It’s the time of year where we all give thanks, and among many other things, we here at Lifehacker are thankful for all the free apps out there that improve our lives (and the developers that make them!) Here are 50 of our favorites.
Every year we ask you which free apps you’re most thankful for, and every year you offer a ton of suggestions both classic and new. Here, we’ve taken your votes (and added a few of our own) and ranked our 50 apps using those votes as a (rough) guide. So without further ado, here are 50 free apps for your downloading feast. (Be sure to check out the 2016 version of the thread, too—there are a ton of apps in there we didn’t mention!)
The 50 Free Apps We’re Most Thankful For, In 2016
1. Feedly
Category: News Readers
See also: The Best Extensions and User Scripts to Power Up Feedly, The Best New Features Feedly Has Added for Google Reader Switchers, Five Best Google Reader Alternatives, and more Feedly coverage Alternatives: The Old Reader, Tiny Tiny RSS
2. Google Maps and Waze
Category: Maps
See also: The Best Extensions to Make Google Maps Even More Awesome, How to Turn Waze Into the Ultimate Navigation App, The Best Ways to Use Google’s New(ish) My Maps Tool, How to Set Up the Ultimate Personal Google Maps, Make your GPS App Give You Better Directions, Wean Yourself Off Your GPS Dependency, Waze Helps You Find the Nearest Gas Station and Avoid Road Closures, Google Maps Can Find Places to Stop On Your Route, Shows Gas Prices, and more maps coverage
3. Dropbox
Category: Cloud Storage
See also: The Cheapskate’s Guide to Getting Free Dropbox Space, How to Get 8GB+ Extra Dropbox Space for Free with Google AdWords, Seven Downloads and Extensions to Make Dropbox Even More Awesome, Top 10 Clever Uses for Dropbox, How to Supercharge Your Dropbox with Wappwolf, The Start-to-Finish Guide to Securing Your Cloud Storage, and more Dropbox coverage
4. Gmail
Category: Email
See also: Top 10 Gmail Labs and Features You Should Enable, How to Master Gmail with These Tips, Shortcuts, and Add-Ons, Top 10 Clever Tricks Built Right Into Gmail, Fix Gmail’s Newest Annoyances with These Userstyles and Userscripts, Everything You Need to Know About Gmail’s New, Super-Confusing Layout, and more Gmail coverage
5. Google Chrome
Category: Web Browsers
See also: The Always Up-to-Date Power User’s Guide to Chrome, The Best Packaged Apps for Chrome, The Best Chrome Apps You’re (Probably) Not Using, The Secret Powers of Chrome’s Address Bar, Speed Up Chrome for Android with this Settings Tweak, Lifehacker Pack for Chrome, Why Chrome Uses So Much Freaking Ram, and more Chrome coverage
6. Firefox
Category: Web Browsers
See also: The Always Up-to-Date Power User’s Guide to Firefox, The Best About:Config Tweaks for Making Firefox Better, Lifehacker Pack for Firefox, Speed Up Firefox By Enabling Its New HTTP Cache, Firefox Adds Tracking Protection, Tab Audio Indicators, and More, Fuck It, I’m Going Back to Firefox, and more Firefox coverage
7. Mint.com
Category: Personal Finance
See also: How to Create (and Stick to) a Realistic Budget with Mint, How I Used Mint Bills to Finally Simplify My Bill Payments, An Intermediate’s Guide to Getting More out of Mint, Is Mint Ready for Your Money?, Four Ways Mint Can Make Your Tax Season Easier, You Can Now Check Your Credit (for Free) with Mint, and more Mint coverage
Alternatives: Five Best Personal Finance Tools
8. Plex
Category: Media Centers
See also: How to Stream Your Media Anywhere with Plex, Plex vs XBMC, RasPlex Puts Plex on the Raspberry Pi, Create a Home Server with Plex, Plex Media Player Replaces Plex Home Theater, Looks Awesome, and more Plex coverage
9. Kodi
Category: Media Centers
