55 Most Useful FREE SOFTWARE Everyone Should Know!

These are the most useful free software ever presented… Over the last several years we’ve tested more than a hundred free programs and offered recommendations that we thought could be helpful to people in their lives. So, coming up in the compilation, I’ll show you more than 50 free software along with other free programs in alphabetical order that we think are the most useful. Many of which are available for Windows, Mac, and Linux.
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0:00 Intro
0:32 Digital Audio Editor
1:05 Antivirus
1:30 Password Manager
2:13 System Cleaner
3:59 3D Graphics Software
4:29 Web Browser
5:39 System Information Software
6:27 Photo Post-Processing Program
6:50 Video Editor
7:13 DNS Benchmark
7:34 Search Utility
8:06 Web Browser
8:34 Turns Photos Into Art
9:24 Image Manipulation Program
10:11 System Cleaner
11:17 3D Interactive Globe
13:15 Screenshot Tool
14:36 Video Converter
16:09 Hardware Analysis, Monitoring
16:42 Image Viewer
17:21 Vector Graphics Editor
18:03 Video Editor
18:44 Media Player
19:46 Painting Program
20:36 Office Suite
21:08 Operating System Software
21:58 Digital Audio Workstation
22:35 Digital Security
23:02 Media Player
23:30 DJ Mixing Software
24:27 Image Viewer
25:26 Screen Recorder
26:06 Video Editor
26:50 Office Suite
27:36 Video Editor
28:57 Media Server
29:56 Media Player
30:48 Virtual Private Network
31:28 BitTorrent Client
32:25 Software Uninstaller
33:05 Create Boot Drive Utility
35:02 Desktop Publishing Software
35:24 File Archiver
36:12 Screen Capture Tool
37:07 Video Editor
37:43 Media Player
38:36 Planetarium Software
39:03 Text Editor
39:53 PDF Image Viewer
40:22 Email Client
41:22 Web Browser
42:11 Disk Encryption Software
42:36 Virtualization Software
43:07 Source-Code Editor
44:09 Web Browser
45:27 Media Player
45:53 Lesser-Known Browser
46:53 Photo Viewer
ALL FREE SOFTWARE MENTIONED ARE LISTED IN THE RECAP AT THE END OF THIS VIDEO… In other words, just skip to the end if you don’t need context ;)
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Brett In Tech is a leading source for the technology that we use each day. Whether it’s discussing operating system tricks, useful websites, or letting you know about the most useful free software for your computer, Brett In Tech has boundless topics on technology for the astute KZbin viewer.

[@BrettInTech]

ALL SOFTWARE MENTIONED IS LISTED IN THE “RECAP” NEAR THE END OF THE VIDEO. Because this is a compilation, the appearance of some of the programs may look different now… Thanks for watching and have FUN!

[@light9581]

hello, are there app for translating doc or txt mac or windows that can translating around 20 mb file, I only know discord bot, please share if you know

[@Bateman0983]

I would argue a few of your options here are not the best. Kodi is a bit heavy as just a media player, which makes sense as it was designed for htpc's. Emby, plex, or jellyfin are better if you need to play elsewhere like smart tv's, otherwise vlc or mpc are better for local files. Also, irfanview works better for photo viewing (and minor edits like crops).

[@stephen.jenkins.gospel]

The time marks in the description only list the categories or type of software in each section of the video. It does not lists the actual names of each individual piece of software covered here. We need that. Bummer

[@nevemlaci2486]

​@@light9581google translate can import docx files:)

[@davidwbrown66]

Great service you're doing, greatly appreciated. Just discovered, just subscribed. As one of the other responses to this post asks, I also would have really appreciated an actual text list of all the apps with the links. For some of your shorter playlists of 5-10 apps, typing in each on isn't a bother, but for a longer list like this it would be really helpful. As an example, for this I copied & pasted the time list or chapter list into excel so I could save it and peruse later,then spent a coupl minutes removing the times at the beginning, any residual leading spaces, etc, then and actually read the list to realize the text was a list of the apps at all, general descriptions. But, still definitely appreciated.

[@rltidd27]

Once again, great video! I never miss one of your releases. You have provided me lots of help over the years. Keep up the great work!

