Top 25 free tools for every Windows desktop
While smartphones descend on
computer, Windows desktop still reigns supreme in many corners of the modern
tech world.
1. FreeCommander XE
Whether you’re using File Explorer in Windows 7
or Windows Explorer in Windows 8/8.1, you’re up against the same, lame Explorer
layout we’ve known for more than a decade, plus or minus a few icons on a
Ribbon. FreeCommander XE presents the obvious solution -- two side-by-side
panes for independent navigating and copying -- along with an entire cookie jar
full of worthwhile one-click features. Although some of the download
versions of FreeCommander XE bundle unrelenting crapware, the version available
from the
FreeCommander site installs without a hitch or a hitchhiker.
2. 7-Zip
Every desktop user needs 7-Zip. While Windows 8
(finally!) added the ability to look into ISO files -- you still need 7-Zip to
see them in Win7 -- Win8’s Windows Explorer still doesn’t support RAR
compressed files, which are becoming more common as Mac use continues to rise.
7-Zip also creates password-protected Zip files, as well as self-extracting
Zips. You don’t need to register or pay for 7-Zip.Don’t fall for a website
with a similar name. To get the real, original, one and only free 7-Zip, with a
crapware-free installer, go to 7-zip.org.
There’s support on the 7-Zip Sourceforge page.
3. EditPad Lite
Notepad is soooooo last century. Even with all of
the fantastic new brightly colored file formats running around today, everybody,
sooner or later, needs a text editor. Let’s hear it for EditPad Lite.
With tabs, undo/redo, Unicode support, cut/copy/paste, and search and replace
all in a svelte and fast package, EditPad Lite works wonders. Free for personal
use, the pro/corporate package costs as little as $9 per user. Pay for the product, and
you also get a spell-checker.
4. PicPick
If you've ever tried to use the Windows Snipping
Tool to capture fleeting images on the screen -- notification boxes that go
away when you click, or popover menus that disappear the minute you move your
mouse -- you're in for a treat. PicPick lets you take screenshots with the
press of a key, and pressing the key doesn't make ephemeral items on the screen
run for cover. Once you've taken the shot, PicPick pops your screen into an
editor with tools for resizing and editing. Add automatic file naming,
on-screen magnification at selectable levels, a pixel ruler, color picker, and
a half-dozen other screenshooting aids, and you end up with a versatile,
everything-but-the-kitchen-sink shooter. Just watch out for crapware.
5. Tixati
If you aren’t yet using torrents, now’s the time
to start. For years I’ve used and recommended uTorrent, but the current
version’s installer includes the notorious piece of crapware known as OpenCandy. I wouldn’t touch uTorrent now with a ten foot
barber pole. Instead, try Tixati.
It’s simple (no Java, no .Net), fast, easy to use, supports magnet links (which
really simplify downloads), with extensive bandwidth reporting and management.
Be careful when you navigate the download site. You may see an ad at the top of the page
that says Download. If so, don’t click it -- horrendous crapware may lurk.
Instead, follow the link to an official mirror site.
6. File Shredder
Even if you don’t wear a little tinfoil hat, from
time to time you may want to completely delete a specific file or overwrite an
entire drive before you give it away. If you do wear a little tinfoil
hat, File Shredder
will help you graduate to the big leagues. Shred files, folders, free space,
entire drives, you name it, using any of several shredding algorithms. Pro tip:
When you get to the download page, don’t click the Download icons -- those lead
to a Zip manager and Download manager that aren’t exactly what you want.
Instead, click on the link in the text that says “download File Shredder.”
7. Auslogics Duplicate File Finder
While the cost of cloud storage is rapidly
approaching zero, most of us are still tied to hard drives here on earth. If
you think your hard drive might have 10 different copies of a specific photo of
your last birthday party, well, it probably does. Auslogics Duplicate File
Finder’s easy-to-use interface makes it relatively easy to find and select the
duplicated files you want to delete, then stick the selected files in the
Recycle Bin. A word of caution: While the Auslogic’s installer wants to put all
sorts of junk on your machine, all the options are confined to one “Free Search
Offer by Spigot” panel. Uncheck all of the junk, and you’ll end up
with a very usable duplicate finder. Don’t install Spigot.
8.
SpaceSniffer
Want
to know what’s taking up all the space on your hard drive? Run SpaceSniffer. No
installation required -- it runs from a simple EXE -- no malware, no funny
stuff. You end up with a patchwork quilt of files and folders. Click on a
folder or file to get more details. Double-click on a folder to see all of the
components. There’s even a filtering capability so you can look at all of your
MP4 files or JPGs. Great way to zoom in on the big space hogs.
