Windows programs

Open-source

• Rainmeter — Window’s info displayed aesthetically on the desktop with custom widgets
• VLC — the classic cross-platform multimedia player
• ShareX — screen recording, image editor/combiner, one-click cloud storage uploads… basically it does a lot
• WinDirStat — visualize what's taking space on your disks
• CrystalDisk Info — shows HDD/SSD health & statistics
• 7-Zip — file archiver with a high compression ratio
• VeraCrypt — reliable disk encryption
• Ear Trumpet — an in-tray volume mixer. Being able to see & adjust audio outputs across multiple monitors is a Godsend
• BleachBit — the better, open-source version of CCleaner
• FreeFileSync — folder comparison & synchronization with various options
• Citra — open-source Nintendo 3DS emulator
• PowerToys — quality of life utility features, such as mass file renaming (with regular expressions) & pinning any window to the top
• Rufus — utility to create bootable USBs
• PDF Arranger — rearrange, combine, split, & edit PDF properties
• Firefox — browser with the best extensions available — especially after whenever Google will rollout its Manifest v3 update and breaks Chrome’s adblockers (purposefully)
• OBS Studio — the free gold-standard for video recording & streaming
• LibreOffice — a free and open-source office suite that is compatible with other major office suites
• QTTabBar — file explorer with nifty features including launching specified folders & apps, tabbed browsing, & more