Now, this article is going to be on Open Source and Free Software which are very necessary, but you may not always need or not every one of you need all of those.
I hope you find at least few of them very necessary.
This is the Second of 5 Parts of the article series “Open Source and Free Software List”, if you haven’t read the first article, you should probably read that before:
The article was to tell or rather remind you about the best Open Source and Free Software available, all of them were must have for any computer, especially for Windows PC. The list will be very helpful if you are building a new PC and you don’t know or can’t remember all the essential software you will need.
Open Source Software List; Part 2: Extended List of essential software
The list contains names of the software which are sometimes very necessary. Some of you guys will need few of those software regularly, others just can install any those software when you need to, get your job done and then uninstall them immediately.
But knowing about these software or being able to find the exact software to have at the time of need is a tedious job for some people like me. So, I like to have a list documented, and the purpose of using each software mentioned in that.
I encourage you to save the pages of this and the previous article and keep it in some cloud storage like Dropbox or in some external storage, or just come back here in this post and read it whenever you need.
The number of useful software is infinitely large, I have chosen some of the best programs to serve the jobs which are needed to be done more often.
1. TeraCopy:
Most of the people are fine with Windows copying files between folders and drives, but TeraCopy does it even faster, smoother, and you get more information/feedback while copying or moving, and it can recover from some transfer errors. So, it is loved by many people.
Get Teracopy.
2. Revo Uninstaller:
It is a free uninstall utility which is much faster than Windows’ inbuilt uninstaller. And when you uninstall a program with windows program manager, some files of the program still remain on your computer, Revo uninstaller take care of all those files. And the best part is while uninstalling multiple programs it allows you to select all the program you want to get rid of and make an uninstall queue so that you don’t need to uninstall each and every program one by one manually.
Get Revo Uninstaller Installed in your PC.
3. Recuva:
It is a gem from Piriform (again). We often accidentally delete necessary files, these files can be recovered back by Recuva. It recovers data from your windows machine, external hard drive and SD card. Make sure not to write anything on the device or the drive of the PC which you want to recover from, it may overwrite the deleted files.
Portability is another strength of it. Let’s say you have deleted some files, if you do not have Recuva already installed, to avoid the chance of getting overwritten, you shouldn’t do it now. You can run Recuva from a thumb drive without installing or copying it on the computer.
At some points of time, you must need Recuva, have Recuva before you are in trouble already.
There is another recovery program called PhotoRec which is more powerful and has many more features. But it doesn’t have a graphical interface. It runs on command lines, which makes it very difficult to learn for most of the people.4. IrfanView:
Many file types you come across are not always so easy to open in windows. You need a software that supports hundreds of file types so that any unknown file type can be viewed easily. IrfanView has been serving that purpose for years. Besides viewing, it can convert them, batch process changes and so on.
Get IrfanView. [Windows]
5. MyLockBox:
For hiding and password protecting folders in windows computer. Windows computer hides the folders and contents, but in windows search and in history, they appear if you have not hidden all the content of the folder, and when ‘Show Hidden file’ option is checked, it all appears again. MyLockBox hides and password protects your sensitive content such a way that it doesn’t appear in windows search, and anyways to open a file or folder, it needs a password as well. And it does it all without any encryption of the file, which makes the process faster.
Get MyLockBox here.
TrueCrypt:
If you have very sensitive data to hide, you better consider using a renowned program that uses encryption to hide. TrueCrypt had served this for decades. But unfortunately, on 2014, they declared this service has stopped developing and it is not safe anymore, and encouraged everyone to use Windows BitLocker instead.
TrueCrypt was Open Source, people out there had the opportunity to study the source code and know that whether it is totally safe or there is a backdoor (that means the developers can have your information hidden there). But in the case of BitLocker being Windows product one can’t have a look at the source code, none other than the company knows that whether there are any backdoors to extract your information or not. Being Proprietary software there might be a chance that the government or intelligence agencies have access to that information.
So if you want extreme security, there is no way you can get assured whether BitLoker is the thing for you. You only have to believe the company. Anyways most of you don’t need that kind of security, if all you want is to safeguard the information from others using your computer or from thieves, then BitLocker would be good enough.
Get BitLocker.
Or,
Or,
If you still love the old boss in this domain, you may download TrueCrypt it is still being provided by the developer so that the data previously encrypted with TrueCrypt can be recovered, but you can use it as long as you want knowing that there won’t be any further development.
Get Truecrypt for Windows or For Mac and Linux (Scroll down to the bottom of the page)
Get Truecrypt for Windows or For Mac and Linux (Scroll down to the bottom of the page)
6. YTD Downloader:
Sometimes we like to download our favourite videos from YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook or other similar platforms, to be able to watch it later offline. YTD Downloader allows you to do that. You can even convert the video into other formats or even extract the audio from it. You can download a whole playlist by a single click. For free it allows you to download the highest quality available, yes even in 4K resolution.
4K Video Downloader is another piece of software with very similar potential. It is good to have more than one option.
Get YTD Downloader or 4K Video Downloader.
