The Best PC Software for Your Windows Computer

The best PC software won’t bog your Windows computer down. It’s clean, free, and gets the job done.

Consult this list for ideas and discover apps you didn’t know existed. We’re continuously seeking out the best Windows software, and places to download them, for all your needs. Most applications recommended here are free and you can quickly find what you need by browsing the listed programs by category.

Note that some installers pack bloatware, useless adware that’s pre-selected to install. It’s the bane of freeware. Thus, Unchecky should be the very first app from this list you should install because it can help you catch checkboxes that commit you to downloading and installing bundled apps you don’t need.

Antivirus, Malware, and Firewalls

Antivirus software is a cornerstone in protecting your computer from external attacks. While it shouldn’t be your only protection, it’s important that you install a single antivirus application only! Installing several antivirus tools on the same computer can potentially cause issues, to the point where they lock your computer up.

Please see our dedicated guide to a full list of antivirus and security tools you should install to protect your Windows computer.

Audio Tools

foobar2000

Advanced cross-platform audio player with customizable user interface. Supports gapless playback, can rip audio CDs and transcode supported audio formats, and is best used with custom keyboard shortcuts.

Download: foobar2000 (Free)

MediaMonkey

If you have a large media collection, MediaMonkey can help you keep it organized. It manages video and audio files, playlists, and can fill in missing track information automatically.

The Gold version gets you bit-perfect rips, support for customized collections, on-the-fly audio/video conversions, advanced searches and auto-playlists, unlimited MP3 encoding, a sleep timer, and more.

Download: MediaMonkey (Free)

Download: MediaMonkey Gold (From $24.95)

MusicBee

MusicBee is the music manager that turns your computer into a music jukebox. It features auto-tagging, multiple features to optimize the sound quality, can sync your music collection across devices, and even comes in a portable version.

Download: MusicBee (Free)

Spotify

Streaming music service complete with Facebook integration, iDevice management, and playing music to remote speakers.

Download: Spotify (Free)

Download: Spotify Premium (From 9.99 per month, free trial)

Other notable applications in this category:

AIMP3, a lightweight music library manager and audio player, which rivals foobar2000.
Audacity, an open source software for recording and editing audio tracks and sounds.
TagScanner is a multifunction program for organizing and managing your music collection.
Audacious, an open source audio player for Linux and Windows that conserves system resources. Supports playlists, online streaming, and Winamp classic skins.
Helium, one tool to manage all your audio needs. Supports cataloging, tagging, playing, and renaming your audio files.
Tomahawk, a cross-platform social music player that unites your downloads, cloud music storage, radio stations, and streams from various sources into one neat player interface where you can share it with friends. Unfortunately, Tomahawk has not switched to a secure connection, yet.

Backup and Sync

When your computer came with Windows 8 or 10, you don’t need a fleet of backup tools. The latest versions of Windows come with a built-in Time Machine backup called File History. And with OneDrive, you can sync files and folders across devices. It never hurts to have alternative backup solutions though.

Macrium Reflect Free

Free for non-commercial and home use, this backup tool lets you save your disk clone or image to local and network-based storage media. To speed up regular backups and reduce storage space, you can use differential images. Use backup templates to set up scheduled backups without missing key files.

The Home version also packs incremental backups to save storage space, rapid delta cloning and restore for fast disk recovery, file and folder backup, backup encryption, ransomware protection, and more.

Download: Macrium Reflect (Free)

Download: Macrium Reflect Home ($69.95 for one license; 30-day free trial)

FreeFileSync

Open source folder comparison and synchronization tool optimized for ease of use. Also available for Linux and Mac and as portable Windows app. We thought it was a better sync tool than Microsoft’s SyncToy, which has since been discontinued. Be sure to deselect bloatware during setup.

Download: FreeFileSync (Free)

If nags are a no-go, try the following alternatives:

FBackup instead comes with similar features as FreeFileSync and supports plugins for typical backups, such as Firefox profiles or IE favorites.
Cobian Backup comes with similar advanced backup features but hasn’t been updated for a few years.

EaseUS Todo Backup

This is a free backup solution that includes a disaster recovery option. The tool can back up files and folders, create an image of the entire operating system, or clone disks to migrate data. Supports comprehensive full backup, incremental backup, and differential backup.

Download: EaseUS Todo Backup (Free)

Alternatives:

Clonezilla Live, an open source and cross-platform alternative for cloning drives
DrimeImage XML, a tool to backup drives or partitions and browse and restore images.

More apps in this category:

SyncBack supports scheduled backups to an FTP server.
Box, online storage and cross-platform sync solution for business users that offers unlimited storage for three or more users, starting at $45 per month. File transfers are encrypted with high-grade SSL and stored with 256-bit AES encryption.

Browsers

Chrome

Google’s minimal design browser that went from zero to hero in record time. Best browser if you’re already sold on Google products. Receives frequent automatic updates and supports extensions from the Google Play store. See our Guide to Google Chrome to find out about custom settings and hacks.

Download: Chrome (Free)

Firefox

With more than 6,000 add-ons, Firefox remains the most customizable browser on the market, offering its users more freedom than Chrome ever will. Should you switch from Chrome to Firefox too? The latest Firefox Quantum is faster, more lightweight, and more private than Chrome.

Download: Firefox (Free)

Opera

Opera has pioneered new features like tabs or the speed dial. It’s working hard to remain the fastest browser on the market. Its latest features are a built-in free VPN and battery saver. Moreover, it supports Chrome extensions. Is it finally time to drop Chrome for Opera?

