List of Free PC programs that everyone should have

Millions of free and open source projects are available, many of which are better than any other commercially available product. Below is a short list of what we believe is the best existing, divided into various categories.

Protection against viruses and malware
Most PC users realize that they need protection on their computer or they can have an antivirus program installed by their computer manufacturer. What most do not realize is that there are free programs that are just as good and in some cases better than commercial products.Our recommendations:

Antivirus free: AVG    Malware protection: Malwarebytes or 360 Total Security

Browsers
Although Microsoft Internet Explorer is pre-installed on Windows computers. There are many excellent free alternatives that everyone should try. These free alternatives can often be faster, have more options and, in many cases, be more secure than Internet Explorer.

Internet Browser: Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox

Image editor, painting program and image organizer
There are many excellent free solutions for editing, creating and organizing your images on your computer. Many of the programs that can perform these tasks can be several hundred dollars, but all the programs below are completely free.

Image editor: PhotoScape  Paint software: Paint.net   Picture organizer: XnView

Multimedia
There are a lot of different multimedia programs with different capacities and limits. Below are our best free multimedia programs to watch video files and record audio.

Video Player: VLC   or   GOM Player    Audio editing tool: Audacity or Wavosaur

Office suite software
An Office package like Microsoft Office is usually one of the most expensive programs that a user can install on their computer. Why install these expensive programs when there are free solutions that are just as good?

Notepad and code editor: Notepad++    Office suite: OpenOffice

E-mail
Email is another service that can be done freely. Most users today use online email solutions like the one described below. However, for those still using an email client like Microsoft Outlook, we highly recommend one or both of the following suggestions.

The best email client: eM Client      Online E-mail: Gmail

Compression tools
When you download files over the Internet, you will eventually find a .zip, .rar, or another compressed file. Free file compression utility.File compression utility: PeaZip or 7-Zip software