7. PDFCreator:
PDFCreator basically is a replacement for Adobe Acrobat, it creates a virtual printer on your computer. While trying to print something from any program, it allows you to create a PDF file of it, which can be viewed with any PDF viewer. It helps you many ways, I mostly use it to save a bill, or to convert a web page into PDF format to be able to save it and read it later.
Download PDFCreator.
8. PDF to Word Converter:
Yes, it turns a PDF into a word document, keeping all the texts and images intact.
Download PDF to Word Converter. [Windows]
9. MusicBee:
If you are very serious about listening to music, you love to keep them organised, then MusicBee is the thing for you. It is a great music management and organising system. It provides playlists and tagging features like iTunes. But it went even further, it lets you find, stream and organise podcasts as well. You can sync music with your android devices. This is recommended for Windows because for iTunes for Windows is bulky and sometimes problematic.
Get MusicBee. [Windows, Portable]
It is always better to have alternatives, try Winamp, Media Monkey, iTunes (Apple Users better stick with this one).
10. Steam:
This one is for you, all PC Game lovers. Though you may already know this one, in case you don’t, Steam is most popular gamers’ community and game store on the web; you will find some good games for free; It has a cloud service to store your game data and progress.
Steam Gaming App Official Download Page here.
11. Rainmeter:
This program creates widgets or gadgets on your desktop screen to make it look cool, it basically replaces Windows Gadget, except it is way more functional and super cool. For example, where regular desktop screen allows you only to click on icons, a Rainmeter screen allows you to view weather, calendar, clock, RAM and GPU, write notes, to-do lists, play media player, almost anything you can expect on Desktop screen. There are tonnes of websites, you can download those premade badass looking widgets from. If you spend some time, you can make your Desktop screen stand out than others. You can find many communities where people share their themes, you can use them.
A very cool and creative tool guys, you must have it. Get Rainmeter.
Below are two Rainmeter screens, I found on DevianArt, If you like them, get them- links are in the picture captions.
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| Wisp v2.4.3 for Rainmeter by FiiZzioN |
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| Alice-Reworked for Rainmeter by Mordasius |
12. Calibre:
If you guys love to read books and have got a lot of eBooks, then you got to keep them organised. Calibre is an Open Source eBook Management tool that allows you to organise eBook nicely so that you can find whichever you need pretty easily. Besides that, it has many convenient features like
Downloading news from the web and converting it into an eBook,
Syncing with other devices,
An eBook editor which works with all major format and so on.
Download Calibre eBook Reader. [Windows, Mac, Linux, Portable]
13. FileZilla:
If you ever need to connect to a server via FTP, Filezilla is the program you need. The program has a very intuitive user interface, it is simple, efficient and reliable cross-platform program (well, I do not know much, just get it if you need).
Download FileZilla Client (to transfer files) [Windows, Mac, Linux]
Download FileZilla Server (to make files available for other) [Windows]
14. Resilio Sync:
Resilio Sync, “a fully rebranded BitTorrent Sync descendant”, allows you to sync files between many devices, even if those devices are having different operating systems. It creates a local cloud, so you don’t have to worry about getting your data uploaded to the cloud and somebody being able to access those data. It is probably the shortest and fastest path between your computers.15. Team Viewer:
Team Viewer is probably the best software for remote desktop viewing you can get for free. You can share your desktop and chat from anywhere in this world. This free Piece of software even lets you take control over other PC remotely over a web connection.
Get Team Viewer Here. [Windows, Mac, Linux]
16. CyberGhost VPN:
I don’t know why you want this, but if you want not to be seen while browsing the web, you use a VPN service, and CyberGhost VPN is probably the best among them.Tor Browser:
If you want anonymous surfing, and you don’t think a VPN is enough for you, you should Try Tor Browser.
Install Tor Browser. [Windows, Mac, Linux]
Well, this not my area of expertise, to make it easier I just conclude this-VPN service gives you very much privacy and security, where Tor Browser makes you truly anonymous. Tor Browser has to pass through several computer and servers so the connection will be slow, and it is blocked in many websites. To understand how they work and what exactly they do you may follow these articles below,
I have put lots of effort and time, to study and test them all (almost all), and then document them for you. So I want you to let me know what you think, whether you like the posts, or whether your favourite software is listed or not. If you like my work do share on your favourite social media, it will motivate me to write many more useful article.
And, this blog is not for tech and computer geeks, this post or this series won’t be good enough for you as the information and in some cases, my understanding about those software is inadequate for you.The series helps those who doesn’t have very much interest in geeky stuffs but want to get there job done like my interest lies in only some specific type of software(CAD Packages, Digital painting, and editing software), but not in everything that technology has to offer. The blog may help digital artists, photo or videographers, bloggers or vloggers, and all other people who at least want to be creative and productive. Now, don’t just leave yet, you can help me improving the blog by letting me know about any other software you think is important, or if there is any wrong information anything you think is important, sharing all the stuff you think is important.
Support the blog by reading, commenting and sharing, and support the Open Source and free community as they are working hard to help everyone to get high-quality professional software for free. If you like these article you may love to get email notification when a new article is published, subscribe to the newsletter.
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