Download: Opera (Free)

Other notable browsers:

Which browser is best for you?

Communication Tools

Skype

Microsoft’s aging cross-platform VoIP application remains a popular tool to stay in touch with friends and family. Skype offers reasonable rates for calling mobiles and landlines and attractive subscription packages. In an effort to compete with Google Hangouts, Skype now supports group video chats for non-premium accounts.

Note that Microsoft retired the classic (desktop) Skype in November 2018. When you download Skype now, it will be the Windows 10 app.

Download: Skype (Free)

If Skype doesn’t cut it anymore, have a look at these Skype alternatives.

Pidgin

Easy-to-use, open source, cross-platform, multi-protocol chat client. Supports all major chat programs, as well as third-party developed plugins.

Download: Pidgin (Free)

TeamSpeak

Built for gamers, TeamSpeak is a popular VoIP solution that works across a range of desktop and mobile devices.

Download: TeamSpeak (Free)

Discord

Tired of Skype, don’t want to pay for TeamSpeak, but need a tool to communicate with your buddies? Give Discord a try. This voice and text chat for gamers is free, secure, and works on your phone, browser, or desktop computer.

Download: Discord (Free)

Similar tools:

Defragging

Fragmented data can slow your computer down. Defragging restores order on your hard drive. Note that defragging a solid state drive (SSD) can reduce its lifespan.

Piriform Defraggler

From the makers of CCleaner comes Defraggler, a portable defragging tool, sporting solid features, paired with a pleasing and intuitive interface. You can benchmark your drive, view a file list and drive map, as well as examine drive health.

Download: Defraggler (Free)

Download: Defraggler Professional ($19.95)

An alternative to Defraggler is IObit Smart Defrag, which is easy to set up and runs in the background.

Download Tools

qBittorrent

qBittorrent is a free and open source BitTorrent client. It’s generally considered the best uTorrent alternative. Unlike the client it was designed to replace, it’s free from bloatware and ads.

Download: qBittorrent (Free)

Transmission

An open source and cross-platform BitTorrent client built by volunteers. It’s full-featured, doesn’t bundle adware, and won’t track its users. As a result, it’s lightweight and much more enjoyable to use.

Download: Transmission (Free)

JDownloader

Free and open source download manager. Allows you to start, stop, and pause your downloads, set bandwidth limitations, and auto-extract archives. Your antivirus may detect it as a threat, but rest assured it’s a false positive. Potentially comes packed with bloatware.

Download: JDownloader (Free)

Other alternatives:

FlashGet can download videos from various sources, collaborates with your antivirus, and optimizes system resources.
Free Download Manager supports HTTP, FTP, and BitTorrent. Can resume broken downloads and you can adjust traffic usage.

Email Clients

Thunderbird

Mozilla’s trusty and easy to use email client. Supports tabs, add-ons, and is also available as a portable app. And in 2019, Mozilla announced that it will pick up developing Thunderbird again.

Download: Thunderbird (Free)

High on our list of free desktop email clients are also Mailspring and Mailbird. The best free alternative to Microsoft Outlook, however, is EssentialPIM.

File Management

TeraCopy

Copy and move files at maximum speed and pause and resume file transfers. When an issue comes up, TeraCopy won’t terminate a transfer like Windows Explorer does. Instead, it will show you the failed files after the transfer was completed.

Download: TeraCopy (Free)

EaseUS Partition Master

EaseUS Partition Master is an advanced alternative to the built-in Windows partition manager. It supports merging of adjacent partitions, copying partitions and disks, upgrading system disk to a bigger drive, and it can recover deleted or lost partitions from unallocated space.

The Pro version lets you manage dynamic volumes, migrate your operating system to SSD/HDD without reinstallation, supports Windows Storage Spaces, change between MBR and GPT without losing data, and more.

Download: EaseUS Partition Master (Free)

Download: EaseUS Partition Master Pro ($39.95, free trial)

FileZilla

A free, lightweight and robust FTP client for transferring files to and from the web.

Download: FileZilla (Free)

MultiCommander

A feature-packed alternative file manager to Windows File Explorer that uses a dual-panel layout. If all you desire is a file explorer that supports tabs, we recommend Explorer++. For more options, see this article on alternative file explorers.

Download: MultiCommander (Free)

Additional tools in this section:

7-Zip, a free archive manager that can extract or compress to ZIP, RAR, and many other archive files.
Universal Extractor, can decompress and extract files from any type of archive or installer, including ZIP, RAR and EXE files.
DropIt can automatically sort files based on file type.

File Recovery

Did you ever wish you could turn back time to recover your lost files? With the following tools, you need neither a DeLorean nor a flux capacitor, a little luck will do. Just remember not to write any data to the disk you wish to recover files from.

Recuva

The Recuva wizard can take you through the process of recovering files or you can manually pick drives to be scanned. Designed for intuitive use by the makers of CCleaner. The professional version also includes virtual hard drive support, automatic updates, and premium customer support.

Download: Recuva (Free)

Download: Recuva Professional ($19.95)

TestDisk

This open source tool is considered one of the best applications for recovering lost partitions or making non-booting disks bootable again. It’s operated through a command prompt window but comes with thorough documentation, which will allow even novices to compile information for recovery by a professional.

Download: TestDisk (Free)

To recover photos from digital camera memory, try TestDisk’s open source companion PhotoRec, which can recover a wide range of accidentally deleted files, including photos.

More recommendable applications in this category:

Disk Drill (formerly Pandora Recovery), free file recovery software for any type of file, also available as a portable app.
FreeUndelete will recover files removed from the Recycle Bin.