9. Comodo Backup
Windows 7 has a decent -- but not perfect --
backup and restore function. Windows 8 basically throws it all away. Yes, you
can find vestiges of Win7 backup buried in the dregs of Windows 8, but it’s a
pain. Microsoft wants you to use its new backup method, stick everything on
OneDrive, and use Refresh/Restore should the proverbial hit the fan. Comodo
Backup runs rings around all of them. Comodo wants to back you up to
the cloud, give
you 10 GB of free online storage, then sell you the rest. But even if you
choose to backup the old-fashioned way, Comodo Backup is free and works like a
champ.
10. VLC Media Player
Another poster child for open source software, VLC Media Player
plays just about anything -- including YouTube Flash FLV files -- with no
additional software, no downloads, no headaches. I use it exclusively for
videos. Unlike other media players, VLC sports simple, Spartan controls,
built-in codecs for almost every file type imaginable, and a large and vocal
online support community. VLC plays Internet streaming media with a click,
records played media, converts between file types, and even supports individual
frame screen shots. Yes, there’s a Metro version. No, I don’t recommend it. VLC
is well-known for tolerating incomplete or damaged media files. It will even
start to play downloaded media before the download’s finished.
11. Image Resizer
Once upon a time, the Windows XP PowerToys
included a fabulous, simple, fast image resizer. Right-click on a photo, choose
Resize Pictures, and the photo is reduced in size to a fraction of the
original. With options for Small, Medium, Large, Mobile, and Custom, you can
make the resized file as small as you like, and maintain a lot of image
fidelity in the process. But XP came and went, and Microsoft didn’t keep the
PowerToys updated. Enter Brice Lambson, a Microsoft employee with a heart of
gold -- and a mission to bring the free Image Resizer to
the latest versions of Windows. Microsoft still doesn’t support Image Resizer.
But Brice does.
12. Paint.net
With dozens of good -- even great -- free image
editors around, it’s hard to pick one above the others. Irfanview, for example,
has tremendous viewing, organizing, and resizing capabilities. For powerful,
easy-to-use photo editing, with layers, plug-ins, and all sorts of special
effects, along with a compact and easily understood interface, I’ll stick with Paint.Net.
Although it requires Windows’ hard-to-keep-updated .Net Framework, the program
puts all of the editing tools a non-professional might reasonably expect into a
remarkably intuitive package.
Watch out for bogus “Download” ads on the site.
13. VirtualDub
I know many people who swear at Windows Live
Movie Maker, but don’t want to shell out the money for an expensive Windows
video editor, and refuse to switch to Apple’s iMovie. For those people, VirtualDub is a good
compromise -- and the price is right. It’s almost entirely AVI-based, although
it can handle screen captures, MPEG-1, and BMP files. If you’re working with
AVI or your camera cranks out files in AVI (mine does), the restriction may not
hurt. The program itself runs easily, fast, and very simply, with no
installation required.
14. HandBrake
Windows doesn’t rip DVDs. Period. While you’re
bound to get a hundred different opinions from any collection of a dozen
different RIAA lawyers, ripping DVDs for your own use (say, to play them from a
computer that doesn’t have a DVD player, or to keep your three-year-old’s
fingers off the shiny side) is a common, debatably illegal, activity. Ask your lawyer how she rips
DVDs. I rip DVDs all the time (so sue me), and when I do, I use Handbrake. Open source software
at its finest, HandBrake has an enormous number of options that should cover
even the most convoluted cases.
15.
Secunia
PSI
A
key component in keeping your system up-to-date, Secunia
Personal Software Inspector scans every program on your computer and tells
you in no uncertain terms if you have any wayward programs that haven’t been
patched. PSI knows about more than 3,000 different programs. You can tell Secunia
PSI to automatically keep your programs updated, and unless there’s some sort
of odd manual intervention required, everything gets patched behind the scenes.
I particularly appreciate the fact that PSI respects my Windows Update settings
-- so while I have everything else updated automatically, it lets me install
Microsoft patches on my own schedule. Free PSI is for personal use; CSI corporate editions available.
16. Autoruns
Microsoft’s venerable and free-as-a-breeze Autoruns finds more auto-starting programs (add-ins,
drivers, codecs, gadgets, shell extensions, whatever) in more obscure places
than any other program, anywhere. AutoRuns not only lists the auto-running
programs, it lets you turn individual programs off. There are many minor
features, including the ability to filter out Microsoft-signed programs, a
quick way to jump to folders holding auto-starting programs, and a command-line
version that lets you display file hashes. AutoRuns doesn’t require
installation. It’s a program that runs and collects its information, displays
it (with a rather rudimentary user interface), lets you wrangle with your
system, then fades away.
17. HWiNFO
If you’re curious about the hardware that beats
inside your system, have I got a utility for you. HWiNFO delves into every nook
and cranny. From the summary (shown here) to detailed Device Manager-style
trees of information -- entire forests of information -- HWiNFO can
tell you everything anyone could want to know about your machine. There’s a
separate real-time monitoring panel that tells you the current status of
everything under the sun: Temperatures, speeds, usage, clocks, voltages,
wattages, hard drive SMART stats, read rates, write rates, GPU load, network
throughput, and on and on.
