It’s always annoying when one of your favourite free programs becomes ‘freemium’. This means you have to pay to use certain features, are restricted in what you can do with the software and have to put up with nags to upgrade to the paid-for version.
A recent example is Icecream Video Converter (www.snipca.com/47056), which now adds a watermark to every video you convert – unless you pay US$29.95 a year for the Pro edition. Although companies are entitled to charge for their products, we think changing their policies once they’ve got you hooked is cynical and unfair.
Thankfully, not all software makers are as devious or greedy. Many independent developers, particularly members of the open-source community, create free tools for the love of doing so as well as to benefit other people. In this feature, we recommend the best programs that are highly unlikely to introduce paid-for plans.
We’ve excluded open-source software you probably use already, such as LibreOffice, VLC Media Player and Mozilla Thunderbird, to focus on free tools you may not have heard of but we think you’ll love. Our criteria for inclusion were that the programs must have been updated in the last year, that they won’t disappear overnight and that they don’t make money by collecting and selling your data.
• Because these tools are from small developers, they may trigger a SmartScreen warning from Microsoft Defender (or your other antivirus software). We’ve checked all our recommendations using VirusTotal (www.virustotal.com) to ensure they’re safe, so just click ‘More info’ then ‘Run anyway’.
WHAT CAN YOU DO
• Find duplicate files and delete them without paying
• Uninstall unwanted software and browser extensions
• Detect and update outdated device drivers for free
• Download YouTube videos without restrictions or upgrade nags
• Edit and play audio files using open-source software
• Delete text and images from PDF files for free
• Save online content without using your browser
SYSTEM TOOLS YOU’LL NEVER HAVE TO PAY FOR
Find and remove duplicate files on your PC
Freemium duplicate finders – such as Easy Duplicate Finder – are a particularly frustrating type of software. After scanning your hard drive for unnecessary copies of files, they then limit the number and type of items you can view and remove for free.
For a truly free alternative, try the open-source tool Czkawka (www.snipca.com/47013), which searches faster and deeper than any duplicate finder we’ve used. Add the folders or drives you want to scan, then select the ‘Check method’ and click Search – ‘Hash’ finds files with matching contents, or you can look for items of the same name and/or size.
Czkawka also lets you search for similar images (see screenshot above right), which you can preview in a panel on the right, as well as videos and audio files, empty files and folders, and more. Duplicates can be deleted or
