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Software tools to make your life easier

🧰 System Utilities & Productivity

  • Libre Office - Open Source productivity suite to work with spreadsheets, documents, PPTs, etc.
  • Beyond Compare - Must have diff tool for windows platform.
  • WinCDEmu - Windows CD Emulator. Helpful to work with some legacy software.
  • Ext2Fsd - Open Source versatile windows app to access/read Ext4 Linux partitions on Windows systems.
  • AutoHotkey – A powerful scripting language for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting.
  • Ditto – A clipboard manager that allows you to access any of your clipboard items.
  • Everything – An ultra-fast file search tool for Windows.
  • Listary – A smart search utility that enhances file browsing and searching.
  • pandoc - Utility to convert documents to/from common formats like PDF, DOCX, RTF, etc.

🖼️ Graphics & Design

  • Inkscape – A professional vector graphics editor for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
  • GIMP – A free and open-source raster graphics editor used for tasks such as photo retouching, image composition, and image authoring.
  • Krita – A professional free and open-source painting program.
  • Paint.NET - It's no longer open source as the author seems to be quite annoyed! But a wonderful C# paint program nevertheless.

🧪 Development Tools

  • Notepad++ - Lightweight, highly useful code-editor for Windows.
  • Emacs - Highly utilitarian text editor, Richard Stallman's flagship project.
  • Visual Studio Code – A free, open-source code editor with support for debugging, task running, and version control.
  • ConEmu - Customizable Windows terminal with tabs, splits.
  • Git – A free and open-source distributed version control system to track changes in source code during software development.
  • Docker – A platform for developing, shipping, and running applications inside containers.
  • Postman – A collaboration platform for API development.
  • Herald - Light-weight, old-school alternative to Postman.
  • VirtualBox - Open source virtualization tool for developers.
  • Doxygen - Highly useful documentation generation tool, supports multiple languages like C, Python, PHP, Java, etc.
  • Heidi SQL - Highly utilitarian SQL client with various features, supports various databases including MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, etc.

🔐 Security & Privacy

  • KeePass – A free, open-source, lightweight, and easy-to-use password manager.
  • Bitwarden - One of the best and popular password managers, available as browser extension.
  • VeraCrypt – A free disk encryption software for Windows, macOS, and Linux.
  • WireGuard – A simple and fast VPN that utilizes modern cryptography.

🌐 Internet & Networking

  • Putty – Super useful SSH and Telnet client.
  • qBittorrent – A free and open-source BitTorrent client.
  • Transmission – A fast, easy, and free multi-platform BitTorrent client.
  • Wireshark – A network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows.

🎮 Gaming & Entertainment

  • Steam – A digital distribution platform for video games.
  • GOG Galaxy – A DRM-free gaming platform.
  • RetroArch – A frontend for emulators, game engines, and media players.

📚 Education & Learning

  • WordWeb - English Dictionary App, freeware with caveats.
  • Anki – A flashcard program which utilizes spaced repetition.
  • Moodle – A learning platform designed to provide educators, administrators, and learners with a single robust, secure, and integrated system.
  • Jupyter Notebook – An open-source web application that allows creation and sharing of documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations, and narrative text.

🛠️ Miscellaneous Tools

  • 7-Zip – A free and open-source file archiver.
  • Rufus - Create bootable pen drives the easy way.
  • Sumatra PDF – A slim, free, open-source PDF reader for Windows.
  • ffmpeg - A collection of libraries and tools to process multimedia content such as audio, video, subtitles and related metadata.
  • ShareX/ShareX - Free and open source program that lets you capture or record any area of your screen.
  • wkhtmltopdf - Lightweight and efficient command-line tool to generate PDF documents from HTML.

💡 Grammar Checkers

  • LanguageTool – Open-source style and grammar checker for 25+ languages. Works as a desktop app, browser extension, LibreOffice plugin, and server API.
  • Vale – A syntax-aware, rule-based linter for prose. Focused on enforcing style guides and writing consistency rather than AI-powered grammar suggestions. Ideal for writers or teams wanting automated, customizable style enforcement in Markdown, LaTeX, or plain text.
  • Harper – A new, local-first open-source grammar checker developed by an Automattic engineer. It operates entirely in the browser or as a VS Code/Obsidian plugin, ensuring privacy and speed. Currently, it supports only English and lacks custom rule support, but it's lightweight and fast.
  • After the Deadline – An older, lightweight grammar checker that uses statistical language models to catch contextual spelling errors and stylistic issues. While not as feature-rich as some newer tools, it's completely free and respects user privacy.
  • Grammalecte – An open-source French grammar checker featuring multiple dictionaries for spellchecking, verb conjugation tools, and a lexicographer. It's particularly useful for French-language content.
  • Editsaurus – A minimalist, web-based grammar checker that focuses on simplicity and speed. It's ideal for users who prefer a no-frills approach to grammar checking.