Out of all the free apps we have listed, this is what we consider to be the must-have freeware programs for the average PC user. This list only includes a limited range of software that we think will be of interest to the vast majority of home users, regardless of their computer skills.There are many great freeware apps that are not included in this general "Must-have" list, but are part of other lists that are aimed at specific topics.
Detailed listings
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DVDVideoSoft Free Studio Free video and audio conversion tools | 
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Auslogics Disk Defrag Free disk defragmentation tool | 
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Freemake Video Downloader Free download online videos |
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Freemake Video Converter Free video conversion and editing |
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Skype Free make Internet phone calls |
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AllDup Free find duplicate files |
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WordWeb Free English thesaurus and dictionary |
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VLC Media Player (VideoLAN) Free media player and streaming server |
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Calibre Free e-book manager and reader |
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Dropbox Free online backup and synchronization |
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uTorrent Free BitTorrent client |
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EaseUS Todo Backup Free Free backup and restore your system |
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PicPick Free screen capture and image editor |
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Online Armor Free Free personal firewall |
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NirLauncher Free 100+ portable system utilities |
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TrueCrypt Free real-time file encryption |
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SpaceSniffer Free analyze disk space usage |
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Glary Utilities Free Free all-in-one system utilities |
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WinPatrol (Free Edition) Free task and startup manager | 
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CCleaner (Slim) Free remove junk files and Internet traces |
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PeaZip Free archiving and compression utility |
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Google Earth Free interactive satellite maps |
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SUPERAntiSpyware Free Free find and remove adware and spyware |
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Picasa Free image viewer and organizer |
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PDF-XChange Viewer Free View and annotate PDF files |
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MiniTool Partition Wizard (Home) Free manage and resize disk partitions |
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PhotoFiltre Free photo editing and effects |
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FileZilla Free FTP program |
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KeePass Password Safe Free secure password manager |
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Jaangle Free media organizer and player |
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mp3DirectCut Free cut MP3s without decompression |
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Avidemux Free video editor for simple cutting and encoding |
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BullZip PDF Printer Free convert documents to PDF |
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Free Download Manager Free download accelerator and manager |
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Read it Later Free mark pages to read later |
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Photoscape Free photo editing suite |
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Audacity Free audio editor |
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Google Sketchup Free create 3D models of houses and interiors |
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Recuva Free undelete files and folders |
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avast! Free Antivirus Free anti-virus scanner |
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MailStore Home Free backup all your email messages |
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XnView Free Viewer and convert more than 400 image formats |
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Eraser Free secure file deletion |
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Secunia PSI Free patch and update insecure programs |
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JPEG to PDF Free convert most image types to PDF documents |
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Stickies Free sticky notes for your desktop |
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ImgBurn Free CD/DVD/Blu-ray burning |
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Revo Uninstaller Free uninstall and clean-up utility |
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TCPView Free view open TCP connections |
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DiffMerge Free visual file comparison tool |
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WinAudit Free gather system information |
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FastStone Image Viewer Free full featured image viewer |
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Microsoft Security Essentials Free anti-virus and malware protection |
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GFI Backup Home Edition Free backup your files, email and settings |
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FastStone Photo Resizer Free resize and process your images |
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FastCopy Free copy, move and delete files faster |
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OpenOffice Free open source alternative to MS Office |
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Stardock Fences Free organize your desktop into sections |
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HotKeyz Free create Hotkey shortcuts |
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VirusTotal Uploader Free check your files with VirusTotal |
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Everything Free desktop search engine |
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Static Backup8 (Trial)
Smart Photo Import (Trial)
WinKleaner Professional (Trial)
Free QR Creator (Free)
Instant Photo Sketch (Free)
WindowsPager (Free)
Snappy (Free)
Bandicam (Trial)
Supremo Remote Desktop (Free)
DVDVideoSoft Free Studio v5.3.5
by Dvdvideosoft Ltd.
