This is just a compilation of software I find useful and want to keep track of, ordered by software type. I strongly believe Open Source Software (OSS) should get some more recognition, so I’ve prioritized OSS in this list by marking which of these is actually OSS.
Software installation
- Ninite (Software installer and updater)
- SUMo (Scans your system for programs/executables and updates them, Portable/zip version recommended, other versions contain adware)
Files and Explorers
- Notepad++ (Text editor) (Open Source)
- LibreOffice (Office software) (Open Source)
- 7-Zip (File archiver) (Open Source)
Browsers
- Firefox (Internet browser, new versions are really good (57.0+)) (Open Source)
- uBlock Origin (Firefox advertisment blocker (Also available on chrome AFAIK))
Multimedia
- OBS Studio (Video recording and live streaming) (Open Source)
- VLC (Cross-platform multimedia player) (Open Source)
- Kodi (Media centre software) (Open Source)
- Clementine (Music player and library organizer) (Open Source)
Media creation
- GIMP (Image editor) (Open Source)
- Blender (3D modelling, video editing, rendering...) (Open Source)
- Audacity (Audio software for multi-track recording and editing) (Open Source)
Software development
- IntelliJ IDEA (Integrated development environment (IDE) with support for many programming languages (Primarily used for Java))
- Eclipse (Integrated development environment (IDE) primarily used for developing Java applications, may also be used to develop applications in other programming languages via plug-ins)
- Android Studio (Integrated development environment (IDE) for Android (Based on InelliJ IDEA)
- Visual Studio Code (Source code editor) (Open Source)
- Git (Distributed version control system) (Open Source)
Game development
- Godot Engine (2D and 3D Game engine) (Open Source)
- Unity3D (2D and 3D Game engine)
Comunications
- Discord (All-in-one voice and text chat)
- [TeamSpeak 3] (https://www.teamspeak.com/en/teamspeak3) (All-in-one voice and text chat)
Drivers / Driver related
- GeForce Experience (Nvidia GPU Drivers)
- Radeon Software (AMD Drivers (GPU, Chipset, Embedded....))
- Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU) (GPU Driver uninstaller)
Overclocking and System information
- MSI Afterburner (Graphics card overclocking and overview)
- AIDA64 (System information, diagnostics, and auditing)
- Speccy (System information, including real time temperatures and software information)
- HWInfo (Hardware information)
System performance
- PC Decrapifier (Recommends what programs and unnecessary startup items you can remove to speed up your PC)
- CCleaner ('Junk' cleaner)
Gaming
- Borderless Gaming (Play games in a borderless window) (Open Source)
- Playnite (Video game library manager) (Open source)
Emulators
- RPCS3 (PlayStation 3 emulator) (Open Source)
- PCSX2 (PlayStation 2 emulator) (Open Source)
- Xenia (XBox 360 emulator) (Open Source)
- CEMU (Wii U emulator)
- Dolphin (Wii & Gamecube emulator) (Open Source)
- MEMU (Android emulator)
Other utilities
- Rufus (Bootable USB creator) (Open Source):
- F.lux (Makes the color of your computer's display adapt to the time of day)
- Ultimate Windows Tweaker 4 (Windows 10 tweaker)
- Windows 10 initial setup script (PowerShell script for automation of routine tasks done after fresh installations of Windows 10) (Open source)
- qBittorrent (BitTorrent protocol client)
- Clover (Adds multi-tab functionality to the Windows Explorer)
For future reference, the constantly updated list can be found on my github page here:
https://github.com/mayuso/Useful-PC-Software
Please feel free to suggest any worthy software you think deserves to be added to the list. I'll check any software, doesn't matter if paid or free, if it is good it will be added to the list, but obviously Open Source software prefered.