See also: Create a Kickass, Seamless, Play-Anything Media Center: The Complete Guide, How I Built the Media Center of My Dreams for Under $500, XBMC Renames and Rebrands to Kodi Entertainment Center, Turn a Raspberry Pi Into an XBMC-Based Media Center, How to Make XBMC Easier to Use (Especially for Non-Geeks), XBMC vs Plex, Top 10 Ways to Power Up Your Home Theater PC, and more XBMC coverage
http://lifehacker.com/5908682/how-to-make-xbmc-easier-to-use-especially-for-non+geeks
10. Outlook
Category: Email
See also: Outlook Is a Completely New, Feature Filled Webmail Service from Microsoft, Outlook Comes to Android and iOS, Office for Android Leaves Preview, Outlook for Android and iOS Adds Calendar Features from Sunrise, and more Outlook coverage
11. Pocket
Category: Reading
See also: How to Use Technology to Get Through Your Reading List, The Best Way to Save All the Useful Articles You Come Across Online, How to Use Pocket Like a Pro to Save Everything from the Web, Pocket Now Recommends Articles Based on the Ones You Save, and more Pocket Coverage
Alternatives: Instapaper and Readability
12. Authy
Category: Security
See also: Here’s Everywhere You Should Enable Two-Factor Authentication Right Now, Authy is a PIN-Protected Manager For Your Two-Factor Authentications, Authy Brings Two-Factor Authentication to Your PC, No Need for a Phone, The Best Two-Factor Authentication App for Android and iPhone, and more Authy coverage
13. Crashplan
Category: Utilities
See also: Set Up an Automated, Bulletproof File Backup Solution, There’s No Excuse for Not Backing Up Your Computer. Do It Now., Speed Up Crashplan Backups and Free Up CPU Power with These Scripts, How to Move Your Crashplan Backups to a New Computer, The Best Online Backup App for Windows and Mac, and more Crashplan Coverage
14. F.lux
Category: Utilities
See also: Flux Changes Your Screen Brightness by Time of Day, Make Your Computer and More Friendly to Use at Night, Prevent Eyestrain at Your Computer, Top 10 Ways to Improve Your Monitor, the Screen You Stare at All Day, and more Flux coverage
15. OneNote
Category: Notes
See also: How to Jump Ship From Evernote and Take Your Data With You, How to Master Microsoft Office OneNote, Seven Tips and Tricks to Get More Out of OneNote, Transfer Your Evernote Notes Into Microsoft OneNote With the Importer Tool, and more OneNote coverage.
Alternatives: OneNote vs Evernote, Simplenote
16. LastPass
Category: Security
See also: The Beginner’s Guide to Setting Up LastPass, You Can Now Use LastPass On Multiple Devices for Free, LastPass Authenticator Simplifies Two-Factor Authentication For LastPass Users, Is LastPass Secure? What Happens if It Gets Hacked?, What To Do If You Lose the Master Password to Your Password Manager, Behind the App: The Story of LastPass,
Alternatives: Five Best Password Managers
17. Trello
Category: To-Do Lists
See also: How to Organize Your Entire Life with Trello, Get Both a Focused and a Bird’s Eye View of Your Tasks with Trello, Use Trello as a Flexible, Visually Organized GTD System, Trello Makes Project Collaboration Simple and Kind of Enjoyable, How Can I Turn My Mess of Ideas Into Something Organized and Useful? and more Trello coverage
18. Any.DO
Category: To-Do Lists
See also: Five Best To-Do List Managers, The Coolest “Extra” Features in Any.DO, Any.do Adds a Smart Assistant To Help Plan and Complete Your To-Dos, Any.do 2.0 Adds New Tools to Collaborate, Plan Your Day, and More, Any.do Finally Unveils a Webapp, Brings Your To-Dos to Any Browser, and more Any.DO coverage
Alternatives: 2016 To-Do App Showdown: Wunderlist vs. Any.do
19. Google Keep
Category: Notes
