Some Great Free Software Finds for Windows 10

Have you ever wanted to take a photo of your screen? I have been using the Microsoft program included with Windows called Snipping Tool. It is sufficient. The freeware software named Screenshot is very similar. It has more features than the Snipping Tool and they could come in handy. One of my favorites is the drawing tool which will allow you to alter the thing you want to save as a picture. You can add all sorts of objects or text which means you do not always need an art program to make changes and add things before saving the photo. In other words, you can do everything at once using only this piece of software. The picture is saved using your default picture software. You can also select a size for you picture to be saved as. The area size can be adjusted and your selection switched. There are also a few other things of interest, but these are the basic reasons why I now use Screenshot to take pictures of anything on my screen including stills of videos.

In the old days there were free software programs which allowed you to do everything you could also do by clicking on an icon to use the Windows Explorer. That is what the system which opens your folders and such is called. It allows you to do things like copy, delete and move files and many other things. It is one pane. The software many of us used to do the same jobs and more. It had two panes which made moving files and copying files even easier because you could set each pain to the directory or device you wanted. Today there is a similar piece of free software known as Multi Commander. This software has more options than Windows Explorer and also allows for other functions. I personally think it is a good alternative to the Windows software. When it is installed it does not replace the Windows software and is used separately so you don’t have to worry about it screwing up Windows.

Sometimes maintenance is needed. You may have to check a disk, manage your drivers or even check to see if you need software updates. First let me say there are some really good pieces of software out there that do some of the things you need to do and I have been using them for years and they are also all free. Having said that there is one piece of free software named Glary Utilities and once you download it you will find yourself using it all the time for many different things. It does all sorts of different cleanups and repairs and will even fix your shortcuts among other things, but this is just the tip of the iceberg. It is composed of many different modules that do most of the things we need at times. Want to optimize your computer’s memory? It can do that. Want to make a custom startup for your computer? It can do that too. It will even analyze space requirements and split files if necessary. It also gives you information on your browsers and some of the extensions. Want to block something, you’re in the right place. To do a full review of this software would take up the entire article, so let me just say this software is extremely helpful when you need it.

This brings me to another piece of free software named IObit Uninstaller. Let me ask you a question, have you ever tried to uninstall a piece of software only to find you couldn’t or that pieces of it were still on your computer somewhere? If you have been using a computer for a long enough time, this is not unusual. IObit Uninstaller will get rid of most of this stuff. When it is installed you can still use your normal Windows uninstall program and if there is a problem or the uninstall wasn’t complete the IObit program will pop up and ask you if you wanted to clean the bits that are left or uninstall the program which you couldn’t do using Windows uninstall. I find this software invaluable and since it is the free version there is nothing to lose by installing it. It seems to mesh perfectly with the Windows system.

No undelete software is perfect, however the commercial ones which cost money seem to be better than the free ones or the free versions. There is one free piece of software called Recuva which isn’t bad and which just might save your bacon if you delete something you regret. It has been my experience with an older version that it worked sometimes and was slow, but in all fairness, I haven’t tested the latest versions in years so I would say it is worth a shot to install it. There is a second  program which is also freeware named Wise Data Recovery. It also may be worth a try. I have never tested it but have read good things about it.

Finally, my favorite sound recording and sound manipulation free software is Audacity. It has been around for years and it just keeps getting better. How good is it? It is so good some professionals use this freeware program instead of buying a commercial one. You can record sound tracks, edit them easily and do almost anything to your sound files you would ever need. I have to say Bravo to the authors, just when we thought it couldn’t get any better, a newer version came out. This was my main go to software for editing and recording interviews.