Free software tips
A short list of free software and tools we have used and like. We prefer free and open-source software that is usually hard to find. Pick a category, or show open source only.
Notepad++
Fast text and code editor with syntax highlighting and plugins.
Open sourceSeaMonkey
Visual web page editor for those who do not want to write HTML.
Open sourceSigil
EPUB e-book editor with visual and code views, validation and export.
Open sourceVLC
Plays almost any audio or video format, including streams and damaged files.
Open sourceAudacity
Record, edit and mix audio.
Open sourceDaVinci Resolve
Professional video editing and color grading, with a free version.
FreewareOBS Studio
Screen recording and live streaming with scenes and multiple sources.
Open sourcePaint.NET
Easy image and photo editor with layers, tools and effects.
FreewareSnipping Tool
Screenshots with cropping and annotation. Already included in Windows.
Built into WindowsZoomIt
Zoom and draw on the screen during presentations.
Freeware7-Zip
Compress and extract many archive formats with high compression.
Open sourceWinSCP
SFTP, FTP, WebDAV and SCP client with scripting support.
Open sourceJDownloader
Download manager with multi-threading and archive extraction.
Open sourceKDE Connect
Connect phone and PC: shared notifications, files and remote input.
Open sourceNinite
Install or update many programs at once, without bundled extras.
FreewareKeePass
Password manager with an encrypted local database.
Open sourceHWiNFO64
Detailed hardware information, diagnostics and live sensor values.
FreewareSysinternals Suite
Microsoft diagnostic and admin tools such as Process Explorer and Autoruns.
FreewarePowerToys
Microsoft utilities: FancyZones, Color Picker, Always On Top and more.
Open sourcePyTorch
Machine learning framework for building and training neural networks.
Open sourceONNX
Open Neural Network Exchange: a common format to move models between frameworks.
Open sourceHugging Face
Hub for sharing and downloading AI models, datasets and demos.
Free serviceKaggle
Exchange of datasets, with notebooks and data science competitions.
Free serviceOllama
Run large language models locally on your own computer.
Open sourceXcode
Apple's development environment for apps and machine learning. Mac only.
Freeware · Mac only