Freeware makers are usually avid computer users who do not program for profit, but use their skills to improve something. Thanks to the free programs, computing is more fun and convenient! We discuss the best freeware at the moment and new versions of “evergreens”.
Here you will find our annual overview with the best freeware. Of 2020.
Tip 01: Contort – Twisted!
Suitable for: Windows 7, 8.x, 10
A contortionist is called a “contortionist” in English, which is derived from the verb “to contort” which means “to twist”. It is therefore logical that you call your program in which you can rotate images, Contort.
With Contort you can place a frame around part of an image so that you can release all kinds of distortions: bending, thickening, thinning, … You do not often use such techniques, but they are very suitable for caricatures. However, warping images is only a small part of the program’s graphics box of tricks. You can also move elements from one photo to another with Contort. For example, provide a dog with a cat’s head or replace the spire of the Amsterdam Westerkerk with that of the Groningen Martinikerk.
Finally, Contort contains all kinds of effects to transform photos into a pointillist painting or drawing.
Tip 2: Nexusfont – Letter tray
Suitable for: Windows 7, 8.x, 10
A handful of fonts are enough for most purposes, and the collection that comes with Windows is usually excellent. That becomes a different story when you design newsletters, greeting cards or posters yourself; then you quickly need specific fonts to achieve the desired result. On the internet you will find a huge range of free beautiful things, but if you install all that, your editor will crash in no time, because it has to download a preview of all those fonts. It is better to put the fonts that you only use once after use in a separate folder. This is easiest with a so-called font manager. Nexusfont is an excellent choice for this purpose. If you open a folder with external fonts, you can install a font from the context menu to the Windows folder and open the Windows folder, you can do the opposite in the same way. In addition, you can preview the so-called character map of each font; those are all characters that the font contains. Something you mainly do if you want to make something in non-Western script, because not every font offers all Unicode symbols.
Depending on your drawing talent, the result was more or less similar to reality
Tip 03: System Information X – Insightful
Suitable for: Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8.x, 10
If you really want to know the ropes when it comes to information about your PC and accessories, then you probably don’t have enough data from Windows itself. System Information X in that case is a very interesting program. It gives you a comprehensive overview of all available hardware, collects information about the installed Windows version and about the programs on your system. The hardware department provides the usual information about the processor, memory, hard drives, and so on. But one element stands out here: the detailed information about USB ports and the connected devices. It also shows how much power those devices use. And that information can be crucial again if the port regularly does not work properly, for example because of a too weak power supply.
The Windows information includes the time-honored “experience index” that tells how well your system is performing. And finally the software information, which contains information about active processes, installed programs and components that start automatically.
Tip 04: Lyrics Here – Sing along
Suitable for: Chrome, IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Maxthon
The classic Beatles album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967) was the first album on which the lyrics were printed. But at some point, LPs became CDs where the lyrics were put in a booklet behind the cover, and then we started streaming with no covers or booklets at all. But the need to want to know what the artist is singing has not suddenly disappeared.
Lyrics Here is a browser plug-in and was initially created to find the corresponding song using words from the song on YouTube, but it supports more and more services such as the web version of Spotify, Google Music, Last.fm, Deezer and AccuRadio. You can set Lyrics Here so that the program automatically searches for lyrics to music it recognizes. This will then be shown in a pop-up window. You can also choose to display the pop-up after clicking the plug-in icon. Lyrics Here supports many song lyrics sites. If it cannot find a number, a link will appear to search for it on Google yourself.
Tip 05: ScreenToGif – Caught
Suitable for: Windows 7, 8.x, 10
Anyone who wants to make a gif once will find out that Windows actually offers no possibilities at all. The external program ScreenToGif on the other hand is master of this. As the name suggests, this program captures the images in a gif file, which means it can be used for both still and moving images. In ScreenToGif you can indicate an area you want to capture and how many frames per second. You can then adjust the captured images. You can even use the editor to edit animated gifs from other sources. Furthermore, the program offers a special module to capture the window of a webcam and there is a whiteboard on which you can draw. You can then save the creation of that drawing as a gif file.
Tip 06: Arbaro – Set up a tree
Suitable for: Windows 7, 8.x, 10
We all had to draw a tree once as a child. Depending on your drawing talent, the result may or may not have been reality. But even the worst artists find sketching a tree much simpler than making a 3D model of it. Fortunately there is Arbaro that the job can do for us.
Trees are fairly easy to capture in a mathematical description, because the same patterns often recur in smaller form (branches that branch out over and over). But you don’t need to know anything about that theory to work with Arbaro. The program offers a number of examples of trees and shrubs and by playing with the sliders for the different levels of detail you can adjust them to your liking. Then you can export the model to all kinds of 3D software formats and you also link a rendering program to Arbaro, then you can even view the tree in full glory.
Ask for the route home and immediately inform the home front what time you will arrive
Tip 07: ChucK – Art music
Suitable for: Windows 7, 8.x, 10
For many centuries, musical pieces have been written in musical notation. With the advent of the computer, a whole range of possibilities suddenly appeared. Not only can we now write notes in special software, but there are also programs in which we can enter the pitch and duration of notes on a so-called piano roll. The brilliant program ChucK goes one step further, however. It is a programming language in which you can play sounds on a virtual machine via short commands. Moreover, that virtual machine can play multiple pieces of code simultaneously and synchronously and you can also adjust it live. Add to this the possibility to play sound not only via the PC, but also via an external synthesizer, and you can imagine that you can create very complete and high-quality pieces of music. ChucK is therefore used by an active community of audio artists.