(9)
10
DVDVideoSoft Free Studio combines more than 30 video and audio conversion utilities into a single interface. The program includes conversion tools to download and convert YouTube videos for portable devices (PSP, iPod, iPhone etc... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Auslogics Disk Defrag v3.3.1.2
by Auslogics, Inc.
(22)
6
Auslogics Disk Defrag is a full featured disk defragmentation tool that supports FAT 16, FAT 32, and NTFS volumes. It offers scheduled defrag jobs, automatic defragmentation when your system is idle and a variety of advanced options to... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Freemake Video Downloader v3.0.0.22
by Ellora Assets Corporation
(3)
8
Freemake Video Downloader lets you download video clips from YouTube, Google Video, Facebook, DailyMotion, Hulu, MetaCafe and many similar sites. The program is easy to use, simply paste the URL of the online video and click a button to... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Freemake Video Converter v3.0.1.17
by Ellora Assets Corporation
(22)
10
Freemake Video Converter is a video conversion and editing software to convert between popular video formats, create image slideshows, music visualizations, and more. In addition to straightforward format conversion, the program also... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Skype v5.8.0.156
by Skype Limited
(21)
6
Skype is a user friendly video and text messaging software, that allows you to make free Internet phone and HD video calls to any Skype user, anywhere in the world. The sound quality is as good or even better than regular phones, and... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
AllDup v3.4.0
by Michael Thummerer Software Design
(3)
7AllDup enables you to find duplicate files across one or more folders or drives. You can choose to match files by size, name, date, attributes and byte-by-byte content comparison. You can also configure a variety of settings to exclude... [Read more]
WordWeb v6.75
by WordWeb Software
(13)
6Wordweb is a powerful free English thesaurus and dictionary. It comes with a local database of definitions for instant results and also offers integrated online word searches via Wikipedia, Wiktionary and WordWeb Online. The program... [Read more]
VLC Media Player (VideoLAN) v2.0
by VideoLan.org
(10)
7VLC Media Player is a multimedia player that supports a wide variety of audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, etc.) without the need for additional codecs, as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming... [Read more]
Calibre v0.8.40
by Calibre Open Source Team
(6)
7Calibre is an open source e-book library management application that enables you to manage your e-book collection, convert e-books between different formats, synchronize with popular e-book reader devices, and read your e-books with the... [Read more]
Dropbox v1.2.52
by Dropbox
(4)
6Dropbox enables you to share, backup and synchronize your files through a secure online service. The program creates a special folder (My Dropbox) and all files that are placed in the folder are automatically synchronized with your... [Read more]
uTorrent v3.1.2.26749
by BitTorrent, Inc
(10)
7
uTorrent is an easy to use, yet feature packed BitTorrent client, that enables you to download and manage .torrent files from the web. It features global and per-torrent speed limiting, simultaneous downloads, RSS auto-downloading... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
EaseUS Todo Backup Free v4.0.0.2
by EaseUS
(7)
8EaseUS Todo Backup is a disk imaging tool that enables you to backup, restore or clone your entire hard drive or selected partitions. It enables you to create a complete system backup with all your current applications and settings... [Read more]
PicPick v3.1.2
by Daewoong Moon
(10)
9
PicPick is screen capture application that includes an image editor and several on-screen measurement tools, including color picker, color palette, pixel ruler, protractor, crosshair and more. It allows you to capture the entire... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Online Armor Free v5.5.0.1557
by Emsi Software Gmbh
(4)
6Online Armor Free is a personal firewall that protects you from hackers, malicious programs and identity theft. It features a self-learning rule engine that automatically configures firewall rules based on the programs you are currently... [Read more]
NirLauncher v1.11.44
by NirSoft
(2)
8NirLauncher is a package of more than 100 portable freeware utilities developed by Nirsoft. The popular Nirsoft utilities (many of them listed separately on SnapFiles) include networking tools, password recovery tools, privacy cleaners... [Read more]
TrueCrypt v7.1a
by TrueCrypt Foundation
(37)
8TrueCrypt is an open-source encryption software that enables you to create a virtual encrypted disk within a file and mount it as a virtual drive, that can be accessed via a drive letter. Any file that is stored on this virtual drive is... [Read more]
SpaceSniffer v1.1.4.0
by Umberto Uderzo
(3)
6SpaceSniffer analyzes a selected hard drive and presents you with a dynamic disk map that makes it easy to spot files and folder that take up most of your space. You can review the map in real-time while the application is scanning, and... [Read more]
Glary Utilities Free v2.42.0.1389
by Glarysoft Ltd.