[@HonestWatchReviewsHWR]

Having all of these in one place/video is so useful, thanks. I'll be saving this one for future reference and to help family and friends. I already use a lot of these, but didn't know about 'Everthing' that's SO much better than Microsoft's search as you said. I've just installed and tried it out now. It saves SO much time.

[@KingOMiami]

EPIC list! Thank you very much! I have been several of the programs for years and looking to try out several more thanks to this video!

[@stuartwaldrip9280]

Great information, as always. This channel has been invaluable to my pc learning journey.

[@nycrsny3406]

Great video!! Found some useful apps I didn't know about. Thanks for this, can't begin to imagine the crazy amount of work that must've gone into making this video.

[@Reliableman1]

I just like to take a moment to thank you so much for this software information. You have made my life a whole lot easier! Love you guys keep up the great work!

[@jimholloman4457]

Very useful video that is of excellent quality and detail. The dialog is very clear. No annoying background noise or music. GOOD JOB!

[@Daithai96]

Fantastic video. You've saved me months of trial & error. Already using a number of the apps, but a fair few I've never heard of that look excellent.

[@DavidFraser007]

That was a large extensive list with lots of detail. Thanks for uploading.

[@AmazingPhilippines1]

i always look forward to your informative videos and now use several of these programs recommended in previous videos. Thanks.

[@infocyde2024]

Great resource, a few I hadn't heard of and a few I needed to be reminded of. Thanks.

[@richh650]

I had to jump on to say thank you for this video. I use some of these programs already, but you had a great lineup of programs I will want to try. I would think this video should be a, must watch, for all users. Thank you!

[@faraalrafi2130]

Love your useful video. Good job man. These types of videos are very useful. 🙂

[@JustinConnolly]

Thanks for making this. While this lists several software that I know and love, you introduced me to big handful of new ones, and options to other software that I use now. Love open source.

[@tomoesan6179]

I Save It 💾💾💾

[@realkoko-loco]

"Everything" is the most useful piece of Windows software I've encountered in 30 years. I could not do my job without it.

[@TheTastefulThickness]

Shows how bad windows is lol

[@Albert_206]

Could not agree more, First application I install after a fresh Win install :-)

[@Eggon]

Me too!

[@Equality7-2521]

30 Years of MS Windows! I admire your persistence, I stop using it 29 years ago.

[@gordoncottrell4036]

I second the mention of Faststone image viewer / editor. I use its editing functions most of the time instead of Photoshop due to its simplicity. It will also make stand alone executable slide shows. Very powerful and FREE!

[@tonybarfridge4369]

I always used Irfanview which does have limits and doesn't work properly anymore, and I now use Faststone by default which is great and also shows folder thumbnail views plus some editing features. Won't remove watermarks that I know of. Don't know if it can do screen captures and saving images from PDF, but I still use IV for that.

[@JC-wh7jj]

I've been using it for many years too - it's fast, simple, and has some important for me features like hold left mouse button to zoom the image at 100% and pan around it to see all the detail.

[@nakedeye44]

I appreciate the effort, and I'll definitely be trying some of these.

[@sauletto1]

This is a very useful video that covers a wide array of key software . Thank you for this !

[@avejst]

Great overview Thanks for sharing your big work :-)

[@KeithBoehler]

I am more of a Linux guy, but it is neat that you mention some FOSS that is also for Windows and macOS. FOSS really is for everyone.

[@thurm101]

This video was amazing. Ive been away from the computer scene for awhile. This video has brought me back. Thank you

[@antonnym214]

Excellent reporting. Thank you! I rely mainly on the built-in Windows Defender for my antivirus, but whenever I get suspicious or want to double-check my system, I really like TrendMicro Housecall. Bitdefender looks good, and I'll definitely give that a try. You are correct about Everything! It's a must-have. Also, I highly, highly recommend Lockhunter. Sometimes Windows won't let go of a file and you have to force it. Lockhunter is free and integrates to your file system so it appears on the context menus in file manager.

[@MrSwan4us]

I am just plain Happy I ran across this video. Truly well done and informative. Thank You !