See also: Not Just Another Notes App: Why You Should Use Google Keep, Google Keep Adds Reminders So You’ll Never Forget to Act on Your Notes, The Best Note Taking App for Android, Google Keep Adds Labels and Recurring Reminders, and more Google Keep coverage
20. Spotify
Category: Music Streaming
See also: The Best Spotify Tips and Tricks You’re Probably Not Using, Why Spotify Apps Are Actually Pretty Useful, How to Automatically Mute Ads on Spotify, How to Stop Spotify from Posting Every Song You Listen to on Facebook, Spotify Offers 50% Discount Off Premium Subscriptions to Students, The Lifehacker Work Playlists: Your Ideal Music for Getting Things Done, and more Spotify coverage
Alternatives: Five Best Streaming Music Services
21. Pandora
Category: Music Streaming
See also: How to Discover New Music in the Post-MP3 Age, Pandora Premieres Streams New Albums Weeks Before They Launch, Five Best Internet Radio Services, Pandora Will Let You Stream 24 Hours of Ad-Free Music for 99 Cents, Free Music Showdown: What $0 Gets You on the Best Streaming Services, and more Pandora coverage
Alternatives: Five Best Streaming Music Services
22. Google Play Music
Category: Music Streaming
See also: How to Make Google Music Your Secondary Media Player (and Why You Should), All of Google’s Confusing, Intertwined Music Services Explained, Google Music All Access: Should It Be Your New Streaming Service?, Cloud Music Comparison: What’s the Best Service for Streaming Your Library Everywhere?, Music Plus Makes Google Music Awesome, and more Google Play Music coverage
23. Skype
Category: VoIP
See also: Get Better Quality Video Chat, How to Make Sure Your Voice Calls and Audio Chats Are Crystal Clear, Disable Skype’s Ads, Skype Is Now Available in Your Browser, The Five Best Webcams, Phone-ify Your Computer for Considerably Improved At-Home Calls and Texts, and more Skype coverage Alternatives: Five Best Mobile VoIP Apps
24. Google Drive
Category: Cloud Storage/Office Suites
See also: 8 Extensions That Make Google Drive More Powerful than Dropbox, How to Stream Your Media Anywhere with Dropbox and Google Drive, How to Make Google Drive Work Like a Desktop Suite, Access Most Google Drive Commands with One Keyboard Shortcut, Four Skills That Will Turn You Into a Spreadsheet Ninja, and more Google Drive coverage
25. Google Calendar
Category: Calendars
See also: The Coolest Things You Can Add to Google Calendar, Manage Your Money with Google Calendar, How to Use Google Calendar as a Project Management Tool, 8 Great Experimental Features to Enable in Google Calendar’s Labs, Google Calendar Now Adds and Updates Events for You Based on Gmail, and more Google Calendar coverage
26. Google Assistant
Category: Personal Assistant
See also: All the Things You Can Do With Google Assistant That You Couldn’t Do Before, How to Get Google Assistant On Any Phone Running Android Marshmallow or Higher, Everything You Didn’t Know You Could Do with Google’s Voice Commands, Top 10 Awesome Features of Google Now, How to Train Google Now to Give You Better Suggestions, Google Now On Tap Is Cool, But It’s Not That Useful Yet, and more Google Assistant coverage
27. Swiftkey
Category: Keyboards
See also: How to Improve Your Predictive Keyboard, SwiftKey Adds Custom Keyboards You Can Resize and Move, Improve Your Typing with SwiftKey’s Heat Map, and more SwiftKey coverage Alternatives: Five Best Android Keyboards and iOS Keyboards
28. Google Photos
Category: Photo Manager
See also: How the New Google Photos Makes Your Picture Library Awesome, This Flowchart (and Audio Guide) Will Help You Finally Conquer Your Photo Clutter, Lifehacker Faceoff: Google Photos vs. Flickr, Google Photos Can Now Free Up Space on Your Phone, and more Google Photos coverage
Alternatives: Five Best Image Hosting Web Sites
