Must have free apps for Windows 7

Windows 7 has hit RTM finally. Some users will start getting their greedy hands on the RTM ( some already have! ) soon, including yours truly, as soon as it hits MSDN and TechNet on 6th of August. This means that a lot of users will be (preferably) doing a clean install of Windows 7. I decided to create a list of some must have applications for Windows 7. They match most of what you had for Windows Vista and XP, but I’ve thrown incompatible drivers and antivirus software for good measure.

Applications

Adobe Reader 9 Download

View and print PDF files with the free Adobe Reader 9

Any Video Converter Download

Convert video between a huge number of formats for free using Any Video Converter.

CCleaner Download

CCleaner helps you clean your internet history, remove unused files and clean up the registry.

   DAEMON Tools Downloads

Your one-stop solution to create virtual drives and mount images.

Filezilla Download

The best, free and open source FTP client for Windows.

Foxit Reader 3.0 Download

A good, fast PDF viewer. Can be used as an alternative to Adobe Reader 9.

Gmail Notifier Plus Download

An excellent notifier for Gmail made specifically for Windows 7. It has support for thumbnail previews and jump lists. Must have if you use Gmail. Read our review here.

Handbrake Download

HandBrake is a free and open-source, multithreaded video transcoder,

Java Runtime Environment Download

Java lets you run Java applets inside your browser as well as desktop applications.

New York Times Reader Download

A news reader by New York times with a clean UI and great typography. Read our review here.

Paint.NET Download

A great free image editing tool. Must have for anyone who plays around with images.

Skype Download

Make free and cheap calls over the Internet to anywhere in the world.

uTorrent Download

One of the best BitTorrent clients in the world.

Virtual Box Download

Virtual Box is a very powerful, free and open source virtualization software. Great for development as well as enterprise use.

Virtual CloneDrive Download

Create virtual drives and mount images from your hard disk or network drive to use like a normal physical CD/DVD drive.

Windows Live Essentials Download – Offline Installer

Windows Live Essentials – contains Windows Live Messenger, Photo Gallery, Live Mail, Writer, Movie Maker and more.

Windows Movie Maker 2.6 Download

The old Movie Maker works with Windows 7. A must have until the new Windows Live Movie Maker gains more features.

 

Media Players

iTunes 8.2.1 Download

iTunes lets you play and manage our audio and video files as well as sync your content to your iPod or iPhone.

QuickTime 7 Download

QuickTime plays back a huge variety of video and audio files including .mov and H.264

VLC Media Player Download

VLC Media Player is an open source media player and supports virtually every audio and video file format you can throw at it.

 

Internet Browsers

Google Chrome Download – Beta version – Developer version

Google’s browser – one of the fastest and most light-weight browsers to surf the Internet.

Firefox 3.5 Download

The popular browser by Mozilla. Can be customized to your heart’s likings with themes and extensions.

Safari 4 Download

Safari 4 is one of the world’s fastest browsers with a clean UI and uses cover flow for history.

 

Security Software

AVG Free Anti-Virus Download

Award winning, free anti-virus solution with LinkScanner technology to protect you while browsing the Internet.

Avast Home Edition Download

Avast Home Edition is a free antivirus for personal use with anti-spyware, anti-rootkit and web shield technologies to protect you.

Microsoft Security Essentials Download

Free solid antivirus + anti-malware solution by Microsoft – Read our review.

 

Desktop Gadgets

Vista Notes Sidebar Gadget Download

The useful desktop gadget from Vista for use in Windows 7.

Network Utilization Gadget Download

Desktop Gadget to track your Network download and upload speeds.

Windows Live Desktop Gadget Download

Stay up to date with your Windows Live contacts and their activities with this gadget.

The Search Bar Download

This gadget lets you search Amazon, AOL, Ask.com, Bing, Google, Wikipedia or Yahoo right from your desktop. Each search engine has a customized search bar.

 

Graphics Drivers

ATI Catalyst Graphics Drivers 9.7 32 bit | 64 bit

WHQL certified drivers for AMD Graphics Cards.

 GeForce Driver Release 190 Download

WHQL-Certified driver for GeForce 6, 7, 8, 9, 100, and 200-series desktop GPUs and ION GPUs.

 

Twitter Clients

 Blu Download

A beautiful Twitter Client made using WPF. Read our review here.

Sobees Download

Silverlight 3 based Twitter client / Real Time search application. Read our review here.

The list doesn’t have many applications right now. I’ll keep adding more and more applications as I find them. If you think there should be any application/utility/driver on this list, don’t forget to tell me using the comments below.

Update 1: Virtual Box added.

Update 2: iTunes, Quicktime, Safari 4 and Handbrake added.

Update 3: The Search Bar added.

Update 4: Foxit, New York Times Reader, Paint.NET, uTorrent, Virtual CloneDrive, VLC Media Player, Windows Movie Maker 2.6, AVG Free AV, Avast Home Edition, Blu and Sobees added.

Rev 0.5