20 Windows 7 free apps

1. GIMP
The Paint application got a much needed improvement in Windows 7, but it doesn't cater to the needs of professionals and by no stretch of imagination can it be considered a Photoshop replacement.
GIMP, a diamond of freebies, is simply remarkable in terms of quality and quantity, with an array of options. From 3D perspective tools to eye-popping render effects, GIMP impresses throughout. (For a less professional based image editor, Paint.Net is a good alternative).

2. VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is not about the cool menu colours or the glow of the play button seen in its rivals. The developers of this fantastic piece of software have focused on the core aspects of a media player, and it succeeds by being able to play virtually any video and audio format with impressive quality. Great ease of use makes this media player a must-have.

3. Handbrake
Converting video from one format to another is child's play with Handbrake, which accepts practically any format as a source. Handbrake also includes chapter selection, basic subtitle support and audio embedding. With tree diagrams and tabs in the interface, Handbrake is a pleasure to use.

4. Firefox
The browser war is pretty fierce and everybody has their favourite browser. However, the star of open-source development is undoubtedly Mozilla Firefox. Does your browser look dull? Then download one of the many themes from the Mozilla website. Increase functionality and productivity with add-ons such as Sxipper and Firegestures.

5. Picasa
Created by Google, Picasa gathers and organises all your photos to make them easily accessible. Adjusting and fixing your photos, posting them online or viewing a timeline are just a few clicks away, and amateurs will appreciate the simple yet very effective layout in Picasa. Included with Picasa is the excellent Picasa Photo Viewer to preview pictures in Windows explorer folders.

6. Fences
Windows 7 might bring a brand new taskbar, but it doesn't do much to improve upon the main desktop itself. Fences is a great way to make your desktop organised, by arranging and sorting icons into various 'fences' or labelled shaded areas in a well-presented manner. Fences make life a lot easier.

7. CCleaner
Like its predecessors, Windows 7 will tend to run slowly on lower end computers. One way to speed up a slow computer is to clear up unnecessary junk files that pile up in your hard drive, and CCleaner does just that. And with an added uninstalling feature that removes annoying programs that refuse to leave your computer, CCleaner is strongly recommended.

8. Enhancemyse7en
From Cleaning up registry problem to detecting system clutter, Enhancemyse7en notifies you about improvements that could be made on your computer. However, the supreme aspect of this program lies in the insane amount of data and tools provided, including hard drive monitors that measure 'Work Time' and 'Temperature' and helpful options such as 'Time to wait when a program hangs'.

9. Adobe Reader
Adobe Reader might be an unnecessarily larger download than its rivals, but it manages to keep a constant footprint on resources (unlike Foxit PDF Reader that has a constantly increasing footprint) and with a browser plug-in included, it's a good idea to stick to the software provided by the creators of the PDF format themselves.

10. Notepad ++
Unlike Paint, Windows 7 makes absolutely no improvement to the Notepad application. Fortunately, the freebie, Notepad ++, expands on the functionality of the default notepad by including tabbed windows. It's a programmer's dream, with support for various programming languages. This program justly deserves the name 'Notepad++'.

11. Ditto
Since Windows 7 doesn't improve upon one of the most common used techniques used on a PC - copy-paste - the freebie Ditto enhances copy-pasting by placing a universal clipboard storing every single object that has been copied, to be pasted in whatever order that is required.

12. Defraggler
The creator of CC Cleaner has also created the Defraggler, a defragmentation tool for Windows. The stand-out feature is, however, the ability to defragment individual files or a specific portion of a drive. Defragmenting only what is needed saves a lot of time instead of defragmenting a whole drive that could take a few hours.

13. Recuva
Recuva is a freeware app that recovers files that have been accidentally deleted from the Recycle Bin, MP3 Players and memory cards, claiming to recover files that have also been corrupted by viruses or damaged disks. The slick Recuva Wizard at Startup appeals to both amateurs and professionals, and with no price tag, it can be priceless when you find those important photos or documents.

