From backup to productivity tools, here’s the best of the best for Windows 10. Sometimes good things come in free packages.
Now that Microsoft has announced that Windows 10 will be replaced by Win11, it’s a good moment to look again at some of the applications, tools and software that I (or someone I know) couldn’t do without on a Windows 10 machine. I’m a cheap geek. I’m willing to pay for software if that’s what I have to do to keep myself from being the product that the software vendor is really selling, but I’m not willing to spend a lot. Every tool in this list is either cheap or free. And they all serve a specific purpose or make my life easier. Zoom has kept most of us informed and connected during the pandemic, and maybe also driven us a bit crazy. The pandemic quickly exposed several of the product’s shortcomings, such as a lack of end-to-end encryption and the ability of uninvited “Zoom bombing” guests to interrupt meetings that were not password-protected, but all that was soon fixed. And Zoom is not the only game in this space; other platforms include Microsoft Teams (which recently also added end-to-end encryption), GoToMeeting, Skype and Cisco Webex. Zoom is, however, the default word we use to describe attending an online meeting. We’re all Zooming now. Every now and then, my 92-year-old dad gets stuck on his Windows 10 computer, and as a dutiful daughter, I can either drive over to his house and fix it or remote into it using remote-control software. Once again, the pandemic was behind a lot of people opting for the second choice when faced with similar situations. But look out for creeping cost escalation with these tools. Over the years, I have used several remote-control programs that started out extremely cheap and slowly got more expensive until they approached the cost of premium software. Periodically re-evaluate your tools and be prepared to move to new ones if you can get them more cheaply. I currently use Splashtop, which includes remote printing. With the business version of the software, you can enable two-factor authentication, which I’d say is essential when attackers could use your access to remote into another computer and then demand ransom. Another option is Windows 10’s built-in — and therefore free — Quick Assist tool. The one catch is that you have to have a Microsoft account in order to provide remote assistance. NirSoft has one of those sites that look a bit sketchy — and your antivirus software might flag it as malicious because its password-cracking software can be misused — but I couldn’t live without the tools it offers. If you’ve ever forgotten a password in a Windows program or website and can’t reset it, its password-exposing tools are a godsend. I call them “password-exposing” because these utilities simply remove the protection that the operating system employs when it saves and stores passwords. Even if you haven’t forgotten your passwords, using these tools to see what could be found by an attacker on your machine can be an eye-opener.
