“Free” is a very popular word nowadays, with a lot of developers creating some pretty amazing software that they distribute for free, both on mobile and desktop operating systems. Of course, free in most cases means only “free to use”, because developers still make money by displaying ads or having a pro version that is paid and has a few great features absent from the free version.

Windows is no exception – in fact, it is the OS with the largest software database (which sadly isn’t available in a single location, but Google is your friend) and there are a lot of great applications that are completely free and can easily compete with other, paid products. Here’s just a short list I believe you should check out:

There was once a time when floppy drives were used every single day. Nowadays, computer users would be lucky if they even owned one. The reality is that they are no longer needed and this is something that is likely to happen to optical drives in the near future, something that WinToFlash is hoping to solve.

LicenseCrawler is a great piece of software that aims to save people time and money when it comes to setting up their system again. A lot of people find that they want to wipe their system and start from scratch. One of the main reasons for doing this would be because of a virus. Whatever the reason for reconfiguring a computer, the main problem is finding all the licenses and serial numbers for all the software that was originally installed.

IZArc is one of the up and coming pieces of freeware and is gaining popularity by the day. This piece of freeware archive software will support all kinds of archive formats. Some of the popular formats that it supports include the likes of 7-Zip, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, B64, BH, BIN, BZ2, BZA, C2D, CAB, CDI, CPIO, DEB, ENC, GCA, GZ, GZA, HA, IMG, ISO, JAR, LHA, LIB, LZH, MDF, MBF, MIM, NRG, PAK, PDI, PK3 and RAR.

Simple Port Forwarding is a new product and piece of software that has recently found itself in the market place. The beauty of the Simple Port Forwarding software is that it can now access 8 of the current ports that the top quality P2P applications are already using, which is a huge step forward for the software. The reality is that basically all of the P2P pieces of software that are currently available will use a random port on each individual install that they do.

The FastStone Image Viewer is something that many people might not even realize that they have been waiting for. Unlike many of the other pieces of freeware that make their way onto the markets, this is something that is truly unique and will enhance the user experience online. The FastStone Image Viewer is essentially an image browser that also works as a converter and editor as well. Unlike standardized image viewers, it allows users to make use of many features too, including management, emailing, resizing and so much more!

MD5 Fingerprint is essentially a simple software application that makes some complicated calculations. What it will do is calculate the MD5 Hash for almost any file. After it has determined the MD5 Hash of a file, it can then directly compare it to another file. Essentially, this is something that could be done manually, but the MD5 Fingerprint will compare a file Hash quickly and easily, so that you do not have to. Whilst this might not seem like a major breakthrough, it will certainly save a lot of people time and money at the same time.

The Yahoo! Widget Engine is something that is being used by more and more people every single day. By using the Yahoo! Widget Engine, people can keep updated on everything they need to on a daily basis. What the Yahoo! Widget Engine manages to achieve is allowing people to pick and choose what they want to be updated on and when they want to be updated. In terms of usability, this is certainly one of the most usable and useful widget engines on the internet. No wonder its popularity has increased so quickly!