(14)
9Glary Utilities Free is an all-in-one package that includes a variety of system tools to help you clean your PC from junk files, remove Internet traces, find invalid registry entries, manage startup programs, optimize system memory... [Read more]
WinPatrol (Free Edition) v24.1.2012
by BillP Studios
(15)
6WinPatrol allows you to get a better understanding of what programs are being added to your computer. It monitors important system areas that are often altered by malicious programs and alerts you if it detects any changes. This... [Read more]
CCleaner (Slim) v3.15.1643
by Piriform Ltd.
(71)
8CCleaner is a tool to clean your system from temporary and unnecessary files that accumulate over time. This also includes rather thorough cleaning of Internet and PC usage tracks like browser cache, recently used files, web sites... [Read more]
PeaZip v4.4
by Giorgio Tani
(6)
6
PeaZip is an open source archiving and compression utility that supports a wide variety of compression formats. It lets you create 7Z, ARC, BZ2, GZ, PAQ/ZPAQ, PEA, QUAD/BALZ, TAR, UPX and ZIP archives and allows you to open and extract... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Google Earth v6.2
by Google, Inc.
(14)
6Google Earth allows you to view global imagery and other geographic information right on your desktop. Just type in the address or location, and watch the interactive 3D navigate to that location, zooming in to street level (you can... [Read more]
SUPERAntiSpyware Free v5.0.1144
by SUPERAntiSpyware.com
(51)
9SUPERAntiSpyware scans your computer for known Spyware, Adware, Malware, Trojans, Dialers, Worms, KeyLoggers, HiJackers and many other types of threats, and allows you to remove or quarantine them. It offers daily (manual) definition... [Read more]
Picasa v3.9.135.83
by Google, Inc.
(18)
7Picasa is a powerful, yet easy to use and attractive tools suite to manage and organize your digital images and photos. It offers one simple place to organize, edit, and share your pictures. After installing, the software can... [Read more]
PDF-XChange Viewer v2.5.201
by Tracker Software Products Ltd
(36)
8
PDF-XChange Viewer is an alternative viewer for PDF files that enables you to view and annotate PDF files. You can add text, sticky notes, and other annotations and save them to the file, which will be compatible with the standard Adobe... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
MiniTool Partition Wizard (Home) v7.1
by MT Solution Ltd.
(4)
9MiniTool Partition Wizard (Home) enables you to configure and manage disk partitions on your hard drive(s). You can easily resize, move, delete or format selected partitions. In case you don`t have enough free disk space to create a new... [Read more]
PhotoFiltre v7.0.0
by Antonio Da Cruz
(68)
10PhotoFiltre is a complete image editing and effects package, that will not only surprise you with features but also with the fact that it is free (for personal use). It comes with many features that rival some commercial packages, as... [Read more]
FileZilla v3.5.3
by Tim Kosse (Open Source)
(34)
6FileZilla is powerful Open Source FTP/SFTP client with many features. It includes a site manager to store all your connection details and logins as well as an Explorer style interface that shows the local and remote folders and can be... [Read more]
KeePass Password Safe v2.18
by Dominik Reichl
(6)
6KeePass Password Safe is a secure password manager that allows you to store your sensitive login information in an encrypted database. It allows you to organize your entries into categories and offers several ways to conveniently enter... [Read more]
Jaangle v0.98g
by Artificial Spirit
(18)
10Jaangle is a media player and organizer that stands out of the crowd with a very user friendly interface and easy access to some of the most popular features such as cover downloads, lyrics retrieval, artist bio, personal ratings and... [Read more]
mp3DirectCut v2.15
by Martin Pesch
(15)
9mp3DirectCut is a small and efficient tool for non-destructive cut, copy and paste editing of your MP3 files. You can trim portions of the file, make multiple cuts, change volume, normalize, fade and more. All operations can be... [Read more]
Avidemux v2.5.6
by Mean
(10)