[@bobhakes1247]

Geat information here as always!! Thx👏👏👏😀😀

[@redstone51]

I believe this is the best video on YT yet!!!🙏👌

[@busterj11776]

excellent work, as usual, thanks for the hard work

[@jamiethomas3122]

good list! I had about 40 of these already, but the OBS screen recorder was golden. Thanks!

[@sapelesteve]

👍👍Terrific video TG & another one to send to friends & bookmark! 👍👍

[@garrycation]

Awesome stuff man. Thank you!

[@geoffphil]

Thanks again for your research and excellent video. With regard to video players, I like to use spacebar to pause/play (like KZbin). This was very fiddly with VLC, requiring an addon, which no longer works. Pot player allowed this customisation, but the first 2 seconds of audio is muted on all videos! So, I now use SM Player, which is neat and simple and allows custom keyboard shortcuts.

[@ericmollison2760]

Yeah you have to click the empty black space to control it with the keyboard (vlc i mean). Maybe you haven't learned that. Never heard of an addon for that. As long as the black space is selected (or video if it's a video), you can use cursor keys to go back and forth and adjust volume and spacebar to pause. But you don't always know if it's selected so it's finicky as you say.

[@geoffphil]

@@ericmollison2760 Thanks for that!

[@AG_before]

I feel like I should be paying for this! Thank you so much. 💯

[@vemacrinnon1286]

What a brilliant video. Thank you so much! I liked and subbed. :)

[@sexysensation]

Great additions, thank you as always

[@amazingbollweevil]

You REALLY need to include Faststone Image Viewer. It's an outstanding image viewer with lots of features. My favorite is the ability to create photo proof sheets in PDF format.

[@reevus2558]

photo proof sheets ? wtf

[@amazingbollweevil]

@@reevus2558 Yup, just like the olden days. A lot of older clients preferred that so they could quickly scan through a lot of images and identify the ones that stood out. Faststone also does image strips.

[@dommarteo727]

irfan view sent memories...

[@delinquense]

Agreed. It is amazingly useful and a great time saver.

[@markmanning8832]

I own the FastStone Image Viewer and the FastStone Screen Capture program. I have sent in several enhancement requests and almost all of them were honored. He really does listen to what people have to say and has produced the best Screen Capture program that I know. If you left-single-click in the upper left corner of the FastStone toolbar where the small image is located, you can see a drop-down menu which includes the Preferences. If you then look at what all FastStone Screen Capture comes with you will see about twenty different selections that you can put onto the taskbar that comes up when you use it. This also incudes being able to do screen recordings which are great. FastStone is the ONLY Screen Capture program I use. A company I was working for used it and I looked at it and just went "Wow!" and THAT was quite a while ago. :-)

[@ebubechiibegbula5968]

Thank you so much , this goes a long way helping us developing countries

[@wm973]

Thank you. I've started using Brave and it is outstanding!

[@azonicin]

Thanks a lot for providing such useful software names and their details. I have tested Everything now and it's really wonderful.

[@luckyone1413]

Good video. I know a lot of the classics but many thanks for mixxx and nomacs.

[@londoeblack]

Three thumbs up! Great video. Thanks!

[@jeremyessjr]

This was delightsomely helpful! With all sincerity, thank you! Thank you for taking the time to stream all of these free resources into a single video. This video was indeed very useful for me. * I look forward to future installments 🙂

[@michaelheely]

Thx you for the suggestions. May I introduce screenpresso as screenshot tool ?

[@mygisable]

Thanks a lot, a very useful video. Short and sweet descriptions. My quest will be over though when I will find a really good open source pdf editor that can really edit the documents. Thanks again.

[@paulclayton9160]

I know your pain, am also seeking. Open Office Draw does an average job. Inkscape can do some editing but also problematic.

[@brianburke3665]

Thank you Thank you Thank you! You do a great job with these updates and I think alot of people, myself included, appreciate you!

[@212-3]

DNS Benchmark was very useful, made me switch to Cloudfare because I found out it's much faster than the DNS my ISP was providing

[@wrathchildmateus2167]

Amazing work as always. You could do one about really free apps on Android.