Tip 08: Convert Case – Literally
Suitable for: any system
CapsLock: a key you rarely need. Word processors therefore always include a function to correct that quickly, without having to retype the entire text. But that does not apply to every program. For example, if you type such a text on Facebook (without looking at your screen), you will really have to start over – if you don’t want everyone to think that you are furious.
The website Convert Case offers a solution here: copy your text to this site and it will turn it into small letters with one mouse click that you can copy back again. However, that is only the beginning of the many possibilities. Convert Case also has tricks you will search in vain for a word processor, such as turning text upside down (you can use it to ‘hide’ answers on the same page of a question, for example), placing text backwards, stretching text and even transforming text into morse code.
Tip 09: Nemp – Playful
Suitable for: Windows 7, 8.x, 10
There is no reason to move away from Windows music player when you are satisfied with it, but many people want more. And if there is one program that puts “more” in abundance into practice, it is Nemp, which stands for Nech ein Mp3-Player. Nemp is first and foremost a music player and the program gets the job done with verve. You can even add all kinds of nice audio effects to it and Nemp also offers a good equalizer. So far nothing special. However, the program also functions as a music database. You start by adding your (tagged) music to the Nemp database and then you can put songs on a playlist from there. The program can automatically provide songs that you often play with a higher rating and retrieve missing covers for the Coverflow part. Nemp also offers a web server so that you can access your collection from a browser when you are on the go.
Being unable to translate the phrase “drop stitches” is just drop a stitch!
Tip 10: Commands – Auto buddy
Suitable for: iOS
Users of iPhones and iPads can give all kinds of voice commands to Siri so that they can keep their hands on the wheel in the car, for example – so safe! However, Apple’s voice assistant can do much more, and you can unlock that potential with the aptly named Commands app. You can define all kinds of tasks that Siri can perform, although you must first delve into the matter. If you find that too much effort, you can also just get started with the hundreds of tasks that are already included in the app. In fact be Exercises a kind of macros that you can start with one finger tap or voice command. This allows you, for example, to quickly request the route home and at the same time automatically inform the person at home what time you are there. Or create a PDF from a web page or app screen and have it automatically emailed or shared. The number of possibilities is virtually unlimited – you can’t imagine it!
Tip 11: Converter – Converter
Suitable for: Windows 7, 8.x, 10
There are a lot of programs to convert files from one type to another, but one of the best is Konvertor. Konvertor acts as an alternative to File Explorer, which means you can work with your files in the familiar way. The program adds a lot of possibilities compared to Explorer. Konvertor has viewers on board to view 3D, archive files, e-books, images, audio files, video files and so on. It also contains all kinds of antique and lesser-known formats, so you can also open the most obscure files. The program can also convert files that Konvertor can read into one of the many other formats, after all, that is the main function of the program. The image viewer, which is packed with a large number of special filters and all kinds of options for manipulating colors, deserves special mention.
Tip 12: DeepL – Translation
Suitable for: any system
For decades, work has been done on systems that enable the computer to automatically translate texts. This was no problem for individual words, but it is much more difficult for sentences. Nevertheless, major steps are also being taken in this regard.
Google Translate is the big known, but the online service DeepL produces translations that usually feel a bit more natural. While both still fail, the lyrics of DeepL are often stunningly accurate.
When we offer the above sentences to both services, there are noticeable differences, for example, Google can not do anything with the phrase “sting”. An additional advantage of DeepL is that you can also have Word and Powerpoint documents translated with it (of course you do not use it for privacy-sensitive matters!). DeepL currently only supports Dutch, German, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, Polish and Russian. That is nothing compared to the dozens of exotic languages ​​that Google supports, but most of us will at most need the less used languages ​​during the holidays, and for that purpose the Google translation app is fine. We prefer DeepL for translating large pieces of text into our neighbor languages.
Dangerous?
With some freeware, you can expect a scary warning from your security program. Do not be put off, but read carefully what is going on and whether you think this makes sense. For example, programs connect to the internet. This action can already trigger a response from your security guard. Your security officer can also issue a warning for software that is relatively new or is referred to as “rare”. Do you trust the download? Then let the program run. Do you feel doubt? Have your download investigated www.virustotal.com, we do that too. This service checks your program with more than fifty security programs. This way you can quickly see whether you are dealing with a risk or an over-zealous security program.
Don’t click too fast
Unfortunately, we see it too often and it should be banned: installation procedures that bundle additional programs and make adjustments just like that. You try a program and before you know it the homepage of your browser has been adjusted and you have a number of unwanted programs richer. This method is popularly called “underhanded”, but the neat designation is “potentially unwanted program” (pup). More and more security programs pay attention to this when you try to install something. We use Unchecky to notice “wrong check marks.” You can also prevent the extras yourself. For example, download a program only from the makers’ website. Always opt for the advanced or custom installation. This way you can check which options are active. Remove the check marks from changes / programs that you consider undesirable or reject the change in another way.