7Avidemux is a video editor for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many popular file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 (iPod) and ASF, using a variety of codecs that come included with the... [Read more]
BullZip PDF Printer v7.2.0.1338
by BullZip
(21)
8BullZip PDF Printer is a virtual printer driver that enables you to convert any printable document or image to PDF format. It works with all applications that offer a Print option, simple select the newly added BullZip PDF Printer... [Read more]
Free Download Manager v3.8
by FreeDownloadManager.ORG
(25)
8Free Download Manager is a powerful download manager with tons of features that help you organize, schedule and speed-up your Internet file downloads. You can choose between 3 different speed modes, either use maximum bandwidth or... [Read more]
Read it Later v2.1.4
by the Idea Shower
(1)
5Read it Later is a handy Firefox extension that enables you save links to interesting websites that you have come across, without littering your bookmarks with nonessential items. The program offers two new toolbar buttons and a... [Read more]
Photoscape v3.6
by Mooii
(15)
9
PhotoScape is a complete photo editing suite that includes image browsing/viewing, photo editing, picture page printing, photo resizing and renaming, and even RAW conversion. The photo editor includes standard editing features as well... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Audacity v1.3.14 beta
by Audacity Dev
(35)
8Audacity is a free audio editor. You can record sounds, play sounds, import and export WAV, AIFF, and MP3 files, and more. Use it to edit your sounds using Cut, Copy and Paste (with unlimited Undo), mix tracks together, or apply effects... [Read more]
Google Sketchup v8.0.11752
by Google, Inc.
(4)
6Google Sketchup is an easy-to-use 3D modeling software that enables you to create 3D models of houses, buildings and many other objects, using an array of drag and drop tools and materials in a WYSIWYG editing environment. You can... [Read more]
Recuva v1.42.544
by Piriform Ltd.
(28)
10Recuva is a file recovery tool that enables you to scan your hard drive(s) or media cards for files that have been deleted or formatted. It presents you with a list of files that were found, along with an assessment of their recovery... [Read more]
avast! Free Antivirus v6.0.1367
by ALWIL Software
(149)
10
avast! Free Antivirus is a complete anti-virus package, that is is free for registered home non-commercial users.
It contains an on-demand scanner with two interfaces (simple for novices and advanced for experienced users), an... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
MailStore Home v5.0.1.6919
by Deepinvent Software Gmbh
(8)
6MailStore Home enables you to backup all your email messages, even from multiple applications, into one persistent and safe archive. You can import your mail from Outlook, Windows Mail, Outlook Express, Thunderbird, Exchange, as well as... [Read more]
XnView v1.98.5
by Gougelet Pierre
(19)
6XnView is a program for viewing and converting your graphics files. It supports more than 400 graphics formats and offers many additional features. You can apply filters and effects to your images, import from a twain source (scanner... [Read more]
Eraser v6.0.9.2343
by Heidi Computers Ltd.
(20)
8Eraser is a secure file deletion tool that allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with sophisticated patterns (Gutman, USDoD and others). You can simply drag and drop files... [Read more]
Secunia PSI v2.0.0.4003
by Secunia
(10)
6Secunia PSI (Personal Software Inspector) scans your computer for seriously outdated software products that have been discontinued or require critical security updates from the vendor. The program can recognize almost 30,000 software... [Read more]
JPEG to PDF v3.7
by Jesse Yeager
6JPEG to PDF enables you to convert JPG and other popular image formats to PDF files. You can choose one or more images and either combine them into a single PDF file or output multiple PDF documents - one for each image. The program can... [Read more]
Stickies v7.1b
by Zhorn Software
(14)
6Stickies is a virtual post-it notes program that allows you to place sticky notes on your desktop, which will remain where placed until closed - even across reboots. The appearance of the sticky notes can be customized in color, font... [Read more]
ImgBurn v2.5.6.0
by LIGHTNING UK!