14. 7Stacks
Stacks is a fantastic addition to the Mac OS X Dock. Wouldn't it be great if you could do that on a Windows taskbar? 7Stacks does exactly that, providing an insight into your documents quickly with a few clicks, and with a matching aero theme effect, there is no reason not to have a great Mac feature on your PC.

15. Switcher
Another great Mac OSX feature is Exposé, the ability to view all running windows in various thumbnails in full screen. Switcher mimics this feature, allowing you to decide which mouse or keyboard shortcut you would like to activate the Switch.

16. 7-Zip
Compressing files has many advantages since they take up less space and are therefore quicker to download from the internet. Featuring a host of compression formats, 7-Zip lets you uncompress almost any compressed data, and with the unique 7z format, files can be compressed up to 40% smaller than Zip formats.

17. Supercopier
Apart from being a tad faster than the standard Windows Explorer, Supercopier also allows you to edit the copy-list while copying. It also includes an error log and allows you to decide the speed of the copying.

18. Windows Live Essentials
Live applications such as Windows Photo Gallery, Movie Maker and Live Messenger are not installed by default with Windows 7. Most of these applications could sell if they were given a price, and there is a lot of effort put into developing them, so it's worth downloading them.

19. Eraser
Most people store some sort of important personal information such as passwords or bank statements on their PC. Files deleted from the recycle bin are not necessarily lost forever, and it could be a disaster if someone managed to retrieve sensitive information. Eraser erases by overwriting the selected file several times in 'carefully selected patterns'. This means that the file is not just deleted, but its left-out counterpart is overwritten to make sure it's gone forever.

20. OpenOffice
OpenOffice, a popular open-source suite, is an immensely powerful set of applications considering the fact that you don't have to dish out a single penny. OpenOffice is very similar to MS Office, and advanced techniques like macros and built-in templates will please advanced users.

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Top10 windows7 desktop gadgets

1: All CPU Meter

The gadget I used to monitor my dual-core computer running Vista wasn’t available in a quad-core version, so I switched to All CPU Meter (Figure A). It supports up to eight cores (so I have room to grow). All CPU Meter isn’t as complex as some, but the simplicity works in its favor. It monitors your memory usage as well as CPUs, and it packs a lot of information into a small space. I also like that you can change the background color to match your preferences.

Figure A

All CPU Meter really does monitor all of your CPU cores — up to eight of them.

2: Windows Orb Clock

During all the time I used Vista and the first year I used Windows 7, my analog clock gadget of choice was the electric blue version of the one that comes with the operating system. But now I’ve switched to a much cooler model: the Vista Orb Clock (Figure B). Of course, the same orb is also on the Windows 7 Start menu. I love its clean look and the nice symmetry of having it just across from my Start Menu orb (since I have my Taskbar set to the vertical position.

Figure B

After years with the electric blue clock gadget, I’ve replaced it with the Windows Orb.

3: Clipboard Manager

I’ve also replaced the Clipboard gadget I was using with Vista. I liked being able to access previous Clipboard items — without opening an Office app — but the old one was a little cheesy looking and limited in its functionality. Clipboard Manager (Figure C) looks slick and is feature-rich. You can customize the background to fit your desktop, and not just the color; you can use a photo as the background if you prefer.
You can save up to 999 clips (that’s a lot of clips!) and you can delete any clip or send it to the Clipboard or to your Favorites list with a right click. The Favorites feature lets you create boilerplate text you use often. I also like the ability to mark clips with timestamps. And unlike the old Clipboard gadget, this one supports images as well as text. It even has a privacy mode, which prevents clips from being displayed on the main gadget so that passers-by who glance at your desktop can’t see what you’ve saved to the clipboard.

Figure C

This little gadget has a big fly-out that packs a lot of functionality into a small package.

4: Facebook Explorer

One big change in my online life since 2008 is that I’ve become thoroughly immersed in social networking. Much of the discourse that used to take place through email discussion lists now occurs via Facebook. A Facebook gadget seemed like almost a necessity, but the first one I tried (Facebook Sidebar 1.5) didn’t work. It never picked up my info even though it said it was connected. So I tried Facebook Explorer, which worked nicely. It can be configured to run in a smaller or larger width and one of three heights, and you can specify how often you want updates (from every one to 60 minutes). It gives you a compact view of your own status and information or friends’ activities, as shown in two views of the gadget in Figure D. You can also update your status in the flyout.

