Many of the PC programs that are currently sold are offered through subscription services. You must renew them monthly or annually. Examples include Microsoft Office and Adobe Photoshop. Luckily, the ecosystem of PC applications is not just limited to these monetization models. There are still many open-source or freeware programs that you can use for free.
Next, we review some of the best free programs that you can find for Windows and other systems. We are talking about:
- Tools for emergency hard drive deletion,
- Removing watermarks from videos,
- An MS-DOS emulator and many other interesting utilities.
15 Free PC Software You Should Try
Antimicro
A graphical interface with which you can map the keyboard and mouse to a gamepad or video game controller. Useful for PC games that don’t support gamepads natively. | Download from Source Forge (Alternative: Download source code from GitHub )
Ant Renamer
A free and open-source tool that makes it easy to bulk rename multiple files and folders at once. | Download from its official website
Darik’s Boot and Nuke
Also known as “DBAN,” this is a bootable image that securely erases the hard drives of most PCs. Recommended for mass data destruction and emergency wipes. Notice: Not compatible with SSD drives. | Download from its official website
ChromePass
Application to recover passwords in Windows. Allows you to view the users and passwords stored in the Google Chrome browser. | Download from its official website
YUMI – Multiboot USB Creator
A tool that allows you to create self-booting USB flash drives with multiple systems or ISO images. Perfect for installing a portable version of Linux on a single flash drive together with a Windows installer, antivirus tools, disk cloning, etc. | Download from its official website
Krita
Free drawing program with many advanced tools. One of the best apps for illustrators, animators, and concept artists. | Download from its official website
CamStudio Portable
Open-source application to record the PC screen in video and audio. The portable version does not require installation. | Download from the PortableApps website
Wi-Fi password revealer
Show all Wi-Fi passwords stored on a Windows PC. Be careful. It only shows the passwords of the Wi-Fi networks to which you have previously connected. Very useful for those moments you have forgotten a Wi-Fi password you previously used. | Download from its official website
Falkon
A web browser that works in a portable way. You don’t have to install it on a PC. A lightweight browser with some interesting features that use the QtWebEngine rendering engine. | Download from its official website
fre:ac
Free tool to extract audio from music CDs. It also works as an audio converter supporting most formats and encoders. | Download from its official website
AutoDrum Portable
Application for musicians with which you can create automated drum rhythms. Suitable for practice or live sessions. It has 13 predefined rhythms and the possibility of creating your own personalized rhythms. | Download from PortableApps
AbiWord
Free word processor similar to Microsoft Word. Compatible with:
- Word,
- OpenOffice,
- WordPerfect,
- RTF, and HTML documents.
Currently available only for Linux. | Download from its official website
DOSBox
MS-DOS emulator. This program emulates an Intel x86 PC with sound, graphics, mouse, and more. It allows you to run many classic MS-DOS games. | Download from its official website
PortableApps.com Launcher
An application that allows you to convert any program to a portable format without using code. | Download from its official website
Balabolka
A tool that converts text into audio (Text-To-Speech) that you can save in WAV or MP3 format. The program can read content from:
- Notepad,
- DOC files,
- EPUB,
- PDF,
- HTML, and other formats.
