Windows Help & Advice - UK (2019-12)

21

OFFICE

LIBREOFFICE

OLEUHRIÀFHRUJ

Prettymucha freeequivalent

toMicrosoftOffice,and

compatiblewiththesame

fileformats,LibreOfficeis a

non-paidessential.It even

doesmore:There’sa full

databaseanda complex

formulaeditorincluded.

Alternately:Apache

OpenOffice

22

PDFVIEWER

FOXITREADER

foxitsoftware.com

Foxit’sbigsellingpointsare

itsconnectedfeatures,which

tellyouwhena PDFhasbeen

scribbledonortweaked,but

we’rebackingit foritsability

toopenPDFsquicklywithout

eatingallofoursystem

resources.That’snota bigask.

Alternately:AdobeReader

23

EMAIL

EM CLIENT

emclient.com

While many of us manageour

mail on the web thesedays,eM

Client’s free tier allowsyouto

take desktop controloftwo

accounts. It’s fully compatible

with the more complexfeatures

of Outlook and Gmailaccounts,

and super-easy to use.

Alternately: Thunderbird

24

SOCIAL

HOOTSUITE

hootsuite.com

Dig through the pricey

corporate options and

find Hootsuite’s three-account

free plan: You can schedule

posts, manage multiplesocial

services, and see yoursearches

in their own live-updating

columns. It’s social mediataken

to the next level.

Alternately: TweetDeck

25

COMMUNICATING

FRANZ

meetfranz.com

It’s tough being connected.

There’s the family WhatsApp,

the work Slack, the gaming

Discord, that one guywhowon’t

stop using ICQ for somereason.

No problem: Mash themall

together using Franz.Youcan

even take your combined

account between computers.

Alternately: Pidgin

26

TO-DO

MICROSOFTTO-DO

Via Windows Store

Microsoft’s app is a superbway

to list all of the thingsyou’re

procrastinating on, thethings

you haven’t quite doneyet,

and the things you won’tdo

in a million years. If youtry

really hard, maybe, just

maybe, you’ll be ableto

check one off.

Alternately: Wunderlist

27

VPN

PROTONVPN

protonvpn.com

VPNsareessential.Problem

is,thefreeVPNmarketis

hamperedbybandwidth

restrictions.Notsowith

ProtonVPN– youcanuseits

freeversionasmuchasyoulike;

theannoyanceis transferredto

a speedlimitinstead.

Alternately:HotspotShield

28

REMOTEDESKTOP

TEAMVIEWER

teamviewer.com

Howoftenhaveyoutried

todiagnosea technical

problemoverthephoneand

endedupbashingyourhead

onyourkeyboard?Nomore.

TeamVieweris easytosetup,

super-secure,andcangive

youdirectaccesstoyour

desktop(oranelderly

relative’s)viaa browser.

Alternately:TightVNC

29

NOTES

NOTEPAD++

notepad-plus-plus.org

There’sa wholelotofcontextual

formattinginNotepad++(itis,

afterall,madeforsketching

codeinallmannerof

languages),butit’sjustas

mucha straightforwardand

capablealternativeto

Microsoft’sNotepad.And

that’sa goodthing.

Alternately:Atom

30

PLANNING

TRELLO

trello.com

Gota bigprojectcomingup?

Putit onvirtualnotecards,pinit

upona virtualboard,and

spreadthosetasksoutbetween

everyoneyou’veropedinto

help.Hopefully,they’llactually

chipin,ratherthanjustbeing

virtuallypresent.

Alternately:Evernote

There’s no music

and podcast

library quite as

big or convenient

as Spotify’s.

Te a mV i ewe r ’s

cross-platform

abilities mean

you can use it

to control any

other computer,

even Macs.

20

ORGANISATION

THE RENAMER

therenamer.com

You’ve got lots of files. Videos,

music, all from legitimate

sources – but there’s no

consistency in naming or

storage. Sort them out

without the effort using The

Renamer, which does exactly

what you think it does.

Alternately: Bulk

Rename Utility

WORKING

© TEAMVIEWER.COM © SPOTIFY.COM

Windows 10

Essential free apps

December 2019 | |^17