29. Signal
Category: Messaging/Video Chat
See also: Signal, the Encrypted Chat App, Is Now Available on the Desktop, The Best and Worst Encrypted Messaging Apps, and more Signal coverage
30. Overcast
Category: Podcast Apps
See also: Overcast Goes Free, Improves Streaming, Adds Chapter Support, and More, Overcast Is a Free, Powerful Podcast App with a Syncing Web Player, The Best Podcast App for iPhone
31. VLC
Category: Media Players
See also: The Best Hidden Features of VLC, Master Your Digital Media with VLC, Set a Video as Your Wallpaper with VLC, How to Fix Movies that Are Really Quiet, then REALLY LOUD, and more VLC coverage
Alternatives: PotPlayer, Five Best Desktop Video Players
32. IFTTT
Category: Automation
See also: How to Supercharge Your Favorite Services with IFTTT, How to Post to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ at the Same Time with IFTTT, IFTTT’s Maker Channel Connects Your Electronics Projects to Nearly Everything, 15 Clever Recipes to Try With IFTTT’s New Do Apps, All the New Stuff in IFTTT for iOS and Android, and What You Can Do with Them, Make Your iOS Notifications Smarter, The Best Uses for IFTTT’s Location and Feed Channels, and more IFTTT coverage
33. Vysor
Category: Remote Access
See also: Vysor Controls Your Android Phone From Chrome, No Android App Necessary and more Vysor coverage
34. TeamViewer
Category: Remote Access
See also: Use Your Home Computer from Anywhere: A Comprehensive Guide to Remote Controlling Your PC, How to Get the Best Experience from TeamViewer, How Do I Troubleshoot My Parents’ PC Remotely? and more TeamViewer coverage
35. Avira
Category: Antivirus
See also: The Best Antivirus App for Windows, The Best Antivirus App for Mac, How to Get Rid of a Virus (Even When Your Computer Won’t Boot), and more Avira coverage
Alternatives: Five Best Antivirus Programs
36. Ubuntu (and other Linux Distros)
Category: Operating System
See also: Getting Started with Linux: The Complete Guide, How to Find the Perfect Linux Distribution for You, Five Best Linux Distributions, Build a Killer Customized Arch Linux Installation (and Learn All About Linux in the Process), Ubuntu vs. Mint: Which Linux Distro Is Better for Beginners?, Turn an Old Computer into a Networked Backup, Streaming, or Torrenting Machine with Ubuntu, the Lifehacker Pack for Linux, and more Linux coverage
37. BitTorrent Sync
Category: Cloud Storage
See also: Should I Use BitTorrent Sync Instead of Dropbox?, How (and Why) to Ditch Dropbox and Sync Files with BitTorrent Sync, Roll Your Own Dropbox Clone with a Raspberry Pi and BitTorrent Sync, BitTorrent Sync 2.0 Brings Pro Version with Selective Sync, More, BitTorrent Sync Mobile Can Now Create, Edit and Share Files, and more BitTorrent Sync coverage
38. Flipboard
Category: News Readers
See also: Flipboard Is a Digital “Magazine” Based on What Your Friends Are Reading, Flipboard Adds Custom Magazines, a Web-Based Bookmarklet for Adding Stories, and More, Flipboard Officially Arrives for Android, Offers Magazine-Style News Reading to All, Lifehacker Faceoff: The Best Digital Digests for iPad and iPhone
39. uTorrent
Category: BitTorrent Client
See also: How to Completely Anonymize Your BitTorrent Traffic with a Proxy, How to Disable Ads in uTorrent, How to Monitor Your BitTorrent Downloads from Any Computer or Mobile Device, How Do I Torrent Safely Now That Demonoid Is Down?, How to Add Automatic Virus Scanning, Video Conversion, and Remote Downloading to uTorrent for Free, Five Best BitTorrent Clients, and more uTorrent coverage
Alternative: Transmission, qBitTorrent
40. CCleaner
Category: Utilities
