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You just bought a new laptop, built a new desktop PC, or are simply clean installing on a new solid state drive, good for you! Gotta love the taste of a fresh new machine, but now you have to get back to productivity Zen by recovering your files and installing programs. We've compiled a list of essential programs to get you started. Many of these apps are also available as web services, but app versions have the advantage of offline access.
Downloading movies or music to local storage can be useful when you are expecting hours with no connection. Even if you just want to write emails when an internet connection isn't available, you may want to be able to read the messages that you are writing replies to.
Depending on the browser or the network you use, relying on web services can also cause privacy concerns. From security utilities to productivity tools, and many suggestions for the areas in between, here are top app recommendations with a special emphasis in great free software you can download right away Windows offers Edge out of the box, a browser that's built upon the Chromium project and actually includes several features that Chrome doesn't, especially for Windows users, such as adding sites to the Start menu.
And yet the default choice for most remains Google Chrome , if only for its integration with other Google services. Chrome is great for Android users, too, as you can natively sync across devices. Chrome is a tad bland out of the box, though it supports extensions for a myriad of different things.
From a security standpoint however, those same extensions can pose a risk, that and the fact that Google records everything you do in the browser is not great for your privacy either. The open-source Firefox is a solid browser with better privacy options.
But, if you like Chrome the way it is except for Google's tracking methods, Ungoogled Chromium may be an interesting choice for you.
The problem is that while it disables many services that rely on Google, it doesn't always replace them with something else, so you should only use it if you know what you're getting into. Many power users also swear by Vivaldi. This browser's claim to fame is how customizable it is.
For example, it will let you stack tabs within tabs in one of 3 ways: with drop-down menus, with 2 tab bars, or by showing all tabs only in the active stack.
You can add a side panel on either side of the screen, with browser menus and apps notes, mail, RSS and calendar and the option to add any website.
It's a fact that a ton of people still use terrible passwords. Even those that prefer something harder to crack than "" often have the same login credentials for several sites. There's also the problem of forgetting which passwords go with which websites. Most web browsers have their own password managers, but they are simply not as good as dedicated third-party software.
A password manager is an essential add-on. If you haven't already made your choice, we'd recommend you start with the open-source Bitwarden , mostly because its free version is fully functional. If for any reason you don't like Bitwarden, then KeePass is a good free alternative.
In the past, we've recommended LastPass as our top pick, but now its free version only allows access on one device type: PC or mobile. If you are willing to pay for a password manager, LastPass is pretty good, but you might as well choose 1Password or Dashlane , which also includes a VPN service to hide your IP address from the websites you visit.
Cloud storage and backup are a must-have in your toolbox. Backing up and restoring information has never been smoother either, and even though there's a huge array of options, we've long been spoiled by Dropbox's ease of use. Dropbox offers 2GB of free cloud storage which is not much, but you can earn up to 16 GB via referrals and a few other tricks.
For photo-specific features, Mac users can enjoy the Photos app, which creates albums automatically based on the people and places that appear in photos, and can sync everything with the iPhone and iPad with iCloud. For Windows users, we often recommend using Google Photos , which includes similar features. Google Photos used to offer unlimited free storage for photos up to 16MP and p videos, but now it only grants 15GB of free storage, shared with other Google services.
If you have bigger storage requirements, we'd look at all the best alternatives and the different pricing tiers before making the decision. Luckily, competition for cloud backup is fierce and prices have come down a little.
If you have sensitive files, you may want to use pCloud , which provides paying users with device-based encryption, meaning that even if your account gets hacked, the hacker won't be able to open your files without your devices. For full data backups terabytes of photos, videos, full drives , there are better alternatives than the above.
First of all, you get specialized backup software, file versioning, and often unlimited storage, so you can offload terabytes of data and remain at ease.
If you know what you're doing, both Windows and macOS come with decent security out of the box. Common sense should be enough for power users, while the average user may want to add another layer of protection that won't turn into a burden for your system.
Malwarebytes is the first tool you should consider. A veteran specializing in preventing malware and rootkits attacks, it's great and free for personal use.
If you'd rather not have antivirus installed on your PC as you are afraid of over-detection, the Emsisoft Emergency Kit for Windows can be put on a disk-on-key, which you may connect only when you need it. There's also VirusTotal. For simple note-taking there's OneNote , which Microsoft offers as a free cross-platform app. If you have a Mac, you may prefer Notability. Microsoft Office remains the king of office productivity and some are not having as hard a time justifying a subscription to Office if you need it for work, and if you take advantage of most of the apps and included perks like 1TB of OneDrive storage.
But, free alternatives abound here as well. On the Windows side, if you want the free office suite that's most similar to Microsoft's, try FreeOffice. Other free options include LibreOffice -- some of our writers swear by it, while others hate it.
