10+ Free Awesome Programs to Download For Your PC

I’d have to say that one of my favorite parts of owning a computer is taking advantage of all the cool programs out there. I’m always looking for new programs that provide me better functionality and a better experience overall. If that’s your mission today, then I’ve got quite the round-up for you. A lot of these programs are considered to be classic and not really upcoming and new, but I think this list of must-have software is essential to anybody wanting to get their hands on great, quality programs.

AVG Antivirus Free Edition – This is a very powerful and LIGHT antivirus program that, in my opinion, performs better than some of the commercial programs in the antivirus category. I emphasize “light” because we all know that most antivirus programs are bulky and tend to hog resources. With AVG, that isn’t really an issue, and that’s probably music to a lot of people’s ears. Additionally, the Free Edition comes with LinkScanner which is a neat little tool that notifies you whether a website is safe to visit or not. Nice!

Stardock ObjectDock – ObjectDock is a great utility for improving accessibility by organizing your frequently used programs into an aesthetically pleasing dock that sits right on your desktop. This means no more eyes-sore icons that seem to do nothing more than clutter the desktop. If you are a fan of the Mac interface, then you’ll be pleased to know that the dock greatly imitates that of Mac OS X. If you’ve never heard of this program before, then I’d highly recommend you to check it out because it will definitely introduce a whole new way of getting things done in the Windows interface.

Mozilla Firefox – If you ask anybody why they like this internet browser, the most common answer you’ll get is that it’s fast. And it is. Aside from its outstanding performance, it’s also a lot safer than the majority of its competition. With features like “Instant Website ID,” private browsing, themes, and the fact that it’s totally open-source, you really can’t go wrong.

Picasa – Want to organize and simply edit your photos without expensive commercial software? Picasa is right up your alley. Sharing is a breeze with Picasa because you can publish your favorite photos online to a Picasa Web Album at any point. Not only that, but you are enabled to create beautiful collages that are perfect for gifting for a loved one or maybe just that person that’s hard to buy for. Creating desktop images and screensavers is also a piece of cake with this software as well.

Windows Live Messenger/AIM – Staying connected to others is something that is probably very important to you, so why not do it with instant messaging programs? Out of all the IM clients I’ve used, these just top my charts because of their simplicity and ease of use. Windows Live Messenger comes with a variety of features such as total customization, the ability to send messages to cell phones (SMS), photo sharing, Writer, etc. This is an extremely powerful IM tool, and if you want to keep in contact with loved ones on a more live and direct level, I’d recommend this application.

AOL Instant Messenger is a nice client as well, especially because of the new addition of LifeStream. If anybody has used AIM in the past, they probably knew it was not very customizable, but that is a thing of the past now with new color schemes to choose from for your buddy list. AIM is also a bit more geared toward younger people so that may or may not apply to you. Either way, both of these programs are great IM clients and if you’re going to be doing any instant messaging, I’d highly recommend doing it with these programs.

WinRAR – WinRAR is a great archiver because it’s very simple yet powerful in handling ZIP and RAR archives as well as other file formats. Perhaps you’ve heard of WinZip, and maybe you even have it. If so, then you know that the evaluation period is a nightmare on it. Not so with WinRAR. WinRAR is extremely lightweight, right click-ready, customizable, etc. Simply put, product reviews of WinRAR will give you the entire skinny on this awesome application.

BitComet/uTorrent – I simply couldn’t choose only one or the other to put on this list so I put them both on here. You should forget P2P programs like LimeWire or Ares for handling large torrents, HTTP and FTP downloads. Both BitComet and uTorrent download your desired torrents with amazing speed and reliability. I’ve tried other download clients similar to these, but I really don’t have much to say about them except they aren’t any type of competition to these. The only downfall of these programs is that, when downloading, they significantly decrease your connection speed by… a lot. Other than that, you definitely want to add these to your library of applications for downloading those massive files.

iTunes – I don’t know if you have your preferred media player, but if you are on the rocks about choosing one, I’d definitely recommend iTunes. Despite it being sort of heavyweight, it’s an extremely simple program to use offering the built in iTunes store, network music streaming, CD burning capabilities, iTunes Genius, video playback, nice visual effects for when you just want to watch on-screen graphics wiggle to the beat of the song, etc. Overall, this is an extremely user-friendly media player. Unlike, Windows Media Player, it is simple to navigate to where you are trying to go instead of wondering where each menu is going to take you or what each button is going to do.

LimeWire/FrostWire – LimeWire and FrostWire are P2P file sharing programs that enable you to share files on your computer, download music and other stuff, organize your files, etc. For anybody that is wondering, FrostWire is a little bit more functional than LimeWire. The reason I am a huge fan of these programs is because of their speed. Over the years, LimeWire has also cleaned up their look as well which is has been a major plus. Now, the software is more secure than ever, there’s no included junk such as spyware or viruses, it comes in loads of languages, etc. These are must haves for getting the files you want and need!

FileZilla – There is a lot of speculation over whether FileZilla is the best free FTP client out there. I’d like to say it is, but everyone is entitled to their own opinions. FileZilla is not as user friendly as it could be, but usually this translates into a program being very potent. This open-source goody is able to transfer files up to 4 GB in size, support IPv6, support FTP, FTPS, and SFTP, etc. If you’re tired of all the weird clients that just don’t seem to perform, give FileZilla a try.