A little while back, Neowin news writer Andrew Lyle went ahead and asked the community about their favorite Windows Mobile and iPhone applications. It seemed fitting to repeat this process, with a larger scale in mind; the top 10 favorite Windows applications. I'm not going to bore you with a witty introduction or lame jokes, so let's just jump straight into it, starting from #10.
#10: TuneUp Utilities 2009
TuneUp Utilities tends to be the crowd favorite when it comes to performance optimization software. It has a crazy range of features, and it wraps them all up into a slick interface. I use it myself, daily, and have done for years now. You can do a lot of stuff with it... there's defragmenting tools, UI customization features, a hard drive error checker and you can even go and change your boot screen if you are so inclined. If you feel like having a bit of a read, you can check out the Neowin review of this program right here. If reviews aren't your style, you can head over to the official website for the product and download the free trial.
#9: VLC Media Player
VLC tends to be the enthusiasts choice when it comes to media playing software. First and foremost, it's free, and it also comes on a vast amount of operating systems. Perhaps the biggest benefit, though, is that it can play pretty much any codec you can think of, and does so with simplicity. One of my favorite 'features', however, is the size of it. It's more than easy enough to just stick it on a USB key and take it wherever you need a good video player, which is very handy. You can pick up VLC here, for the aforementioned price of free.
#8: 7Zip
7Zip is a popular extracting and archiving tool, available on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Not only is it free, but it supports a wide range of archive formats, including .zip, .rar and it's very own .7zip format. There's not much else that needs to be said about this program, so if you're interested, head of to its website and nab it.
#7: Opera
Opera is a web browser that was first released back in 1996, that is currently available for operating systems, as well as mobile platforms as well. It's rather popular, and, although has a smaller market share than most, is certainly no worse than any of the other competitors out there. The software giant Adobe uses it for some of their products, and the Nintendo DS and Wii use it exclusively for their web browsing needs. If you're wanting to give it a try, head over to the official webpage and download it.
#6: Pidgin
Pidgin (or Gaim, as it was previously known) is a very popular instant messaging client, for Windows, Mac OS X and various Linux variations. It's been around since 1999, and it's essentially the client of choice amongst Linux users. You can use it to chat to a huge range of protocols, including MSN, AIM and even MyspaceIM. If you wish to give it a shot, your best bet would be to go here.
#5: Windows Live Messenger
Windows Live Messenger is the Microsoft iteration of an IM client, which comes included with Windows Vista. It's extremely popular, not because it's already installed on Windows machines, but because it has a great range of features, customization and even built-in games. You can head over here to install it (if you need to, for whatever reason), and keep in mind that if you're on a Mac then you'll be automatically redirected. It's worth noting that the Mac OS X client is much different to the Windows version, and isn't as fully featured, but still does the job well.
#4: WinRAR
WinRAR is probably the most popular archiving tool available for Windows, I'd say. It's available here, and is available for purchase or as a free download. It's a shareware application, so if you want a fully free alternative, look elsewhere.
#3: Adobe CS4 Suite
Adobe's latest Creative Suite, CS4, is the newest addition to possibly the most popular and famous graphics editing package in the world. CS4 features a bunch of programs, including Dreamweaver and Illustrator, but most importantly it included Photoshop. Photoshop is the professional choice when it comes to image creation and manipulation, and whilst there are very good free alternatives, Photoshop is in a league of its own. If you're willing to shell out the big ones to get this, you can head over here, or you can also try a 30 day full-featured trial.
#2: µTorrent
µTorrent is, apparently, one of the most popular torrent clients around. It's got a great range of features, and works very well. It's currently available for Windows, or as a beta on Mac OS X. Aside from its features, it's also very small in filesize so is great for people with limited hardware. It's handy for downloading that Linux .iso, or what-have-you, so if you want to get a hold of this if you haven't already, please go here to do so.
#1: Firefox
Is anybody really surprised about this? Firefox appears to be the browser of choice with Neowin, and it's no wonder. It's fast, it's free, and it has a wonderful range of add-ons that make it hugely customizable while still being very usable. Development for Firefox is very strong and consistent, with new versions released daily, and Mozilla (the company behind it) have a great community, as well as a current 22.905% market share as of March, 2009. If, for whatever reason, you don't have this wonderful piece of software installed already, please visit the website and get it.
So, there we have it, Neowin. You voted, and these are the top 10 applications of choice. So, which software almost made the cut? Let's have a look.
Honorable mentions:
Google Chrome:
Google's Chrome browser hasn't been around as long as its competitors, but it certainly is popular already. It is based on the Chromium project, and is currently available for Windows, but as a pre-alpha for Ubuntu and Mac OS X. If you've yet to try out Chrome, you can do so here. It's currently sitting on 1.23% market share, as of March, 2009.
CCleaner:
CCleaner is a very popular (and free!) tool for Windows, designed to remove all the unwanted files you may have lying around. It's had over 260 million downloads, and has many features including a registry cleaner and, most importantly, it's damn fast. According to the website for the software, it usually takes less than a second to run.
So concludes the Windows edition of our top 10 list, but it shan't end here. Keep your eyes peeled if you're not a Windows user if you wish to have your say in the coming weeks.
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