Software can be expensive, but free programs have been a mainstay of the desktop experience for decades, and today’s free offerings are more powerful than ever. You can find a great variety of no-cost audio and video editors, office suites, file utilities, organizers, photo converters, and more. To keep things free, software developers can adopt an ad-based model, create donation-ware, or use a shareware/freemium model that charges for extra features. Thankfully, many just make their software open source, out of a desire to help everyone.
To be included in this roundup, software must be available directly from the developer/creator/original publisher. It should (typically) have a Windows-based download—we’re not including browser extensions, because we’re not all using the same browser. However, we’ve included web-based apps that are as good as—or even better than—most downloadable programs.
More requirements for inclusion here: If the software is on a tiered sales model, the free version cannot be trial-ware; it must offer at least a free-for-life option. Preferably, the program has had an update in the last year or two and should have little or no advertising to support it. Finally, this list is about software for productivity; there are plenty of other places to find free PC games.
Always be on the lookout for bloatware installers: To make ends meet, many software creators (or the services that offer free programs for download) bundle in things you don’t want—i.e., bloatware. Worse, the installation steps are often obfuscated, so you might unintentionally provide the unwanted program with permission to be installed. For more about how to spot and avoid this problem, read How to Remove Bloatware From Your New PC.