After having spent a lot of dollars and euros in buying software "for life" that eventually expired when I bought a new laptop I decided to find and use software that was equal in sophistication as the equivalent commercial one but was free and worked as successfully as the paid for software. I have selected below software for a variety of needs that is either free or open source (free and usually continuously developed) and has no limitations or expiration date or commercial but affordable and with no limitation of the purchased license. The pieces of software are here selected not for advertising purposes but only because they work fine and in most cases I use them with Windows 11. However some are also available for other platforms such as Mac OS X, Linux, Chrome OS etc and in many world languages.
7-zip
Free.
"7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression
ratio.Supported formats: Packing: 7z, XZ, BZIP2, GZIP, TAR, ZIP and WIM.
Unpacking only: APFS, AR, ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, CramFS, DMG, EXT, FAT, GPT, HFS,
IHEX, ISO, LZH, LZMA, MBR, MSI, NSIS, NTFS, QCOW2, RAR, RPM, SquashFS, UDF, UEFI,
VDI, VHD, VHDX, VMDK, XAR and Z. For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a
compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and
WinZip. Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats. Self-extracting
capability for 7z format. Integration with Windows Shell." Help provided through
main site page.
Apache OpenOffice
Free.
"Apache OpenOffice is the leading open-source
office software suite for
word processing,
spreadsheets,
presentations,
graphics,
databases and more. It is available in
many languages and works on all
common computers. It stores all your
data in an international open standard format
and can also read and write files from other common office software packages."
LibreOffice is an alternative
to OpenOffice and based on it. Help manuals and center available.
Audacity
Free.
Audio recording and editing software. Maybe more sophisticated and powerful in
editing compared to simple WaveShop (see below) but is it extremely
popular. Manual, help and forums are avialble through the main site page.
AVS Free Software (2024)
Free.
AVS creates and sells commercial audio and video manipulation software but
offers the following pieces for free with no limitations. (1)
AVS Media Player
(2) AVS Video
Converter (3)
AVS Audio
Converter (4)
AVS Image
Converter
Classical Opus Media Cataloging Software
Use it to create a catalog of your classical (and not only) music recordings
collection. Use Classical Opus to catalog your music collection on CDs,
DVDs, LPs, Tapes. This software can be used with classical, pop, rock, jazz,
country or any other music style but it is especially fast and easy with
classical music. Use the copy/paste keys and the thousands of built-in names of
classical composers, orchestras, conductors, soloists and labels to keep actual
typing to the minimum. Search your collection in various ways and combinations
and print and save the results. Manual and other help files are included in the
installation package.
Calibre
Free.
"Calibre is a powerful and easy to use e-book manager. Save time on managing
your e-book collection. Use it everywhere and with anything. Comprehensive
e-book viewer. Download news/magazines from the web. Share and backup your
library easily. Edit the books in your collection. Satisfy every e-book need and
get support." Help through the main site page.
EAC. Exact Audio Copy
Free.
In case you need to transfer an audio CD onto your hard disk. "Exact Audio Copy
is a so called audio grabber for audio CDs using standard CD and DVD-ROM drives.
It is free (for non-commercial purposes) It works with a technology, which reads
audio CDs almost perfectly. If there are any errors that can’t be corrected, it
will tell you on which time position the (possible) distortion occurred, so you
could easily control it with e.g. the media player."
Help provided through main site page.
Ear Trumpet
Free.
Volume control for Windows. "Take full control of all your audio with EarTrumpet!
EarTrumpet is a simple, easy-to-use volume control program for Windows that lets
you easily control the volume of specific channels. If you've ever wanted to
individually control the volume of everything on your Windows PC, or have grown
tired of shifting the volume between apps like Skype and Spotify, EarTrumpet is
the best option for you. With EarTrumpet you can cease constantly adjusting your
volume to whatever it is you are currently listening to. Simply adjust the
volume once for every app you use, and sit back and enjoy the perfect level of
volume every time." Help provided through main site page.
Everything
Free.
Very fast file search on PC hard disk and external disks when connected. "Locate
files and folders by name instantly.Small installation file. Clean and simple
user interface. Quick filename indexing. Quick searching. Minimal resource
usage. Real-time updating. Help provided through main site page.
Frescobaldi
Free.
"Sheet music text editor. It aims to be powerful, yet lightweight and easy to
use. Powerful text editor with syntax highlighting and automatic completion.
Music view with advanced Point & Click. Midi player to proof-listen LilyPond-generated
MIDI files. Midi capturing to enter music. Powerful Score Wizard to quickly
setup a music score." Help provided through main site page.
GIMP
Free.
"GIMP provides the tools needed for high quality image manipulation.
From retouching to restoring to creative composites, the only limit is your
imagination. GIMP gives artists the power and flexibility to transform images
into truly unique creations. GIMP is used for producing icons, graphical design
elements, and art for user interface components and mockups. GIMP is a
cross-platform image editor available for GNU/Linux, macOS, Windows and more
operating systems.Whether you are a graphic designer, photographer, illustrator,
or scientist, GIMP provides you with sophisticated tools to get your job done.
