9 Open-Source Apps I Install on Every New Windows PC
Windows is software in charge of most of your needs outside the box, but if you like for free And Open Source projects, or if you just want alternatives, there are many excellent options.
These are some free and open source applications that I immediately install on each new Windows PC that I get.
9
Open diffusion software (Obs)
Windows 11 has two integrated screen recorders: the game bar and the snipping tool.
However, despite the improvements of both over the years, I never really liked them for capturing the video.
For this, I prefer open diffusion software (Obs) instead. Obs is a little more complicated to configure than the native options of Windows, but it is incredibly powerful, versatile and, above all, completely free.
It also allows you to quickly take game images, just like Nvidia from Shadowplay or broadcast your game on the platform of your choice. It is an incredibly versatile tool that cannot be easily replaced, which is why I always install it.
8
Burn
You generally do not consider browsers as open source projects, but many are.
Google Chrome is built on the Open Source Chrome project.
However, my favorite is Firefox, which emphasizes confidentiality and user control. In addition, with recent changes from Google Chrome, certain extensions that I frequently use are no longer accessible.
In addition, it is important that we do not put our cyber eggs in a single digital basket – most browsers today are built on chrome. Firefox is one of the rare remaining browsers that is not.
7
Vlc
Windows 11 has more ways to read the video and the audio that I want to count, but none of them is as entirely featured as VLC, an open source video player.
VLC has been one of my favorites for years, mainly because it is the Swiss knife of media players. I have not yet encountered a file format that he cannot read, he has tons of tools useful for refining audio or video parameters, and it is light, which means that it works well even on low -power systems.
6
VSCodium
VSCODIUM is the fully open source variant of VSCODE, the popular text editor of Microsoft. VSCODIUM is not an integrated development environment (IDE) ExactlyBut the enormous number of extensions brings it together enough.
The only major difference between VSCODE and VSCODIUM is telemetry: VSCODE has a Microsoft telemetry that you cannot deactivate. Otherwise, they are almost identical.
It is light, flexible and easy to use, which in fact my essential text editor on each Windows and Linux PC I have.
5
Bitwarden
Everything requires an account these days, and the best security practices say that I should have a single password for each site. In my case, it’s more than 500 passwords – an incredibly large number for me.
Bitwarden is a free and open-source password manager that is available for each major operating system, and it has a browser file extension.
I also subscribe to their annual plan of $ 10, which is delivered with some additional advantages, including an authenticator function.
4
PowerToys
PowerToys, despite an increase in popularity over the years, is still underestimated and underused.
PowerToys contains more than 25 separate tools that do everything, from additional snipping areas to the order palette, which is very similar in search of projectors on macOS.
This is the Swiss knife of the Windows knife, and each Windows user should install it even if it does not have immediate use – something will eventually come.
3
Veracrypt
I wear a portable SSD wherever I go. Half of the reader is configured to be a Windows portable installation, but the other half is a mixture of personal files and work to which I need to access regularly.
However, it is not intelligent to walk with sensitive information only on a reader – if it were to be lost or stolen, I would not want this information “over there”.
This is where Veracrypt comes into play. I use Veracrypt to securely encrypt the reader so that no one can access the content of the reader, even if I lose it somewhere.
As a bonus, Veracrypt works on all the main operating systems, which means that the reader works on my Linux laptop as easily as my Windows desk.
2
System informant (process process)
System Inform, formerly called Process Hacker, is one of my favorite utilities for Windows.
In many ways, it looks like the task manager: it allows you to monitor programs and their resource uses and debugging programs to understand what they are doing.
However, the level of detail it offers is far beyond all that the task manager is capable of showing you, which makes it invaluable if you try to iron a particularly boring bug or to determine what an application does.
As a bonus, it has the possibility of subjecting a virustotal process for the default integrated analysis. This means that I do not need to manually search for an executable name to determine where it comes from and if it is malicious – determining which takes only a few clicks.
1
Rufus
Windows 11 allows you to make basic reader formatting options via integrated tools, such as disk management utility, but it still does not do everything I need.
For something more complicated than quickly format a flash reader, I use Rufus, an open-source program that allows you to create boostable portable readers with any number of parameters that can help you make sure that your reader works as expected.
There are certainly more flashy programs, but Rufus’ freelance approach earned me years ago, and I did not regret it for a moment.
As an additional further, Rufus can also be used to make a boostable ISO Windows 11 that bypasses most of the too bfromée 11 requirements of Windows 11. This alone has made my favorite way to create new Windows 11 installation media.
Although the paid equivalents of these programs exist, I almost never found myself reaching them, and until Windows begins, including more sophisticated integrated tools, I will continue to install free and open-source options.
