Top 5 Must-Have Free Downloads

I am regularly asked to recommend a piece of software to fulfil certain tasks by customers, friends and family so they can pop out and buy it. I normally end up pointing them in the direction of a free download online that I have been using for years. So today I am going to share with you my list of top downloads that (in my humble opinion) all computer users should have installed.

Paint.net

Whilst it lacks the advanced features of a programme like Adobe Photoshop, this little beauty is capable of a fantastic amount of image manipulation. In addition to standard features like colour filling and line/shape drawing Paint.net has a host of other features like its magic wand for selecting certain colours and colour gradients. There are also a whole series of after effects to enhance your photos or stylize them further. The majority of the tools in this programme have a variety of settings so the effect can be as subtle or blatant as you please.

AVG Free

Out of all of my usual recommendations the one that is usually met with the most shocked expressions and scepticism is AVG Free. Sadly it seems the idea of getting software for free and getting software of sub-standard quality are intrinsically linked in our brains as consumers. However as AVG have been specialising in computer security software for over 20 years it shouldn’t surprise you to learn this is an excellent piece of software to protect your computer with. Granted a paid version is available with extra features is available but to me the benefits to not justify the purchase.

Open Office

Open office is a free alternative to Microsoft Office which quite simply has never let me down. It contains a word processor, spreadsheet programme, presentation maker, 3D graphics package, database programme and an equation editor. Of course this is not a Microsoft products so the names are different, for example what you have come to know as Word is called Writer and Excel is Calc. Ironically Open Office bears a much closer resemblance to the Microsoft Office I grew up using and is certainly a lot more intuitive than Microsoft’s latest offerings. This coupled with the fact the most recent version is fully compatible with Office 2007 file types and has had a much-needed speed increase means there has never been a better time to download yourself a copy.

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