You can further enhance your productivity with GIMP thanks to many customization
options and 3rd party plugins." Help included and provided through the main page
(at the bottom) of the site.
* GoldWave Audio Editor
Commercial.
Affordable commercial software with no license expirations, unlimited
installations and activations, two years of free updates and upgrades."GoldWave
is a highly rated, professional digital audio editor that turns your computer or
mobile device into a recording studio at your finger tips. Do everything from
the simplest recording, editing, and mixing to the most sophisticated audio
processing, restoration, enhancements, and conversions." User Manual and Help
online.
IrfanView
Free. Graphic Viewer but has plug-ins and play music files and show
PDFs. "Fast and compact (just 6 MB). Freeware for non-commercial use. Multi
language support. Unicode support. Designed to be simple but powerful".
Help file included.
Mp3splt
Free.
"Mp3Splt-project is a utility to split mp3, ogg vorbis and native FLAC files
selecting a begin and an end time position, without decoding. It's very useful
to split large mp3/ogg vorbis/FLAC to make smaller files or to split entire
albums to obtain original tracks. If you want to split an album, you can select
split points and filenames manually or you can get them automatically from CDDB
(internet or a local file) or from .cue files. Supports also automatic silence
split, that can be used also to adjust cddb/cue splitpoints. Trimming using
silence detection is also available."
MuseScore
Free.
"Free music notation & composition software. WYSIWYG design, notes are entered
on a "virtual notepaper". TrueType font(s) for printing & display allows for
high quality scaling to all sizes. Easy & fast note entry, with many editing
functions. MusicXML import/export, and MIDI (SMF) import/export. MuseData
import, MIDI input for note entry, with integrated sequencer and software
synthesizer to play the score. You can print or create pdf files. MuseScore
provides a number of learning resources to help the new user get started."
Help included.
OBS Studio
Free.
Software for video recording with sound and live streaming. It records whatever
appears on your computer screen along with the sound played. During installation
select the video recording mode for better configuration. You may record either
a selected part or the whole display. If needed, can be configured further
through "Settings". Comes with a number of help items on its Internet site
(Getting Started, Recording, Streaming, Audio, troubleshooting, FAQs etc).
OpenShot Video Editor
Free.
Simple in use but very powerful video editor. Supports a number of video and
audio formats for editing and saving your videos. Uses frame accuracy and you
can use many video effects along with other features. Help through the "User
Guide" selected from the "Features" ling on the main site page.
PDF24
Free.
A very powerful PDF creator and manipulator that does everything expected by
expensive commercial PDF editors. It has solutions for all PDF problems such as
create, edit, merge, split, convert, extract, protect, rotate, remove,
rearrange, OCR in many many languages, compare, optimize, annotate, PDF to
Word, jpg to PDF pages and PDF files. Manual on PDF Creator site page and other
Help through the "Help Center" site link (bottom of main site page) and then
"ENGLISH" and "Forums" links.
Sumatra PDF
Free.
PDF, eBook (epub, mobi), comic book (cbz/cbr), DjVu, XPS, CHM, image viewer for
Windows. Fast, small, packed with features, customizable, free. Manual through
the main site page.
Vu Meter or
vuplayer
Free.
Vu meter = Volume Unit (VU) meter displaying audio signal level. vuplayer =
capable of monitoring playback as well as recording levels.
VLC Media Player
Free.
"VLC is a free and open source cross-platform multimedia player and framework
that plays most multimedia files as well as DVDs, Audio CDs, VCDs, and various
streaming protocols." Help provided through main site page.
Wallpaper Changer 2
Free. "The Windows application for showing HD wallpapers on your desktop. In the
application, you can configure the change of wallpaper on a schedule. Select one
of three image sources (Bing, Flickr, Unsplash). Liked wallpaper can be added to
Favorites, so that you can then show them again. In Walpaper Chnager 2 there is a
parametric search for images by color, by tag (available in one of the wallpaper
sources). The application runs in the background and does not take a lot of
resources." Very easy to use. If wallpapers do not show or change but you
receive an error message then from "Settings" just change "Resolution" to
custom. Amazing pictures on your desktop every day or at any time you wish.
WaveShop
Free.
"WaveShop is fast, lightweight, and
bit-perfect, meaning samples aren't altered unless they need to be. Editing
a portion of an audio file only affects that portion; the rest of the file is
untouched. Blocks of audio can be cut and pasted without changing their contents
at all." Comprehensive help through main page links.
* WinCatalog
Commercial.
Affordable commercial software with no license expirations, unlimited
installations and activations, two years of free updates and upgrades.
"Automatically create a catalog of all files, stored on your disks (HDDs, DVDs,
CDs, network drives and other media storage devices): WinCatalog will
automatically grab ID3 tags for music files, Exif tags and thumbnails for
photos, thumbnails and basic information for video files, e-books, contents of
archive files, thumbnails for images (pictures) and PDF files, ISO files, and
much more." User Manual and Help online.
You may find hundreds of free open source pieces of software on the SourceForge site by operating system and category.