changes from Windows updates or third-party software

Blackbird

a tool for disabling a sizeable bunch of Microsoft's telemetry services as well as exploitable components and the like – be sure to use the provided backup option

System – control, maintain, analyse, tweak

Task Manager Deluxe

surprisingly capable system maintenance tool – manage processes, services and autostart entries, monitor system resources and display system specifications

WizTree

visualize used space on the hard drive or SSD of your choice in an easy-to-grasp fashion or simply list the largest files/folders – invaluable for »digital hoarders«

ImDisk Toolkit

create a RAM disk (a virtual drive for volatile data in the main memory) – it's extremely fast and prevents hard drive stress when used as a cache location, e.g. for browsers

HWiNFO

analyse temperatures, usage, voltage and more of your graphics card, main processor and other system components – for ambitious gamers, overclocking freaks and the like

Winaero Tweaker

tinker with Windows in various ways – customize the user interface, access somewhat hidden system options and disable all kinds of silly fluff Windows throws at you by default

User Interface

7+ Taskbar Tweaker

enhance the functionality of your Windows taskbar with mouse commands, icon size/spacing options, task grouping settings and more – indispensable for my workflow

DeskPins

»pin« any window to the screen to make it stay on top of other windows that aren't pinned – you can also set a keyboard shortcut and make specific programs stay topmost by default

f.lux

adapt the colour temperature of your screen to the current time of day, taking seasons and your geographical location into account – reduce eye strain and sleep easier ••• lean alternative for Windows: LightBulb

MacType

improve text rendering for Windows (Apple has always been superior here) – fonts look a lot more accurate, aesthetically pleasing and more legible, especially at small sizes

T-Clock Redux

customize appearance and behaviour of the time/date display located on the Windows taskbar – also provides goodies such as alerts, timers and time server synchronization

Image

IrfanView

the grand seigneur of image viewing, editing and conversion for Windows – zippy performance meets a minimal interface, yet advanced functionality and plug-in support

XnView MP

view, edit and manage pictures – with essentials (crop, resize etc.), retouching filters and tools such as contact sheet creation, but also tagging, categorizing and metadata editing

paint.NET

an image editor that cleverly balances functionality and ease of use – work with layers, a magic wand for selections, filters, (Photoshop) plug-ins for even more filters etc.

GIMP

it's no Photoshop (or Affinity Designer), but the most powerful free all-purpose image editor nonetheless – overcome its idiosyncrasies and you can do a f***ton, including vector graphics

darktable

comprehensive photo retouching and management software like Lightroom – with a plethora of filters to be tweaked for developing RAW images or creatively altering your photos

PicPick

take screenshots with lots of options (save location, screen region/scrolling window content, hotkeys ...) – bonus tools include an image editor, a magnifying glass, and a pixel ruler

XnConvert

image conversion software – with transparency layer (alpha channel) preservation, loads of advanced bulk editing capabilities and command line support

A Sharper Scaling

enlarge images without them getting too blurry – its clever algorithms yield decent to great results when scaling up images, examples are provided on the author's website

ShiftN

(semi-)automatic correction of converging lines on images, especially useful for architectural photos – the default settings mostly work well, but you can tweak them to optimize the results

Video

MPC-HC [development]

video player with lots of features and options, yet enough accessibility to be the default for most users – one reason for me to use it is the compatibility with madVR

PotPlayer

the most well-rounded and feature-rich video player – it handles uncommon video formats well, boasts a staggering amount of options, comes with a nice interface and works with madVR too

madVR

scale up videos (on monitors with higher resolution than the video file) without them getting blurry – indispensable for a high-quality viewing experience with sub-par source material

Avidemux

a rather simple, yet competent video editor – I use it mostly for extracting audio tracks from videos and for cutting and/or re-encoding to a different format

Audio

Resonic Player

slick audio player that displays all items of a folder upon launching an associated audio file – with waveform display, advanced looping, playback start offset and more

foobar2000

highly customizable audio player with tabs for multiple playlists, ID3 tag editing, format conversion, plug-in support (even VST), compatibility with virtually all audio files, streaming of web radio stations etc. ••• slick alternative: AIMP AIMP

ocenaudio

audio editor offering most features required by podcasters, musicians and sound designers – I prefer it to Audacity due to its friendly interface that facilitates working with multiple files

Audacity

a multi-track audio editor and recording tool that has come a long way – feature anecdote: I like it for its simple loopback recording feature (»What you hear is what you get«)

Voicemeeter

greatly enhanced Windows audio mixer with virtual in- and outputs, equalizer and mono/stereo control – very useful for more complex streaming setups via Twitch and the like, recording VoIP/video calls or podcasts

Gaming

Discord

voice-over-IP, Skype-like video calls, messaging and screen sharing with multi-player game integration – a modern communication tool for friends, like-minded people and workgroups

DOSBox

play games from the era of MS-DOS (Microsoft's precursor to Windows) – many ancient games are compatible with it for everyone to dwell in nostalgia and enjoy great gameplay

Borderless-Gaming

run games in fullscreen mode for better performance – good for ironing out quirks of some games that don't handle fullscreen operation well or just don't support it

NVCleanstall

strip NVIDIA driver setup files down to the components you actually need, e.g. just the driver itself – save drive space, reduce memory usage, strengthen privacy and more

Editors – text, Markdown, code

Notepad3

extremely fast, yet quite powerful little text editor – the best alternative to Windows Notepad with syntax highlighting, code folding and other goodies for taking notes, editing configuration files and light programming

Typora

the best WYSIWYG Markdown Guide Markdown editor – grab it, while it's still a free beta version (which works well) and enjoy extended Markdown support (e.g. for tables), impressive export options, multiple visual themes and more

Mark Text

promising alternative to Typora (for me, it's a close second), similar in scope and style – and there don't seem to be any plans for abandoning the open-source licence

VSCodium

a clone of Visual Studio Code, but without all the telemetry – so far, it works as expected, is compatible with all extensions and has become a (web development) mainstay of mine

Visual Studio Community

mature IDE with debugging, project management, source control (including Git integration), extensions and more – particularly great for cross-platform .NET development

Monospace Fonts

Web & graphic design

MainType Free Edition

font manager that lets you group, sort, inspect, display, compare and (un-)install fonts – for all this, it's easy to swallow minor annoyances like pop-ups (»Buy the Pro version!«) or the startup nagscreen

Adobe Color wheel

fun and inspiring tool to create palettes of up to five colours – choose a method (analogous, monochromatic, complementary etc.) and a base colour, drag the handles and voilà ••• neat alternative: Paletton

Pixie

colour picker – tiny and straight to the point, displaying colour values in hexadecimal, RGB, HTML, CMYK and HSV ••• also check out a way more capable alternative (which takes up more screen space though): Just Color Picker