18. PDF-XChange Viewer
For years, I recommended Foxit Reader as my
favorite PDF viewer. Then the folks at Foxit started piling crapware into the
installer, and I finally gave up. Now, I recommend a better product -- not only
with more features (including text overlay, which works for form filling, and
OCR conversion), but also with fewer, uh, unintended installer
hitchhikers. PDF-XChange
Viewer offers all the PDF functions that most desktop users need. For
Windows 8 users it also keeps you from that awful Metro viewer. The Viewer is
free for businesses, too.
19. Revo Uninstaller
Revo Uninstaller well and truly uninstalls programs, and it
does so in an unexpected way. When you use Revo, it runs the program’s
uninstaller and watches while the uninstaller works, looking for the location
of program files and for Registry keys that the uninstaller zaps. It then goes
in and removes leftover pieces, based on the locations and keys that the
program’s uninstaller took out. Revo also consults its own internal database
for commonly-left-behind bits, and roots those out as well. The not-free
“Pro” version monitors your system when you install a program, making removal
easier and more complete. Pro will also uninstall remnants of programs that
have already been uninstalled.
20.
Process
Explorer
Process
Explorer tells you which files are currently open by what program. That
feature alone has saved me half a head of hair because once it's identified by
Process Explorer, the process that has locked up your file can be killed.
Process Explorer also gives you full information on all of the svchost
processes running on your PC. That accounts for the other half a head. Mouse
over a process, even a generic svchost, and you can see the command line that
launched the process, the path to the executable file, and all of the Windows
services being used. Right-click and you can go online to get more information
about the executable. Another must-have product from, yes, Microsoft.
21. Recuva
File undelete has been a mainstay of the PC utility
market since the days of DOS. Far as I’m concerned, there’s never been an
undelete tool better than Piriform’s Recuva (pronounced “recover”): fast, thorough, and free. When
you throw out the Windows Recycle Bin trash, the files aren’t destroyed; rather
the space they occupy is earmarked for new data. Undelete routines scan the
flotsam and jetsam and put the pieces back together. As long as you haven’t
added new data to a drive, undelete (almost) always works; and even if you’ve
added some data, there’s a good chance you can get most of the deleted stuff
back. Recuva does all of that and more, for your hard drive, USB drives, even
memory cards.
22. LastPass
LastPass keeps track of your user ids, passwords,
and some other settings, stores them in the cloud, and offers them to you with
just a click. LastPass does its AES-256 encrypting and decrypting on your
PC, using a master password that you have to remember. The data that gets
stored in the cloud is encrypted, and without the key, the stored passwords
can’t be broken, unless you know somebody who can crack AES-256
encryption. LastPass works as a browser add-on for IE, Firefox or Chrome,
so all of your passwords are stored in one place, accessible to any PC you
happen to be using -- if you have the master password.
23. EMET
Microsoft’s EMET (Enhanced Mitigation Experience Toolkit) forces
Windows to use two specific malware-busting defense systems. ASLR (Address
Space Layout Randomization) relocates pieces of programs randomly, making it
much harder for malware to hook into specific locations; DEP (Data Execution
Protection) makes it much harder for malware to lurk in parts of memory that
should contain data. EMET breaks some -- even many -- programs. While it would
be nice if all Windows applications would submit to EMET, they don’t. That
said, there’s very little downside to installing
EMET and telling the installer that you want to protect Java, Internet
Explorer, and the Office programs.
24. Kaspersky TDSSKiller
The name may lead you to believe that TDSSKiller
kills the TDSS rootkit, but the product does much more simply because so many
common rootkits are based on, or derived from, TDSS. The current version
detects and removes SST, Pihar, ZeroAccess, Sinowal, Whistler, Phanta, Trup,
Stoned, RLoader, Cmoser, and Cidox. Unlike most rootkit killers, this one runs
in Windows. To run the program, fill out the form on the TDSSKiller
page, wait for Kaspersky to send you a download link. Download the program and
run it -- no installer, just an EXE. If any rootkits are found, you’ll be given
the opportunity to Delete/Cure, Copy to quarantine, or Skip each identified
interloper
25. Malwarebytes
No doubt you already have an antivirus program. I
use, and recommend, Microsoft Security Essentials (or Windows Defender in Win8,
which is basically the same thing), but there are many good alternatives. Malwarebytes is
different. The free version is designed to run manually -- I run mine once a
week. Malwarebytes picks up all sorts of creepy crawlies that get past AV
programs. When combined with the support on the Malwarebytes forum,
Malwarebytes is the ultimate fallback for infected systems -- whether you know
they’re infected or not.
