The Editors' Choice List: Our Selection of the Best PC Freeware
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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. |
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Category Index: Search Our Best Freeware Picks, Software Downloads, & Tech Tips
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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 |
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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.)
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.)
Browser Protection Utility / Internet Safety Raters and Site Scanners
Adware/Spyware/Scumware Removers
Intrusion Prevention and Detection Utility for Home Use (HIPS)
Related Top Picks: |
File Cleaner / Registry Cleaner
Related Top Picks: |
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.")
Related Top Picks: |
Related Top Picks: |
CD Ripper / Audio & Video Format Conversion
Online TV Viewer / Streaming Media Recorder
Related Top Picks: |
High Dynamic Range (HDR) Software
Related Top Picks: |
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Software Suite / Office Suite / Portable Applications
PDF Writer / PDF Tools / Non-Adobe PDF Reader
Related Top Picks (Home & Office): Related Top Picks (Desktop & GUI): |
BitTorrent Client ("Quickly became an important download format for its speed, efficiency, and cheapness in distributing content over the Internet.")
Remote Access Software ("Remotely administer another computer for off-site troubleshooting or for accessing your home PC while traveling.")
Related Top Picks: |
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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. Top 5 Most Popular Articles or Lists or Guides (Recently or All Time):
Popular Articles or Lists:
Top 'How To' Guides and Tutorials:
How About Some Games? |
Tags for this list: best freeware, best free software, must have free programs, best of Gizmo's Freeware, editors' choice.
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The link for best free FTP client does not work. Please??
Thanks.
There's not much to say but : great site !
Thannnnnnnnx veeeery much
There is lot of help and good work on all your pages
and they are still easy, fast and pleasing
my warmest regards and wishes
My kisses if you do not mind
Tarig Anter, Khartoum, Sudan.
We're pleased that TSA has managed to reach such a beautiful and historical part of the world.
SOME GUIDANCE FOR MOBILE PHONE GAMES FREEWARE WILL BE MUCH DELIGHTFUL TO US ALL !!!!!!!!
DriveSentry still an Editor's Pick?
Really?
What would you suggest in it's place and why?
génial : ce site est vraiment très utile ! merci !
Excellent site.Thanks for all the hardwork you put in to give us the best.
Thanks very much for a really nice put together site. Easy to navigate with lots of apps I've used before and agree with your review of their quality. Keep up the GREAT WORK!! RLW
I just want to point out that the CD/DVD software choices listed on this page are obsolete. I changed the top picks when I rewrote the article a while ago. :)
Updated top picks for CD/DVD Burning Software and Media Player.
The Best!!! This site is not only the best but those involved in running this great site is sincere. To maintain a respectable site like this would definitely involve inner strength, courage and wisdom to balance the need between financial gains for site maintenance etc and yet being truly able to serve the need of the community. Thank You and Bless be.....
Thanks,
Great site.
Im trying to come up with something to say. Everybody else took the words out of my mouth. absolutly fantastic site. thanks.
Great site for top freeware. Have found your info reliable and in sink with other reviewers. Thanks!
Also checkout www.topfreeware.net :)
Here is the Gizmo reviewer's comment about Auslogics Defrag:
"Another company investing heavily in product development of late is Auslogics with its Auslogics Disk Defrag offering. The last few releases have seen the team add the ability to defragment single files and folders, schedule operations and update the program's algorithm for improved performance. We're excited by the prospect of what might come next."
Ref- http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-disk-de-fragmenter.htm
WELL HERE IT IS!
Time to move Auslogics Defrag to the head of the class. With v2.0, it now has options for Schedule, Exclusions, variable size Skip Large Fragments, Analyze only, Remove Temp Files Before Defrag, and Turn off computer after defrag. It will analyze and defrag selected disk(s). It also has increased speed and an overhauled interface. It still doesn't have an optimization option, but my negative experiences with that option would preclude my using it anyhow.
In my humble opinion, this is now the best defragger of the lot.
There should be a direct link to this on our home page.
I second that.
I think Gizmo is the best place I have ever seen
for latest,Best & free softwares with rating.I really
like it !
Thanks a lot ! This website is so awesome, I don't know what to say, EPIC WIN PEOPLE :D
I think Comodo BOClean should be removed now?
I think that Teamviewer is one of the best.
Here is an article about it http://softized.com/category/time-wasters/ you won't be sorry
excellent info....thanks a lot. plz keep up the best and give us the honest apps..thnx
The link leading to the JonDo prog under Editors' Choice List/Anonymous Surfing Service does not work anymore. I found the prog at www dot jondos dot de, though and its great. Thanks for you do.
Thank you, the link has failed for me before.
It does work sometimes and it's still active; it's just that the website is run by a university and they are not completely dependable:
I like the link you refer to; I'll put it in the article as an alternative.
CONGRATULATIONS for creating an extremely informative & useful website. I have recently retired & with my abundance of free time have been spending a fair amount of time getting educated on things that can be done to make computers safer & more productive. I recently became aware of your site while searching for info/reviews on a particular download available on Download.com. I had the opportunity yesterday to spend several hours exploring your site and to say that I was VERY impressed is an understatement. For me it was & will continue to be an incredible learning experience.
Your team should quite proud of what has been accomplished.
Sincerely, Jerry L.
Thanks Jerry.
If you'd like to help us in return, one way to do that would be to link to this site from your own. Alternatively, if you don't have a site, then from a social bookmarking site (or two) will be fine.
Please use the word Freeware as the anchor text, ie the linked text or the title for the link - unless of course you prefer something else. It is also best if you link to one of your favourite pages on the site and not the front page.
Thanks again,
chris.p
YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME thanks so much for this its so hard to find freeware apps that are this clean and reliable and lets face it these days viruses do quite a bit more than slow your pc down
I just love Tiny Pad. It has a really stylish look and is very light-weight and easy to use.
http://tinypad.info
Thanks men for yours work.
I love looking here for the best freeware.
Great article. The best of everything in one place. We may never need Google again.
Steve
Nice, this should be a "sticky post".
BTW, Uninstall section is not correct, Z-Soft is the Top Pick, not MyUninstaller (ugh!), quote: "My top selection in this group is ZSoft Uninstaller".
Hi, and thanks.
It has two subsections for different uninstaller replacements and application uninstallers, so many are the top pick for what they do, at least that is how I read it. Zsoft is the top choice for taking a snapshot before-after approach, but the editor suggests not using that approach because of the risks unless there is a failed install. A great amount of the text covers Revo and it is mentioned as impressive for what it does, so I decided to include it. But probably I should change it to Zsoft.
Thanks for pointing this out. We could always add more later if the category editor desires or if there is demand. And it is always recommended to check out the relevant articles (like you did) since they go into more detail.
Great idea. Hope Editors will inform "Rizar" if their best pick changes.
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