We all have computers at home or at office and they are some programs or software that we just can’t do without for the daily pc work or then office work, if you work from home. These program or tools are suitable for most windows based PC’s
While a lot of the time people stick to free and trial software which can sometimes do the job, it is kind of limited in features or use most of the time as its free. Black Friday and cyber Monday (a US online discount day) is one of the days that most online software goes at a discount and it’s a good time to get an online deal related to computers even if you are in Australia.
Today I bring you this essential list of software that most pc owners should have on their computer.
Some of these are free software and some of them you pay to get the full versions.
1. ANTIVIRUS – While windows inbuilt antivirus security tool does a good job of blocking nasties on your computer, it is always good to get a good antivirus just to have that extra little bit of protection. Get an antivirus and computer security software. Top providers are AVG, Mcafee, Norton, Bitdefender ( check our entire recommended list here)
2. Unzip utility – Have you ever heard of winzip or winrar. Its that program that lets you unpack or unzip a locked folder and see and use the contents within. The most popular programs are winzip and winrar, but there are others too. Winzip has a black friday deal on. Google it.
3. Photo Editor – Most windows PC’s come with paint tool, however that is just not enough to get photos enhanced or fixed or if your kids want to do their homework. Some good photo tools are Paintshop pro, Adobe photo shop, paint.net Gimp and online subscription photo editor CANVA and pixlr x. Tools like these also help touch up photos taken on your smartphone or camera.
4. Mp3 downloader – You need songs to entertain you on your pc. One of the most popular song programs is spotify, youtube or google music today which runs on a monthly subscription model. There are websites like mp3jam and software like Audials that gets mp3s for you from popular online streaming websites. MP3 Bee and Foobar are good mp3 player programs to have.
5. Desktop program/icon organiser – I use fences for organising all the shortcuts that gets created on my desktop for programs that get installed on my computer. You can manually organise all program or folder shortcuts onto your desktop with windows, however fences by stardock can help make your desktop look cool and clean while still organising it in a good way.
You can set it up so that the icons show only when the mouse is on top of it or you can make the icons on desktop blend into the background.
6. PDF opener/ editor – Adobe is one of the leading programs for PDFs and they are good. If you are looking to get pdf editors then have a look at this website for more programs. https://www.softpedia.com/hubs/Edit-PDF/ . You can also get free programs from Microsoft store.
7. Word /Powerpoint software – Today software like Microsoft word and PowerPoint, publisher is essential for you or then for your kid’s homework. Microsoft software is not cheap and there are alternatives that will do the job like google docs, Libre office.
8. VPN software – If you like watching shows that are available in other countries and are getting blocked or if you want to anonymously download or browse websites then a VPN is what you need. Most VPN’s are easy to set up today with a few clicks. They also enhance your PC security while browsing or downloading bit torrents due to not leaving any ip footprints. Popular VPN software is NORD VPN, Froot VPN, IP vanish, Express vpn and more. Here is an entire list on our blog.
VPN are also getting popular due to Netflix and Disney plus just to check and watch what other countries users of Netflix an watch as opposed to your country.
9. Movie and Media player – The best media player for years is VLC media player. You throw any file format at it and it will play it. People use it more for playing Movies though rather than mp3s. Get VLC media player here. It’s free. https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html. I also like GOM Player, but there are other popular software today like KM player, AIMP and the free windows media player.
Good DLNA/WIFI players to stream/play movies to your other devices or TV around the home is KODI and PLEX.
10. Best screen capture tool – If you want to capture your computer screen or screen that you are browsing on the internet – the best free tool to use is windows snipper.
I use screen hunter to get that little bit of extra more flexibility when capturing the screen and you can set easy key shortcuts to open the program if you’re a regular user. If you want heaps of utilities with your screen capture for free then use ShareX.
11. Free space on my computer – There are software’s that will analyse your pc and tell you which stuff on the pc is taking the most space. So, you can run this program and then delete stuff to make more space on your computer. Useful programs I use is wiztree and A full computer makes your computer run slow and lazy.
Auslogics Duplicate finder tool is also a good tool to find duplicate files on your compute taking up space.
12.Belarc advisor – This is useful program to have to see the specs of your computer. It will run checks on your computer and tell your how much memory it has, what operating system it has, what hard drives it has, what processor and circuit board it runs, etc. It is good information to give your PC repair guy if he needs it or to check if you need to upgrade certain hardware in your computer.
My top go to for downloading tools or software are direct from publisher sites or then if unsure – use softpedia or cnet download and fosshub.
I do have heaps to add to this post and I can go on recommending tools that I use or have used previously, but I will keep it to 12 for now and add at a later stage. Let me know if you ended up downloading any of these tools and how did you go.
Channel
Leave a Reply