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Wednesday, July 17, 2013

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

The Ninite Pack

As always, we have the good folks at Ninite helping us out this year, creating a one-click installer for the 2013 Windows Lifehacker Pack. You can download the entire pack together, or just pick the apps you want, and Ninite will install them all at once—perfect for new Windows installations or setting up your friends with a good set of apps. And, just like last year, we have two packs for Windows: an Essentials pack that everyone should have, and an Extended pack, which includes some tools that more hardcore users will probably need around.
Note that unfortunately, the Ninite pack is missing a couple apps from the list—most notably CCleaner (because they don't want their software in Ninite), Bins, and Fences (both of which are paid apps). So don't forget to grab those ones manually after you've installed the rest of the pack with Ninite!

Productivity

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

Launchy

On the surface, Launchy is an utility that helps you launch programs super fast—but it's really much, much more than that. Not only can you launch your favorite programs with just a few keystrokes, but you can also open documents and folders, perform calculations, kill processes, search the web, and perform any number of advanced tasks (like start an SSH session). It isn't the only application launcher on Windows, but it is our favorite.

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

ResophNotes and Evernote

Everyone needs a place to store little notes and clippings, but not everyone needs the same thing. So, for our note-taking portion of the pack, we give you two options: ResophNotes and Evernote. ResophNotes is about as simple as they come, syncing plain text notes through Simplenote or Dropbox and letting you get back to work. Evernote, on the other hand, is more of a filing cabinet for notes, web clippings, and just about anything else you could possibly need. It may seem like overkill, but once you actually figure out how to use it, it can be indispensable for work and play.

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

PhraseExpress

Text expansion is one of the greatest improvements you can make to your productivity. Think of any tedious typing you do during the day—addresses, canned email responses, bits of code, or anything else—and imagine being able to type it all with just a few keystrokes. That's what text expansion does, and it can save you hours of typing. PhraseExpress is the best free option on Windows, and while it has its problems, its our go-to for folks new to text expansion. Once you've gotten the hang of it though, Breevy might be a worthy upgrade.

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

Wunderlist

More to-do apps exist than we could even count, and which one you choose depends a lot on how you work best. If we had to pick a favorite, though, it'd be Wunderlist. It's free, syncs to the cloud, and exists on just about any device you could want or have. Just start it up and start making your lists. It's incredibly simple to use, which is exactly what you want from a to-do list: make it easy to add and move tasks, so you can get back to actually doing them.

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

LibreOffice and Microsoft Office

When Google Docs just isn't enough for your word processing needs, you need LibreOffice, the feature-packed, cross-platform, 100% free office suite. When LibreOffice's word processor, spreadsheet tool, and presentation creator don't cut it, Microsoft Office will undoubtedly fit the bill (albeit at a price). If you just need to view Office documents, you can check out the Microsoft Office Viewers instead.

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

SumatraPDF

The first time you go to open a PDF on a new Windows machine, you may be greeted with that ever-familiar prompt to install Adobe Reader. Don't do it! Unless compatibility issues force you into using Adobe's reader, you'd be much happier with something fast, light, and simple, like the awesome (and free) SumatraPDF. If you need to edit PDFs, check out our favorite PDF editor, PDF-XChange.

Lifehacker Pack for Windows 2013: Our List of the Best Windows Apps

Chrome

The browser wars aren't as close as they used to be, and most power users have switched over to Chrome these days. We can see why, too: it's fast, smooth, syncs all your settings, and has an incredible extension library. It may not be quite as customizable as Firefox, but for the majority of people—even us power users—it's more than enough.







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