The open-source office suite offers all the basics and then some. Apple ships all Macs with a full productivity suite out of the box at no charge Pages, Numbers and Keynote , which is a great way to get started on documents, spreadsheets or presentations worry free.
For coders and developers we have to give a shout out to Sublime Text , possibly the best text editor you'll find. Meanwhile, Microsoft has slowly but surely gained a ton of adoption with the free Visual Studio Code which is cross-platform and liked by many.
There are several PDF editors that offer free versions that include functionality that Acrobat Reader doesn't. We have written a full guide on the matter, but as a quick shortcut, you can try PDFsam to merge, split, extract pages, rotate and mix your PDFs.
It's also cross-platform. If you like to use a desktop email client, we like Postbox for its lifetime pricing policy a free day trial is available. For up to 2 accounts, eM Client is free and highly customizable. Firefox users will feel at home with the open-source Mozilla Thunderbird , while Mailbird is good for power users who are willing to pay. The video chat and messaging apps you need depend mostly on whom you want to talk to.
The most ubiquitous personal messaging platforms are WhatsApp and Messenger a. Apple users will be happy to use iMessage, which is more private, but not everyone may be available on the platform iPhone also sends SMS on the same app. Zoom has become synonymous with video chat, offering local recording and screen sharing, and is the best bet for reaching a large group although you can only speak with one person for more than 40 minutes with the free plan. You can enable end-to-end encryption of your calls to avoid their content being used for targeted advertising, but that way, only those who enable the feature will be able to join.
End-to-end encryption also disables features such as cloud recording and Breakout Rooms. Google Meet is a solid web-based alternative that doesn't require any installation. If you or your work is paying for an Office subscription, you may be using Microsoft Teams , which is replacing Skype. End-to-end encryption is only available for 1-on-1 calls. If you are a Mac user, you may be able to get by with FaceTime for the meetings you initiate with up to 32 people.
Users of non-Apple devices will be able to join the meeting with the link you send them, and everything will be encrypted. If you have the choice of which app to use, you may prefer Signal , which is developed by a non-profit organization and has no ads or tracking. A second good alternative is Viber , offering similar voice and video capabilities, with great privacy options such as self-deleting messages and PIN codes for individual chats.
It's always fun to stay in touch with family and friends, but if you need to collaborate in a workgroup, then Teams and Slack are the most popular platforms for that purpose.
Slack's free plan is a bit limited, only letting you search the last 10, messages and not offering screen sharing, but the paid options are still a good alternative for small teams, with an intuitive UI and video meetings of up to 15 people. Another alternative is Cisco Webex , which lets you invite anyone to meetings with a link.
For high-quality communication during gaming, or if you just want a free team collaboration tool, you should check out Discord , which includes solid messaging and video chat capabilities, and is free regardless of the number of people in the server.
We dropped Slack a couple of years ago in favor of Discord for collaboration among TechSpot's staff and we love it.
For in-game voice chat TeamSpeak is also old-school good, can be used anonymously and gives the host more control over the server.
Steam is also offering a more robust in-game chat solution than it did in the past. For gaming we have to recommend Steam first and foremost. Valve's killer gaming platform does an awesome job at being a one-stop shop for most PC gaming.
It's a great hub and gaming communication platform, also known for its sales. Another must-have at this point is the Epic Games Store , mostly because every week it offers at least one paid-for game for free.
Do note however that certain franchises are absent from one or both of these stores -- mostly games from the likes of EA, Ubisoft, and Blizzard. Another group of super popular games, including Fortnite , Minecraft and League of Legends , are available to download independently. If you are new to the world of gaming and are looking for something familiar, try Brutal Chess. If you are switching to PC gaming from an Xbox, you won't have a problem using the Xbox controller on Windows.
If you are a real gamer, however, you must know that it's not really about the games -- what's truly important is to have the craziest RGB light show. While Netflix and Amazon Prime Video are available on the web, downloading their apps will let you download movies and episodes for offline viewing, including "smart" downloads that regularly delete the episodes that you finish watching, and download the following episodes.
Unless you're invested in Apple's ecosystem, music streaming is synonymous with Spotify. With the free plan you'll be able to download podcasts, and with the paid plans you'll be able to download songs and albums, too. One great alternative app is Deezer , which includes access to traditional radio stations, and CD-quality streaming with its Hi-Fi plan.
For watching your favorite movies from before the streaming era, there's VLC Player. If you just want to press play and go, VLC has that going for it. But it's also a powerful player with support for subtitle synchronization, video filters, and equalization, should you need that. Another worthwhile mention is PotPlayer , which supports commercial Blu-ray disks by default.
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