System utilities
PDF reader: Sumatra PDF
Adobe needn’t have the monopoly on PDF reading. The format is far more widespread than it once was, and there are smaller, faster, and more versatile readers than, er, reader—SumatraPDF being the best among them. It has a deliberately simple UI, because you’re meant to be focused on reading, rather than clicking buttons, and also includes full support for rendering most mainstream ebook and comic book formats, as well as XPS and DjVu files.
Email client: eM Client
One of the cleanest email packages around, working with POP3, SMTP, and every other email delivery tech out there, eM Client’s free version only really restricts the number of accounts you can use—every other feature matches up to its pro tier. This includes PGP integration, so you can securely sign or encrypt your messages, along with advanced contacts management, importing from other email apps, and a chat client that supports most common IM protocols.
File synchronization: Dropbox
Keeping files synched between your many PCs and an online drive is a simple way of staying organized and safe, and it’s not without its options. Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, Box, even Mega, they all give you a local folder that automatically mirrors one online. We favor Dropbox for this task, mainly because it feels like the most responsive and sensible way to magically clone your stuff. It’s what Dropbox was built to do—limited storage space be damned.
Media burner: CDBurnerXP
Optical media is a progressively more marginal form of storage, but it ain’t dead yet, and the flexibility to do more than Windows’ own built-in burning tools is essential. CDBurnerXP, which shows its lineage in its name, can burn it all—you can even use it to write HD-DVDs if you can find the hardware—and it can create and convert ISO files, too. Perfect for backing up backups.
Messaging: Franz
Franz doesn’t actually offer its own messaging system, but it does serve up just about every other protocol. Configure your Franz account, add the services and usernames you want to use, and they’re replicated on whatever machine you log on to next. Get your Slack, your Hangouts, your Skype, and even WhatsApp all in one place, and stop shunning that one person who won’t move to the network the rest of your friends use.
Notes: Evernote
The great benefit of being the biggest name in your field, as Evernote surely is, is integration. So many other web services tie into it that you often don’t need to make notes directly—just chuck the content you’re interested in over to your Evernote, and it’s there when you want to remember, organize it into notebooks, and otherwise make use of it later on. You can sync the basic free account with two devices.
Utility setup: NiniteEfficiency is the name of the game where Ninite is concerned. If you’re putting together a new machine, and you want it packed with free apps, Ninite can supply them—including many of the apps featured here—in one handy installer. Just check the boxes on the site, download your custom executable, and fire it off to get the latest versions of the most popular applications installed with one click. No choices, no options, just clean installs of your favorite stuff.
It’s sort of remarkable that VirtualBox is free, particularly since it’s owned by a company as large as Oracle, but the frequently updated virtual machine environment is essential if you want to cobble together sandboxed Windows installs, trial Linux distros, or do all kinds of shenanigans that it might be useful to roll back or keep separate from the rest of your PC. It’s highly configurable, and you can even set up your own virtual networks.
System info: HWiNF064
If you have a problem with your PC—or even if you don’t—it’s useful to find out exactly how it’s operating. HWiNF064 is a diagnostic tool that can serve up everything from a brief overview of your system’s components to a deep dive into the minuscule operations of your PC. You can also use it for real-time monitoring, keeping an eye on the status of problem components, and predicting failure based on its findings.
Compression: 7-zip
We find it pretty amazing how many people have the never-ending free trial of WinRAR installed when 7-zip does the job of archiving and unarchiving just as competently, and doesn’t bother with the nag screens. What’s more, the .7z format, which uses AES-256 encryption and a super-high compression ratio, is both smaller and, usually, faster than using .ZIP or .RAR to squash down your files.
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