Figure D

Facebook Explorer can be adjusted to the size that best fits your desktop.

5: Ultimate Explorer

Ultimate Explorer lets you search popular sites from your desktop without having to go to those sites first in your browser. It’s a compact little gadget with that can search Google, YouTube, Wikipedia, eBay, Amazon, Digg, and many more. You can make it larger if you have plenty of desktop real estate, and you can select up to eight search sites for “snap search,” which enables you to “snap” quickly from one search engine to another. It also includes a flyout calendar and events feature. And unlike the vast majority of gadgets, it even has a flyout Help section, as shown in Figure E.

Figure E

Ultimate Explorer lets you search many sites quickly and easily.

6: App Launcher

One aspect of Windows 7 that annoyed and frustrated many users was the omission of the Quick Launch toolbar. If you’re like me, for years you’ve relied on the Quick Launch bar to access your frequently used programs. There is a way to get Quick Launch back, but unlike with previous versions of Windows, you can’t separate the Quick Launch bar from the main Taskbar. That means it takes up precious space on the Taskbar that you might need for open programs, system tray items, etc.
Enter the App Launcher gadget (Figure F). It serves the same purpose as the Quick Launch bar but can be placed anywhere you want on the desktop. You can add whatever programs you want by dragging them to the gadget, configure the number of icons to display per row and whether to center them, and change the background image.

Figure F

App Launcher v3 makes a nice little replacement for the missing Quick Launch toolbar.

7: MiniTV

Want to take a break and catch up on the news? The MiniTV gadget allows you to choose from a number of stations (many of which I’ve never heard of, as well as familiar ones, such as NBC News and C-SPAN). You can watch the program in the tiny gadget window (Figure G) or you can double-click it to display full screen. Just double-click again to get out of full screen mode.

Figure G

MiniTV lets you watch television in a tiny gadget window or full screen.

8: Traffic by Bing Maps

Traffic is a simple little gadget that can be useful if you’re about to head out into the big, bad world. I don’t use it as much as some folks would, since I work from home. But I still have to venture onto the major freeways now and then, and it’s nice to know in advance if there are going to be problems along a particular route. One caveat is that you need to live in (or be traveling in) a major metro area to use it. You can zoom in or out, and clicking the traffic info button (which is represented by the red light icon in Figure H) will take you to a full sized map of the area on Bing Maps, complete with the traffic data.

Figure H

Traffic by Bing Maps helps you avoid congestion when venturing into metro areas.

9: Magic Folder

Okay, granted, the icon isn’t the most professional looking, as you can see in Figure I. And many folks won’t like the idea of having a folder make decisions about where to save their files. But for those who always seem to end up with dozens of files sitting on the desktop because they never get around to moving them into appropriate folders, Magic Folder could be a godsend. You just drag your files to the magic folder and it examines the file extensions and sends the files to the “right” folder. For example, .doc files go to the Documents folder; .jpg, .gif, and other image files go to the Pictures folder. The nice thing is that you can add or remove the file extensions recognized by the gadget, change where specific extensions should be put, and you add your own folder locations. If you want to maintain more control, you can set the gadget to prompt you before it moves a file to a folder. Oh, and you can also change the appearance of the folder icon to something a little less…  magical.

Figure I

The Magic Folder gadget might have a goofy looking default icon, but it can help disorganized people get more organized.

10: Open/Close DVD

Open/Close DVD is utterly simple. But it’s handy to have if your computer is sitting under your desk like mine, making it difficult to get to the button for opening the DVD drive door. Just click the open button (the down-pointing arrow shown in Figure J) and it opens; click the Close button (the up-pointing arrow) and it shuts. It doesn’t get any simpler than that. One thing to watch for: If you have more than one drive attached, it will open/close both of them — there is no option to select a particular drive.

Figure J

The Open/Close DVD gadget does exactly what its name says, no more and no less.