The Editors' Choice List: Our Selection of the Best PC Freeware

Welcome to the editors' choice list, where you'll find a collection of the best free software on our site. Many of the software products on this list won the coveted "Gizmo's Top Pick" award.

You'll find only the best free software products here, many as good as or better than their commercial counterparts. Our choices include a broad selection of must have free programs, exquisitely rare freeware treasures, reliably effective freeware, and editor freeware favorites.

To get into this list a product must have done more than win a Gizmo's Freeware award; it must also impress our editors with its usefulness and professionalism. One of the most convenient measures of product "usefulness" is article popularity. So the freeware products on this list are from our most popular articles, but we exclude redundant top picks and any programs that are mostly a placebo.

Usually our top software picks must win in a competitive, Darwinian struggle against many rival programs!

We suggest you browse the whole list at your leisure as you may be surprised what freeware gems you will discover. The pathologically impatient can use the category index below.

Security & Privacy: Antivirus - Firewall - Virtualization - Antispyware - HIPS - Anonymous Surfing

Cleanup & Tune: PC Tuneup - Defrag - Registry Cleaner - File Cleaner - Uninstaller - Startup Manager

Disk & File: Drive Imaging - Backup Program - Folder Synch - Zip Utility - File Manager - Partition Manager

System Tools: Software Update Monitor - Screen Capture Utility - Screen Information Utility

Multimedia: CD & DVD Burner - Media Player - Music Player - MP3 Tagger - Audio & Video Conversion...

Image Tools: Image Viewer - Image Editor - High Dynamic Range (HDR) Software - Photo Organizer

Home, Office, & Desktop: Office Suite - Portable Apps Suite - PDF Writer - PDF Reader - PDF Tools

Internet Tools: Web Browser - Email Client - BitTorrent Client - Download Manager - Remote Access

Still Reading? Games, Lists, Tutorials, & More: Top 20 Miscellaneous Lists, Guides, Articles

Antivirus Software ("Using more than one real-time antivirus can cause conflicts and consumes system resources heavily, so only choose one antivirus for real-time protection;" both picks have anti-rootkit and anti-spyware scanning.)

• Avira AntiVir Personal Edition: "My top pick if you're looking for the best protection against virus, spyware and rootkit threats. AntiVir is very light on resources and the detection rate of malware is outstanding."
• Avast! Home Edition: "An excellent product for average users. It is less restricted than Avira and AVG, with both anti-rootkit and anti-spyware capabilities. It has full real-time capabilities and is fairly light on resources."

Firewall (Only choose and run 1 software firewall; both have flexible HIPS protection that you can adjust if you think they require too much user involvement.)

• Outpost Firewall Free: "Highly flexible protection, simplified alert messages, and its max security settings compare favorably with Comodo."
• Comodo Internet Security: "The security effectiveness of the Firewall and application monitor (Defense+) exceeds the performance of many commercial products. On the minus side, it's rather talkative and this may unnecessarily alarm or annoy users." The antivirus component is optional on install. See above for our antivirus recommendations.

Browser Protection Utility / Internet Safety Raters and Site Scanners

• Sandboxie: "Creates a special sandbox environment on your PC [either for web browsing or any program]. So that within the virtual sandbox provided by Sandboxie the vital portions of your PC are totally isolated... If set correctly, any spyware, Trojans, keyloggers or other malware products that 'infect' your PC while browsing will be eliminated. It can cause problems on some PCs so backup before installing."
• WOT: "Fast ratings about possible malicious websites, multiple categories of ratings, and provides reports with user comments and more information. Uses a fantastic warning or blocking screen to empower users to avoid potentially bad websites without filter 'censorship'."
• LinkExtend: "Uses multiple free sources to maximize security ratings and other categories of site ratings, feature rich."

Adware/Spyware/Scumware Removers

• OpenDNS: "After only a quick registration and configuration change, it considerably improves your pro-active protection against drive by malware. It's an excellent first line of defense, but local protection is still a must."
• SuperAntiSpyware: "Top of the list once again in detection and removal of malware, with a fairly lightweight download and simple installation."
  

Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use (HIPS)

• DriveSentry: "Excellent default settings for novices, but also highly configurable for more experienced users. Not only does it do what it says "on the box" but it does so in a way less likely to cause problems than some of the alternatives."

Anonymous Surfing Service

• OperaTor: "A portable version of Opera with a well integrated Tor engine that uses the free Tor network. It is small and relatively fast, but not open source."
• JonDo (alternatively, if this site is down try here): "It's more flexible by allowing the user to configure it for their choice of browser. Vidalia is a close next pick and it generally feels faster, but it may not have the same level of anonymizing as JonDo."
  

Related Top Picks:
a-squared Free - LastPass - AxCrypt - 7 Good Safe Computing Practices

All-in-one PC Tune-up Utility

• Advanced SystemCare Free: "Overall, this is the most feature rich application. Be sure to run one of the disk defragmenters below because none in these all-in-one suites are that effective."

