My computer currently has a free 6-month subscription to an anti-virus/total security solution. When it ends, I will be looking at Bitdefender as it has a family plan available.

AdwCleaner from Malwarebytes is a must have to look for and remove malware. It can compliment your security solution.

I do pay for my subscription, but we all need a VPN app. I just like this one, which I did use in macOS.

I'm actually pretty new to this world of DNS Resolvers, and went with NextDNS as it also blocks trackers. I find it faster than using 1.1.1.1 from CloudFlare. Maybe coz it's because I'm the UK, but sometimes the page loads get stuck. So yeah, NextDNS it is... for now.

I absolutely adored Winamp back in my early days of computing. Having learned of an update for Windows 10/11, I quickly installed it. I didn't use iTunes (yuck) as I would listen to music from my Plex server using Plexamp. Good news, though. I can listen to my music collection using Winamp. Whoop, whoop.

An obvious and popular choice as an alternative to QuickTime Player is VLC. Don't get me wrong, I do like it. But on macOS, I switched to IINA for it's minimalistic interface. With that in mind, MPV became my first choice as an alternative to QuickTime Player.

Spotlight on macOS is very useful and, while I don't consider myself a keyboard warrior, it has helped me be more productive to quickly load files and launch apps. I did find it a bit slow and moved to Alfred. It just quadrupled my productivity. Yes, on Windows, you can hit the WIN key on the keyboard and start that way. But I did more than launch apps and Flow Launcher is the closest I will ever get.

Used within Flow Launcher to expand its file and folder search abilities.

A two-in-one app for me. First off is the clipboard manager where you can also save. snippets. macOS did not have one so I used ClipMenu, then Clipy. Windows does have a built-in clipboard manager, but I just never did get on with it.

The other bonus is that it can take screenshots too! If it didn't, I would have downloaded ShareX. ClipClip doesn't have as much functionality as ShareX (such as reading QRCodes), but it does what I need to quickly annotate screenshots.

I like ShareX, I really do, as it is Open Source, unlike ClipClip. What's holding me back is that I'm keeping tabs on how much I install on my machine. But it is absolutely brilliant and feature packed with GIF/Video recording, more annotation options for screenshots, building up a list of actions after taking a screenshot, etc. If you don't care for a clipboard/snippet manager and can work with Window's built-in tool, then get hold of ShareX. It's totally worth it.

I wanted a lightweight document viewer like Apple's Preview. Installing Acrobat Reader is a bit overkill. SumatraPDF is a good equivalent, but I needed something that can also work with forms.

I know, I know. There's Joplin as a good alternative and I refuse to touch Evernote with a 10-foot bargepole. The thing is, Joplin is Markdown based (see here for more info), so it is limited when apps like OneNote and Evernote gives you a canvas to play with. I do use OneNote on my tablet with a pen, so it totally satisfies my requirements.

The first thing to install to enhance Windows. Even I know that! :-)

Oh my goodness. I can't live without the quick preview using the space bar on macOS. Yeah, you can add a preview pane to the list view in Windows, but it ain't up to snuff - when working from a NAS drive that has a folder loaded with images it's slooooow. And yes, I know you can use PowerToys Peek, but it's very limited in comparison and a little janky. To be fair QuickLook is not as smooth as the real deal, but this is the closest you'll get.

On macOS, I would use App Cleaner to try removing any artifacts left behind after an install. Knowing Windows has plenty of artifacts, I tried Geek Uninstaller, but my anti-virus kept getting in the way, so I settled with Revo. It is a freemium product, so will see how it goes.

I know that Windows and macOS has built-in compression, but I do prefer to use .7z files. Being a cross-platform app there's no learning curve. It is such an efficient utility which does not consume system resources.

My favourite equivalent to AirDrop. It is so easy to use when sharing files with family (mix of iOS and Android) as well as between my devices. And, yeah, I did use it on my macOS device as I do use an Android phone.

Yup. I used to use the Homebrew package manager and so this is my equivalent on Windows. I do need to experiment with Winget but it does have some critical reviews. Also, Ninite's library of apps is far too limited. I have installed most of the apps in this list using Chocolatey.