My favorite programs for Windows
These are apps that you should start using, everything here is open source unless marked otherwise.
- Like this app
Open source torrenting client, much better than µTorrent and BitTorrent and whatever other proprietary torrenting client exists, worth mentioning qBittorrent and Deluge
- Torrent Client
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Flathub
- PortableApps.com
- Haiku
- Cloudron
- Xfce
- Like this app
You should use this instead of VLC Media Player, it's pretty much VLC but way better in alot of ways, it has a minimalistic look, you can customize it with custom OSCs, (also doesn't look like an ancient media player) and you can improve it even further by creating a config file, you can learn more about this by following iamascum's guides. If you feel like it's too hard to use, you should try mpv.net, fork of MPV that is more user friendly.
- Audio Player
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- BSD
- Xfce
- Like this app
Screen mirroring tool, much better than something like ApowerMirror
- Screen Mirroring App
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- Android Tablet
- Like this app
Closed source tool to improve your privacy on Windows, to improve your privacy further you should also debloat Windows, there are many tools such as Windows10Debloater and Debloat Windows 10.
- Privacy Tool
- Free • Proprietary
- Windows
- Like this app
Useful tool to download multiple files from Mega easily, no limits on how much you can download.
- Download Manager
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Like this app
Package manager, somewhat like Linux's package managers, if you want an alternative not tied to NuGet, you should try scoop, however scoop has a smaller amount of packages compared to Chocolatey.
- Package Manager
- Freemium • Open Source
- Windows
- Like this app
Open source alternative to CCleaner, I wouldn't trust CCleaner so I recommend using this instead.
- System Cleaner
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Blackberry
- PortableApps.com
- Like this app
Open source program uninstaller, can easily uninstall Chocolatey and scoop packages, can uninstall multiple programs at once and removes traces of files.
- Software Uninstaller
- Free • Open Source
- Windows
- Like this app
Open source fork of Visual Studio Code, pretty much the same but with removed telemetry.
- Code Editor
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Electron
- Flathub
- Like this app
Has more functionalities than Windows Command Prompt, you can have multiple tabs, it's open source but it's still owned by Microsoft, another alternative would be Cygwin.
- Terminal Emulator
- Free • Open Source
- Windows
- Like this app
Alternative to Windows's File Explorer. Supports tabs and custom themes and overall feels much smoother than the normal File Explorer.
- File Manager
- Free • Open Source
- Windows
- Like this app
Closed source, however it's very useful when searching for a specific file, much better experience than searching for it in File Explorer.
- File Search Utility
- Free • Proprietary
- Windows
- Like this app
Decent alternative to Adobe Photoshop If you want something more like Adobe Photoshop, then you should try Photopea, it's a closed source website which has pretty much the same UI as Adobe Photoshop.
- Digital Painting Tool
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- Snapcraft
- Flathub
- PortableApps.com
- Haiku
- Flatpak
- AmigaOS
- Like this app
Useful comic reader, if you do not like this, try CDisplay Ex.
- Comic and Manga Reader
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- iPhone
- iPad
- Like this app
I love this app, it allows you to create webapps.
- Web Browser
- Freemium • Proprietary
- Mac
- Windows
- Like this app
A Mozilla Firefox fork, but with improved privacy by default, better than Microsoft Edge.
- Web Browser
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- AppImageHub
- Linux Mint
- Arch Linux
- Gentoo
- Flathub
- Fedora
- Ubuntu
- Debian
- OpenBSD