See also: What Should I Be Cleaning with CCleaner?, Uninstall Built-In Windows 10 Apps with CCleaner, The Maintenance You Need to Do on a Windows PC, Run CCleaner on a Schedule to Keep Your PC Crap-Free, CCleaner Enhancer Makes CCleaner Even Better, Now Cleans 270 New Apps, and more CCleaner coverage
41. HandBrake
Category: Video Conversion
See also: How to Rip a DVD to Your Computer, The Hassle-Free Guide to Ripping Your Blu-Ray Collection, Calculate the Perfect HandBrake Video Encoding Settings for Your Device, and more Handbrake coverage
42. VirtualBox
Category: Virtualization
See also: The Power User’s Guide to Better Virtual Machines in VirtualBox, The Beginner’s Guide to Creating Virtual Machines with VirtualBox, How to Safely Test Software Without Messing Up Your System, Should I Run a Second Operating System in a Virtual Machine or Dual Boot?, How to Run Mac OS X Inside Windows Using VirtualBox, and more VirtualBox coverage
43. GIMP
Category: Image Editing
See also: Top 10 Photoshop Tricks You Can Use Without Buying Photoshop, How to Make GIMP Work More Like Photoshop, Build Your Own Adobe Creative Suite with Free and Cheap Software, Is GIMP better than Photoshop?, The Simplest, Free Tools for Common Photo Edits (That Aren’t Photoshop), and more GIMP coverage
Alternatives: Five Best Photoshop Alternatives
44. LibreOffice
Category: Office Suite
See also: LibreOffice Updates, Doesn’t Look Like Crap Anymore, Libre Office Viewer Reads Nearly Any Office File Type, Battle of the Office Suites: Microsoft Office and LibreOffice Compared, LibreOffice 4.0 Adds Better Collaboration and Text Comments, Plus a Ton More, Four Skills That Will Turn You Into a Spreadsheet Ninja, and more LibreOffice coverage
45. Twitter
Category: Social Networking
See also: Top 10 Uses for Twitter (That Aren’t Self-Indulgent), How to Fix Twitter’s Biggest Annoyances, How to Mute Retweets from Any User on Twitter, Navigate the New Twitter Like a Pro with Keyboard Shortcuts, How Twitter’s 140-Character Limit Made Me a Better Writer, How to Save Money Everywhere with Social Media, Don’t Quit the Social Networks You Hate. Bend Them to Your Will, and more Twitter coverage
46. AutoHotkey
Category: Utilities
See also: Turn Any Action into a Keyboard Shortcut, The Best Time-Saving AutoHotkey Tricks You Should Be Using, Why I Started Using a Gaming Mouse and Keyboard to Get Real Work Done, Switch Between Two Audio Devices In a Snap With AutoHotKey, Show Us Your Best AutoHotkey Script, and more AutoHotkey coverage
47. Pushbullet
Categories: Utilities
See also: How to Use Pushbullet to Bridge the Gap Between All Your Devices, Pushbullet Adds a Full SMS Client For Texting From the Desktop, Huge Pushbullet Update Adds Instant Messaging, Chat Heads, and More, Pushbullet Can Now Retrieve Files Remotely From Your Other Devices, Pushbullet Now Lets You Send Text Messages From Your Computer, and more Pushbullet coverage
48. Launchy
Category: Utilities
See also: Why You Should Be Using an App Launcher (and How to make It Do More Than Launch Apps), How to Create a Shortcut for Any “Modern” Windows App, The Best Application Launcher for Windows, and more Launchy coverage
49. Office Lens
Category: Utilities
See also: Microsoft Office Lens Scans Notes and Documents into Office Format, Note-Taking Showdown: Evernote vs. OneNote (2016 Edition), Free Document Scanning Apps Are Sleazy and Gross, Don’t Download Them, and more Office Lens coverage
50. Dark Sky
Category: Weather
See also: Dark Sky Tracks the Weather Down to the Minute and Warns You When It’s About to Rain, Dark Sky Adds Advanced Notifications, Crowd-Sourced Weather, and More, Dark Sky, the Up-to-the-Minute Weather App, Finally Arrives on Android, Dark Sky, the Up-to-the-Minute Weather App, Now Works In Your Browser, and more Dark Sky coverage