Essential and Open Source Software Downloads for Windows
Free and open-source software is good for you and for the world. This is the best Windows software that we know of. No adware, no spyware, just good software.
The best, most important, and easiest to use.
Web Browsing
Mozilla Firefox
The premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world’s best browser.
Video Player, BitTorrent, Podcasting
Miro
Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Download from YouTube and others.
IM – Instant Messaging
Pidgin
Connect to multiple IM accounts simultaneously in a single app, including: AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber.
Video Converter- MP4, iPhone, Android
Miro Video Converter
Convert any type of video to mp4 or theora. Convert any video for use with iPhone, iPod, Android, etc. Very clean, easy to use interface.
Download helpers
SkipScreen
A Firefox extension that skips unnecessary clicks and wait times on Rapidshare, Megaupload, Mediafire, zShare, and more.
Mozilla Thunderbird
Thunderbird is a free email application that’s easy to set up and customize – and it’s loaded with great features!
RSS
RSSOwl
RSSOwl is a free and powerful news feed reader. RSSOwl lets you gather, organize and search news in a convenient, easy to use interface.
Peer-to-Peer Filesharing
uTorrent
µTorrent is a lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client for Windows or Mac with many features. Use version 1.6.1 Build 490.
Video Playback
VLC
Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
MPlayer
MPlayer is a movie player which runs on many systems, similar to VLC– plays loads of video formats.
Media Player Classic
Compact, but powerful media player. Plays anything under the sun. No install necessary.
Word Processing / Office Suites
LibreOffice
Full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Replacement for Microsoft Word documents. Also supports OpenDocument Format.
AbiWord
A word processor. Leaner and quicker than OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.
Podcasting
Juice
Juice Receiver (formerly iPodder) is a media aggregator which automatically downloads podcasts and media files to your computer or portable device.
Financial Transactions
Bitcoin
A “peer-to-peer” digital currency so you can buy things without paying transaction fees.
Sound Recording
Audacity
Is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux.
Graphics / Photo Editing
GIMP
GNU Image Manipulation Program is a free photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features.
Inkscape
An Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X.
FTP / SFTP
Filezilla
FileZilla is a cross-platform graphical FTP, FTPS and SFTP client a lot of features, supporting Windows, Linux, Mac OS X and more.
IRC
X-Chat 2
IRC chat program for both Linux and Windows. It allows you to join multiple IRC channels, talk publicly, private one-on-one conversations etc.
Archiving
PeaZip
PeaZip free file archiver utility, extracts over 130 archive types including RAR 7Z ACE PAQ ISO TAR ZIP, features strong encryption, secure deletion.