Disk De-fragmenter

• Smart Defrag: "Our top recommendation for Vista users. Full-featured disk optimization tool, well-designed interface, Auto Defrag and scheduled defrag option available, intelligent control of resource and battery usage."
• Defraggler: "Close behind with an easy to use and clean interface. It has a thorough defragmentation process, defrags individual files and folders, and supports scheduled defrags."

File Cleaner / Registry Cleaner

• CCleaner: "It's very effective in freeing up disk space by removing unused and temporary files, cookies, Recycle bin entries, Windows hot-fix files, old prefetch data, history and cache files in many applications... Additionally, it will check the Windows Registry for invalid entries." And it also provides secure erasing.
• EasyCleaner: "Historically, it has proven that it doesn't create problems. Though, there is always a small risk that a registry cleaner may incorrectly remove data and produce an unstable PC, so be sure to backup your registry before using a registry cleaner whether by restore points or a utility like ERUNT."

Program Un-installer

• Revo Uninstaller: "It is the only freeware product I know of that will make a decent job of cleaning up a failed install."

Startup Manager

• WinPatrol 2009: "My personal favorite because as well as startup management (including a very useful "delay" enhancement, which may smooth-out booting), it includes a plethora of other features."
• Autoruns (also runs online): "The top startup manager for technical users."

Related Top Picks:
Eraser - Duplicate Cleaner - CleanMem

Drive Imaging Program

• Macrium Reflect Free: "Easy to use and a fast way to create a disk image. Use it to return your PC to the exact state it had been in at the moment a disk image was created, thus saving maybe a day's work reinstalling and configuring all the programs."
• Acronis True Image: "Always the top choice if you can get it for free, perhaps during one of the many promotions, or with a Seagate or Maxtor disk - it's in their Disk Tools software, a 126.75 MB file that you must download from the Seagate website."

Backup Program

• Titan Backup 1.5: "Commercial application for free with easy to use wizards. Supports numerous backup locations and media."

Folder Synchronization Utility ("Synchronization utilities are important in helping you keep identical versions of your files or folders, say, on both your home computer and office computer.")

• SyncToy: "This is more than a syncing program: it can copy, move, rename, and delete files between any number of folders and even computers."
• Allway Sync: "If you need a synchronization solution that supports older Windows versions, ftp, and portability, then check out Allway Sync."

File Archiver/Zip Utility

• 7-Zip: "Easy to install, gives meaningful error messages, capable of uncompressing from multiple embedded files."

File Manager

• xplorer² lite: "It offers more functionality than Windows Explorer, but with an interface sufficiently similar to Explorer that most users will find it easy to learn and use."

Partition Manager

• EASEUS Partition Master (Home Edition): "Intuitive and user-friendly interface, features include resize, move, copy, create, delete, hide, unhide, convert, explore and format partitions with a single step."

Related Top Picks:
IsoBuster - jDiskReport - PC INSPECTOR File Recovery - Active@ HD Monitor - DriverMax

Software Update Monitor

• Update Notifier: "It is very easy to use, detects more programs than Update Checker, detects some programs that SUMo is as yet unable to detect and is typically the first update monitor to detect an update."

Screen Capture Utility

• PicPick: "User friendly, captures full screen, active window, object, rectangular, fixed or freehand region. Supports auto-scroll, dual monitors, sound effect and multi formats. An image editor is included, plus extra features such as color picker, screen ruler, protractor, crosshair and whiteboard."

System Information Utility

• System Information for Windows (SIW): "My current favorite for home use. It displays many detailed specs such as CPU, memory, devices, installed programs, processes, services, network, and page file usage."

Related Top Picks:
TCPOptimizer - Process Explorer - Memtest86+ - ArsClip - Spotlight on Windows - NetMeter

CD / DVD Burning Software

• ImgBurn: "Most powerful burning application with advanced features, support for every modern optical disc from CD to Blu-Ray, more than 10 image formats, authoring rewritable discs, etc."

Media Player

• The KM Player: "ease of use and installation, awesome playback, and no need for extra codec packs making it easy to use for those with less experience. Other features include setting multifarious audio and video effects, slow down or increase playback speed with regular tone, etc."

Music Player and Organizer

• Jaangle (formerly Teen Spirit): "Intuitive and user-friendly interface, excellent library for music/video managing or play listing, interesting download capabilities of associated artist photos/bios, song lyrics, etc."
• AIMP 2: "Excellent features for organizing music, comes with all necessary tools for building a music library, and has a visually stunning design."

MP3 Tag Editor

• TagScanner: "Supports basic and extended tags, complete with Music Renamer and Tag Processor. It allows you to preview tag information and cover art from online databases like freedb or Amazon. But if you prefer a more normal user interface then Mp3tag is a good alternative. "

CD Ripper / Audio & Video Format Conversion

• Exact Audio Copy: "Rips CD imperfections and scratches with ease. But use CDex if you need to convert to many types of formats."
• FormatFactory. "It supports dozens of devices; the interface is very slick, responsive, and stable; and advanced tweaks and and adding files is a snap."

