6 Great Free Apps For PC Laptops

6 Great Free Apps For PC Laptops Photo Credit: CNET/Sarah Tew 1. Google Chrome While PC laptops may be installed with Internet Explorer right from the start, youre definitely going to want to update your internet browser, stat. As I mentioned in my article about free apps for Macs, Google Chrome is the better option, and you can download it on whatever brand of laptop you have (since its not just for Macs). It’s free, clean, and lets you add third-party extensions to your browser, too. Bonus: you can change fonts, block certain names and sites from showing up on your internet, and easily search Google with this browser. I use Chrome on my Apple laptop but have also downloaded it for family members with PC laptops since Internet Explorer is just a slower, more outdated mode of surfing the web. [Sidenote: also available for non-Mac laptops are the free OpenOffice and VLC Media Player apps I recommended for Mac owners]. 2. Microsoft Security Essentials or Avira These are both free apps that will help keep you protected against viruses and bugs your computer may catch. Microsoft Security Essentials updates itself and is a Microsoft product, which means it should be pretty reliable. Meanwhile, Avira is a free app that helps provide your PC with a layer of defenses that will protect your laptop automatically from threats, eliminate damaging viruses and spyware, block adware, and warn you when youre visiting a website that could be harmful to your laptop. You cant really go wrong with installing either one on your PC, just as long as you ensure your laptop is protected. 3. Ccleaner What used to be known as crap cleaner, this free utility scans your laptop and finds crap to recycle. Crap can consist of temporary or unneeded files, and other unimportant stuff on your PC that slows it down and takes up space, as Ccleaners goal is to make your laptop run faster. The app is easy to use and will ultimately help your PC operate more smoothly and efficiently, plus its free, so theres really no reason not to download it. Photo Credit: Wikipedia 4. Windows Live Mail This is a great email tool for Windows users and definitely a better alternative than using Outlook or just Windows Mail. Windows Live Mail lets you work with multiple email accounts and allows you offline access to Hotmail, Gmail, and other web-based providers. Plus, this free app lets you organize your mail into conversations and integrates with a built-in calendar. 5.  BattCursor or BatteryBar One of the annoying things about laptops is your constant need to be aware of or your inclination to check how much battery your PC has left. Checking the laptops battery icon ends up wasting time and a bit of energy, which is where these two free apps come in. BattCursor  lets you see your laptops remaining battery life on your mouse cursor and can also display the information on your desktop. If you dont want your mouse clicker to display your battery life, BatteryBar may be a good alternative as it shows in your task bar how much battery power youve already used and how much you have left. You can also set the app to show the battery life remaining as either a percentage or as time. 6.  Dropbox or Google Drive These are both file-storing apps you can download or use for free and access from any device with Wi-Fi, no matter what kind of laptop you have. Dropbox gives you 2.5 gigabytes of free storage space, and you can upgrade your account for a fee or earn 25 megabytes of extra storage for free by completing some tasks through the app. You can access Google Drive through your Gmail account or download it to your desktop to make backing up all your files easier. From pictures to documents to music files, either of these apps can help ensure you don’t lose all of your stuff if anything happens to your laptop since it’s safely backed up online. Other free apps for PC laptops to check out include: OneNotes for Windows, Adobe Reader, and Adobe Flash Player. So if youve got a non-Mac laptop, never fear! Because theres plenty of good, free apps out there for you to download too and help make your PC better.