[@markmanning8832]

@26:10 - 7-zip. May I suggest using "Add to archive" FIRST, and create a TAR file. THEN select 7-zip again and then select either the 7z or ZIP file format. Why? Because the way both the 7z and ZIP file formats work is they build a table of each file separately thus, this table is being rebuilt for every-single-file. BUT! If you combine all files into a TAR file (A Tape Archive File) and then 7z/ZIP the TAR file - you get just one of those tables which reduces the resulting file size even more. (A TAR file is just like if you put everything onto a tape drive. So it is one file followed by another through the entire TAR file but the result is one big file.) Just a FYI for everyone. Great video by the way. I've already downloaded and tried most of the video and audio programs however MIXXX has been trying to load two music files for over an hour. Not looking good for MIXXX. (Rinsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade and Mr. Magoo's 'All Alone in the World' BTW)

[@arxaaron]

Nice list with concise descriptions. Hits most all of the invaluable Free Liberated Open Source Softwares that I have installed on all my Linux and (older) Mac systems. Thanks for putting this out there! A great reminder for everyone to FLOSS daily!

[@erniemiller1953]

Also, Bleachbit, and a hammer, can keep you from being indicted for treason.

[@warriorprincessharmony]

😂😂😂

[@babesbubba4102]

Speaking from impact experience?

[@MorrWorm8]

Facts!

[@rustdesk09]

Unfortunately 😢

[@joaquingiles88]

😂😂

[@Mally56ytube]

Excellent Video Thanks for taking the time and effort to put it together

[@DrinkingStar]

Fantastic video....Thanks and a BIG THUMBS UP

[@frederikheymans]

Thanks for great advice! Seems, thought, that Bitwarden does not allow for the import of MicrosoftAutofill csv file?

[@mastersudo]

This video is so helpful and has lots of software information. Thank you.

[@madcat2891]

Thanks for a great list of free software.

[@ranua9327]

Very interesting video... and comments! Thank you everybody!

[@MargueriteFairProductions]

Thank you for sharing this, you rock.

[@Ridethebomb777]

A real time saver ..... many thanks !

[@stjohns0]

Great info, thanks! Can you recommend a good disk drive JPG duplicate finder?

[@guysabol8743]

I worked for America on Line, not AOL. 1995~~96. They had listing of all free DLs available at that time. It was Ok, good. Your new type listing is one giant step forward. many thanks

[@RealUKUndergroundHipHop]

AMAZING VIDEO! You gave so many amazing apps that I thought that would never be free! Thanks

[@leadlearner6391]

awesome video, with a fantastic collection of software :-)

[@TamsosPadaras]

I just improved my collection of software :) Thank you for this video

[@lion-vaiber]

What a great video , thank you for the great efforts

[@Video-Tutoriales]

Thank you so much. There are programs that I didn't know about

[@zenderiangaming259]

Also include easy2boot as alternative for rufus. It allows you to create a bootable usb with multiple ISOs (as many as you like) and creates 2 partitions, 1 for legacy boot and 1 for uefi boot. It also loads current activity into the system RAM so that when a process is busy like cloning or benchmarking ect the usb can be removed and used elsware until the process is done. I have a easy2boot drive loaded with a Strelec WinPE boot environment loaded with usefull tools, different windows install ISOs and just general tools that can be used on a customsers boot installation, all on 1 usb drive

[@adispenser]

i would recommend ventoy instead

[@mar-tin702]

Ventoy left the universe

[@ROCKVIDEOMONTHLY]

Ventoy is still showing for me; last version update was on 04/05/2023

[@VenkatachalamRavindran]

Wonderful compilation of free software. Thank you

[@greenypops]

Thank you for a really useful video. 👍

[@Im1CrazyCow]

Awesome Job Young Man !!!

[@AbhishekKumar-mk5yg]

Amazing bro thank for the efforts

[@jasontrofern4018]

I have watched several free program videos and this is the best so far.

[@michaeltodd2012]

Great compilation, thanks!

[@jps99]

Great suggestions!

[@ShriSanjay]

Well format factory is the one of the best media converter since last 10 years and is still good and provide a feature that no one other software do

[@uservns-ys3py]

PDF Sam basic is also a FOSS for splitting, joining pdf files with option for retaining or creating pdf bookmarks. No bookmarks, no usage limits.