CD & DVD Emulation Software

• Gizmo Drive: "Support up to 26 virtual drives, create ISO image, burn ISO files or folders to recordable disks, complete with Gizmo Manager and Image Wizard to perform tasks."

Audio Editing / Video Editor

• Audacity: "Interface is easy to use, easily applies noise profiles, capable of saving in multiple compressed formats."
• Avidemux: "Supports many file types including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF. It's simple and easy to use, with well documented tutorials."

Online TV Viewer / Streaming Media Recorder

• JLC's internet TV viewer: "A simple, but effective TV streams viewer that doesn't have much overhead."
• CamStudio: "My personal favorite for on-screen media capture and recording because the output is in the more widely used .AVI and .FLV formats."

Related Top Picks:
DVD Profiler

Digital Image Viewer

• XnView: "Fast, lots of features, very manageable, many plug-ins, supports nearly any OS."
• IrfanView: "This product is first-class and a real winner. It's amazingly capable and fast at displaying images."

Digital Image Editor

• LightBox Image Editor: "My top pick for basic image editing because it has an attractive user interface and it's simple and straight forward to use."
• Paint.net: "It's a very good choice for mid-level photo retouching because of its excellent design and attractive interface. It also has options and tools comparable to commercial software, but it requires you to install Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0 or newer."

High Dynamic Range (HDR) Software

• Qtpfsgui: "Comes out slightly ahead of the several HDR software packages. It has great tone-mapping and aligning facilities, allows 8, 16 and 32 bit channels and two means of manually manipulating the image."

Digital Photo Organizer

• Picasa 3: "Simply sensational editing features that provide you with every function amateur photographers need."

Related Top Picks:
Project Dogwaffle - Noiseware Community Edition & Helicon Filter - Microsoft ICE

Software Suite / Office Suite / Portable Applications

• Liberkey: "A true 'Swiss Army Knife' of free programs that comes in three sizes: basic (28 programs), standard (100 programs) and ultimate (200 programs)."
• OpenOffice 3: "Covers the basics of office document creation: word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, a desktop database. It allows you to save your documents in many choices of file formats so you'll have no problem exchanging documents with MS Office."
• PortableApps.com Suite: Similar but portable options, including Firefox and OpenOffice, with program launcher. But be sure to read the installation and usage instructions since portable apps may have a few tricks to remember.

PDF Writer / PDF Tools / Non-Adobe PDF Reader

• Bullzip: "It has more of the options I need and has worked flawless for me. All of the PDF writers in this review function by creating a pseudo printer on your system."
• PDFill PDF Tools: "Clean and nice user interface, includes most features such as merge, split, reorder, rotate, header and footer with page number, watermark, encrypt and decrypt, convert PDF to images or vice versa, convert PostScript to PDF."
• PDF-XChange Viewer: "Loads reasonably fast, can print PDFs, allows basic annotation without watermarking, good text clarity, allows you to fill and save Adobe PDF forms, extract text and images, magnify text, and export PDF pages or documents to BMP, JPEG, TIFF, PNG formats."

Related Top Picks (Home & Office):
Jarte - GnuCash - Palm Desktop - EditPad Lite, Notepad++... - Stamina

Related Top Picks (Desktop & GUI):
Dexpot - Launchy, Enso... - Copernic Desktop Search - Stickies - QTTabBar

Web Browser

• Mozilla Firefox 3.0: "It browses a tad faster than IE, is very stable and more standards compliant. It has thousands of Add-Ons to enhance the program and is very secure."
• Opera: "Extremely fast at loading pages, loads of features. There's so much to like about it you could easily create a case that it's better than Firefox. Though, alas, there are not nearly as many widgets available as there are Firefox extensions."
• SRWare Iron: "Looks and acts almost exactly like Google Chrome, but without sending any information back to Google's servers. Amazingly fast at loading pages, minimalist interface, with impressive features such as an Incognito Mode for privacy."

Email Client

• Mozilla Thunderbird: "Customizable and expandable through add-ons, intuitive user interface."

Download Manager

• Gigaget: "The fastest by far to download files, monitor major browsers and clipboard, resume/pause download, import/export list, data transfer encryption, and classification of downloaded files."

BitTorrent Client ("Quickly became an important download format for its speed, efficiency, and cheapness in distributing content over the Internet.")

• Vuze (formerly Azureus): "Cross platform, informative interface, wide variety of plugins, excellent support and the Vuze platform of legal content that downloads at high speeds."
• µTorrent: "Small, efficient (lowest memory use of all clients), many features and excellent support."

Remote Access Software ("Remotely administer another computer for off-site troubleshooting or for accessing your home PC while traveling.")

• UltraVNC: "Offers all the features you need, including auto-configuration, easy user interface, extensive hotkeys and embedded file transfer. Add to that the fact that it's free, secure, reliable and reasonably speedy and you have a winner. "

Related Top Picks:
Eclipse & Aptana - Fire FTP - WireShark & Nmap - NetworkStumbler - Digsby

Check out these other articles and lists on our site. There are so many hot suggestions here you will be glad you kept reading and clicking.

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