Cool apps to download on pc

The Filter The Filter searches your music and video collection to create playlists and suggest others you might like. A great way to discover new music, or to choose from your own collection, which could contain thousands of tracks.

Steam Catapulting PC gaming into the 21st century, Steam lets you download and play the latest games and provides a great multiplayer platform, too.

Most new games are available through Steam, and it includes friends, groups and invitations. Windows Live Messenger Staying in contact couldn't be easier, and now you can start video calls, voice chat, shared folder sending, webcam viewing and even on-demand TV.

Windows Live Messenger is fast becoming an entertainment hub, with millions of users. Battlefield Heroes In a bid to entertain the world for free, EA is launching Battlefield Heroes , a third person cartoon shooter. Note that OpenOffice, a once-popular alternative, is basically dead now. If you don't want to use LibreOffice, try FreeOffice. You can use web apps like Word Online or Google Docs too, but we're focused on full desktop downloads here.

Download: LibreOffice Free. Download: FreeOffice Free. Whether you want to try your hand at basic image manipulation, need a way to blur sensitive info in screenshots, or want to retouch old photos, everyone should have an image editing program installed.

Photoshop is the gold standard for this, but there are plenty of free tools that are more accessible. NET is a must-have Windows app for your image editing needs. It's far more powerful than Microsoft Paint, but doesn't overwhelm you with loads of confusing tools.

You can easily blur out parts of an image, auto-level photos to make them look better, and add text and shapes to your pictures in just a few clicks. Plenty of plugins allow you to expand its functionality, too. If you find Paint. Download: Paint. NET Free. Windows 10 includes Windows Defender, which is a good enough antivirus for most users. However, it's wise to keep a secondary security program installed. For this, you can't beat Malwarebytes. The free version lets you scan your system for malware that your antivirus might not catch.

And for a powerful blended security solution, upgrading to Malwarebytes Premium is worth the cost. Download: Malwarebytes Free, subscription available. Thanks to YouTube's ubiquity, you probably don't watch local videos too often. However, everyone should still keep a solid video player around on your desktop for when you need to play media files locally.

Even if it's not one of the things you think to download on a new computer right away, it will come in handy someday. For this task, nothing beats VLC Media Player, which packs a ton of features and is capable of playing nearly every video and audio format imaginable. You'll save yourself the hassle of messing with video codecs or using QuickTime, which isn't supported for Windows any longer.

Download: VLC Free. The app lets you access a curated selection of 2 million songs for free without any ads. You also get unlimited skips and offline music download. These are the features that are reserved for the paid tier of other music streaming services like Spotify.

You might have noticed that the music selection here is far lesser than what is offered by Spotify over 30 million songs , however, I rarely found a popular song that was missing on this platform. I know am not going back to watching Netflix on my browser again. More so, when it supports 4K playback. The Netflix app is a must-have for anyone with a Windows 10 device and a Netflix subscription. Note: Check out our list of best Netflix Originals , movies , TV-shows , comedies , action movies , and more.

Download Netflix Free , requires paid subscription. With the Hulu app you can watch the latest episodes of your favorite TV show on your device.

Download Hulu Free , requires paid subscription 7. Kodi If you have a big offline media library and want to be able to easily manage it and stream it across devices, you should install Kodi. The best part about Kodi is that it is completely free to use. Once you set up Kodi on your device, you will be able to use it as a home server and stream content using Kodi on any device.

Not only that, but Kodi also comes with various plug-ins which lets you enhance its power. For example, you can install Kodi add-ons for Live TV shows and various Kodi repositories to stream content for free. If you are a media buff , there is no better Windows 10 app out there. Download Kodi: Free 8. Audible I have loved books for as long as I can remember. However, as life went on, I found less and less time to read books and I missed doing that a lot.

That is until I discovered Audible. Audible is an audiobook service that lets you listen to books on the go. I subscribed to Audible almost a year back and was able to go through 18 books till now.

I cannot tell you how happy that makes me. Thanks to Audible, now I can consume books when I am traveling , doing chores at home, or just lying in bed sleepless. I still go for a physical book on the quiet Sunday afternoon but after a hard day at work, nothing relaxes me more than listening to an audiobook on my way home. If you love books, you should install this app on your Windows 10 machine. Duolingo One of the highest-rated language learning apps — Duolingo — is also available on the Microsoft Store, allowing you to pick up a new language from the comfort of your home.

The app includes support for a number of languages, including widely used ones like Spanish, French, German, Portuguese , etc, and it gamifies the learning course to help you pick up languages quickly. Download Duolingo Free WeDo 2. The app has a very simple user interface which makes it easy for kids to pick it up on their own and it can also be used as a tool by teachers to teach their students simple programming skills.

Not only that, the app can also be used to teach students crucial science and engineering practices, including problem-solving, modeling , prototyping, investigating, analyzing and interpreting data. Download WeDo 2. The app has a really minimal user interface and it categorizes all of its videos in curated lists, making it easy for you to watch all the latest and popular TED Talks. Download TED Free. Do you ever use flashcards while studying? The app features a variety of flashcards which will allow you to memorize things like world flags, world capitals, world currencies, and the periodic table, but if none of the included flashcards are of much use, you can even create flashcards of your own and embed text, images, and sounds to help you memorize whatever topic you want to focus on.

Download FlashQuiz Free , includes in-app purchases Reading Trainer Next up is another great learning app for kids called Reading Trainer which, as its name suggests, serves to improve the reading speed and retention rate in kids using fun exercises.

You can use the app for anything from editing images to creating your own memes and thanks to its relatively simple user interface, the app is pretty great for beginners as well.

Autodesk SketchBook Autodesk SketchBook is another great app for creative professionals and artists alike, offering an expansive set of tools to help users create masterpieces on their PC. The app comes with complete touch input support. Download Autodesk SketchBook Free , offers in-app purchases It offers a much wider selection of tools and features that you can use to edit or create stunning projects.

On top of that, the app has an active online community which provides useful plugins that go a long way in improving user experience. Download Paint. Trending from CNET.

Cool Page Free to try. Ulead Cool 3D Free to try. Create 3D graphics for presentations and Web sites. Cool Flash Maker Free to try. Design animated flash intros, flash banners, flash ads, and flash movies. Cool Mouse Free to try. Use the mouse middle button to pop up the Start menu, minimize windows, and more. After all, the best apps for your PC aren't always the games you install or the virus protection you swear by. Sometimes it's monitoring your performance, cleaning up that desktop filled with games from several different sites, or even just protecting your eyes from that harsh blue light at 4am.

Nevertheless, look no further for some of the best gaming apps for your PC and the best app for gamers as a whole. It may be a little obvious that you should have Steam on your PC but for some, it just flies under the radar so it's still incredibly important to mention. Steam is a staple for any PC gamer and will end up being one of the best and most useful free apps you have.

For those who are unaware, Steam is essentially software that acts as a store for all the games you choose to purchase on there. It's pretty much the go-to place for developers when looking to publish their games since Steam sells every game available unless another company buys the rights to it. Nevertheless, you can buy anything from free-to-play games to brand new titles.

Steam is a must-have, and it's free to install. You still need to buy the games though. Don't be fooled by the name. The Razer Cortex Game Booster isn't just for those who have kitted their setup with all things Razer.

It's designed to optimize your PC's settings no matter the gaming platform you choose to use. This free app is perfect for setups of any price, power, or performance and doesn't need any PC wizardry to run it either. It will begin enhancing your settings instantly which makes it a wonderful app for your gaming PC, especially if it's your first. The days of Ventrilo and TeamSpeak are essentially long over.