[@Proditae]

Thank you, pretty useful!

[@andymouse]

Invaluable...cheers.

[@pupstudio]

1 helluva fantastic helpful video!! Thank you Thank you Thank you!!!!

[@bellissimo4520]

Great video, thanks a lot!

[@Chanel.Mckenzie]

This was delightsomely helpful! With all sincerity, thank you! Thank you for taking the time to stream all of these free resources into a single video. This video was indeed very useful for me. * I look forward to future installments

[@alteans]

Most excellent collection😁

[@inovade]

you dont add irfan view? it's very lightweigt image viewer, i used it for years by now btw do you know any file manager with tag? i only need to be able to manage my file, for example if i tag "favorite", i can only see those with favorite tag.

[@Sohailali1]

I remember using audacity a long long long time ago. I thought it looked so remedial but man it did the job

[@dlukton]

Yeah, I like to download audio files from KZbin, and then use Audacity to extract out the sections that I particularly want to listen to.

[@marcdraco2189]

Blender doesn't so much have a learning curve more of a Sisyphean cliff edge. It's great when you get it though and the UI is way. better than it used to be.

[@ericmollison2760]

I am only a little familiar with it because I learned besides animations, actual cool games were made with it so I started watching tutorials. I feel like that feature (a physics engine that can be programmed to make a game) deserves more attention. It occurs to me I still know basically nothing about blender.

[@amirhumza]

very informative and useful video. thank you very much for your hard work and fabulous precise and brief presentation. Love from Pakistan

[@soundtaxiproject]

Thank You for this software summary... Digital Artist Studio 👍

[@mmistudio8661]

Ghisler's Total Commander - awesome!

[@DCJNewsMedia]

New sub. Great job. I ❤️ it God bless you and your family

[@uservns-ys3py]

Calibre is a great FOSS for reading, converting, indexing epub, pdf, kindle etc format books on your PC for use on any of your other devices.

[@billj5645]

this is an amazing list- Here are some programs I like: fast stone viewer, coretemp, tree size free, and I like to use a tree-based information manager. Questions- is there a good free calculator? is there a good free duplicate file cleaner? is there a free pdf editor?

[@BrassMedic]

Check out CC Cleaner Free

[@11ahab]

Have you tried Google Docs

[@TheAnimeist]

Missing: MuseScore - Edit music using musical notation, midi output WinMerge - A directory/file comparator Maybe belongs in another category: Lazarus - Cross platform development tool - great for Windows applications GNU Octave - Math Works clone LT Spice - Analog simulator OpenRocket - Model rocket design

[@jayyh_01]

there are many better free options than musescore.. havent touched musescore since i was 16

[@TheAnimeist]

@@jayyh_01 Do you have any examples of what is better than MuseScore? And what does your age have to do with it?

[@jayyh_01]

@@TheAnimeist well most daws come WITH piano roll and notarion literally included. lmms is the best option youll get. and the facr i havent found any usecase for musescore since SCHOOL, says something.

[@OLIV3R_YT]

WinMerge 👍

[@telenikros]

the Handbrake Video Codec, if you have a Nvidia GPU you shold change that from h.264 to h.264(nvidia) it uses the GPU a lot more

[@user-ne6gu4yi4r]

Great infomation!

[@chi-hsianghsu8723]

Can you introduce open source statistical analysis software and project management software next time?

[@ardeladimwit]

this was very useful--thanks

[@technoWZ5598]

I use pretty much all the software you mentioned in this video!

[@GrantLairdJr88]

Can you do part 2? Is there any good free source program like notepad, converter (ppt to video for example) and multi screen/monitor management and few others?

[@thomascros-gf3br]

For information, ppt can be saved as video format.

[@gregmckay666]

DSyncronize is a great, free lightweight program to real-time sync files across multiple drives or computer-to-computer.

[@B_r_u_c_e]

Thank you. Something for managing contacts?

[@luisescobar7368]

Any alternatives to Dropbox? How about alternatives for Technical Drawing? Thanks

[@AlDunbar]

55 seemed at first to be way too many, and there are obvious functional overlaps. But the brief descriptions highlight some of the significant weaknesses and strengths of otherwise similar programs.