(18)
6
ImgBurn enables you to burn most types of DVD/CD/Blu-ray images, including .iso, .nrg, .bin, .img and others. The program offers direct support for many of the latest CD/DVD writers. In addition to writing of images, you can also use... [Read more]
Offers to install promotional, third party components (e.g. browser toolbar).
Revo Uninstaller v1.93
by Vs Revo Group
(34)
8Revo Uninstaller is an uninstall utility that includes additional system clean-up tools. It provides an alternate interface for the Windows Add/Remove software dialog that offers web search options, access to registry keys and some... [Read more]
TCPView v3.0.5
by Sysinternals (Microsoft)
(3)
6TCPView will show you a detailed listings of all TCP and UDP endpoints on your system in real-time, including the remote address and state of TCP connections as well as the application or process that is using the connection. The... [Read more]
DiffMerge v3.3.1
by SourceGear
6DiffMerge is a file comparison tool that shows the differences between two or three text files in a graphical side-by-side view. You can easily spot the parts that are different and choose to edit or merge them directly from inside the... [Read more]
WinAudit v2.29
by Parmavex Services
(8)
8WinAudit allows you to perform a detailed audit of the hardware and software configuration of your computer. The resulting audit report contains details on installed software, license information, peripherals, memory usage, processor... [Read more]
FastStone Image Viewer v4.6
by Faststone Soft
(44)
6FastStone Image Viewer is an image browser, viewer converter and editor with an easy to use interface and a nice array of features, that include resizing, renaming, cropping, color adjustments, watermarks and more. It also includes an... [Read more]
Microsoft Security Essentials v2.1
by Microsoft Corp.
(15)
9Microsoft Security Essentials provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software. The product replaces Windows Defender for malware protection and adds additional... [Read more]
GFI Backup Home Edition v4.0 Build 20110415
by GFI Software Ltd.
(6)
6GFI Backup is a complete solution to create backups of all your important documents, pictures, emails, settings and more. It offers an easy to use step-by-step interface that allows you to configure your backups with options that are... [Read more]
FastStone Photo Resizer v3.1
by Faststone Soft
(15)
9FastStone Photo Resizer is an image processing tool, that offers smart image resizing, as well as various other features, including watermarking (text or image overlay), cropping, (batch)renaming, image rotation, color adjustments... [Read more]
FastCopy v2.08
by H. Shirouzu
(1)
6FastCopy provides a faster way to copy, move or delete large numbers of files. It automatically selects an optimized method depending on whether the Source and Destination directory are on the same or different hard drives, and performs... [Read more]
OpenOffice v3.3.0
by Oracle
(30)
6OpenOffice is a free, Open Source alternative to MS Office with a Word compatible word processor, a complete Excel compatible spread sheet program and a Power Point like presentation software and drawing program and also allows to... [Read more]
Stardock Fences v1.01.143
by Stardock Systems
(5)
6Fences enables you to organize your desktop by setting visual boundaries for your desktop icons. The default settings will organize your desktop icons by type (Programs, Web Links, Documents etc.) but you can easily customize the layout... [Read more]
HotKeyz v2.8.3.0
by Skynergy
(2)
6HotKeyz is an easy to use shortcut utility that enables you to create keyboard hotkeys to launch programs, maximize/minimize windows, mute or adjust your speaker volume, reboot your PC, send keystrokes, change your desktop wallpaper... [Read more]
VirusTotal Uploader v2.0
by Hispasec Sistemas
(2)
6VirusTotal Uploader enables you to upload a file to the popular VirusTotal service and scan it with 40 leading Anti-Virus products including Norton, McAfee, Avast, AVG and many others. You can then review a report that includes the scan... [Read more]
Everything v1.2.1.371
by David Carpenter
(12)
6Everything is a desktop search engine that enables you to find files and folders instantly by simply typing the name or part of it. It can index your entire computer in a matter of seconds and automatically keeps the index up-to-date... [Read more]
