Computer Hope

 The two most useful downloads on my computer are Grammarly.com and Metvuw.com I would be interested to hear what gems you guys have discovered that make your life more interesting, I am not talking about normal bookmarks or your favourite websites. I look forward to your replies.

A few must have's for my computers are:

Agent Ransack   ( Really Powerful Search Tool for finding files and folders when location is unknown, additionally used sometimes where a folder location has a lot of data and I only want to target zip files located in the path no matter how deep in that path when wanting to get a list of them in a nice GUI environment to hunt through for specific file or grab all copy/paste to a different location etc. It also is able to find a file based on content within and so for example if you remember typing something that is a unique identifier to a project but forgot where the project file was saved and its name you can search for text in a file that matched the unique identifier and then find the file you were working on assuming the file is present and didnt happen to just be on a thumb drive that is no longer attached. )

Notepad ++  ( Better than the standard notepad that comes with Windows, more features. )

Open Office or Libre Office ( I usually go with Open Office, but from time to time I test out Libre Office to see if I'd like that better. I like FREE and not having to pay Micro$oft a subscription to work on Spreadsheets and Word Documents. I played around with the other features they have for power point and database but I am mostly Word Documents and Excel like spreadsheets. )

However I have multiple computers and one computer doesn't get anything extra added to it, a laptop that I have that I saved from the electronic waste recycle at the local dump that is clean build Windows 10 64-bit Home, swapped out the crashed hard drive with a 10 year old 60GB OCZ Agility 3 SSD that i use to use heavily for gaming, and this laptop is fast and bare bones build and always updated and only used for online banking and other critical money stuff that is very very low risk for information to be stolen from. Its just a 8th Gen Core i3 with 4GB RAM, but plenty for online banking, paying bills, and other money stuff that I want to keep safe. *So many people put themselves at risk of theft and data loss because they don't keep Play and Money separate! One woman I did work for in the past her kids loaded up downloaded cracked games and content that was full of key loggers and other nasty stuff and she had her paypal acct hit draining money from her checking account because of that. And after that happened I suggested her to get a computer just for paying bills and banking online that her kids dont know the password to so that there was isolation between the illegal stuff her kids were adding to the home computer and her need to use a secure means of online access to accounts.

 Thank you very much for your comprehensive reply, I used to use Libre Office but over the years it has disappeared into the ether, Thanks again.

I've been looking for some time for a free email program. I tried Thunderbird with no luck.

Hi Dave

Have a look at EMclient as an email client, It's great if you have email in an old version of Outlook and don't want to pay for a new Outlook version. Seems to import settings from most email clients.

For graphic image manipulation and prep to upload, I have always enjoyed "Irfanview." Mostly because it's so tiny and it manipulates images in every way I seem to need for re-sizing, flipping for forwarding, posting and website updating. Be sure to also download the Irfanview "plug-ins," because it has some nice features for image manipulation that aren't in the main install.

Generally, I always read the Terms of Service, because I really do not enjoy being data-trolled. For that reason, I would never use "Grammarly."

What I REALLY enjoy is a site called "Ninite.com"
It's got a huge list of really cool programs that you can check off to download as a group to install and/or update. Then it assembles these into a sequence of downloads that you can download as a pile - just run them ALL at once. Ninite doesn't install any junky nasty stuff in these install/updates.
Just the fact that a program or app is present on Ninite.com endorses it as being useful. (WHAT they are useful for isn't spelled out though, you've gotta research; though they are categorized as to what kind of app they are.)

I have really enjoyed also a recording app made by Dolby designed for phone recording that's sort of tricky to find: https://dolby234.page.link/DownloadDolbyOn 
Dolby On has features that sweeten the recording after it's made that you can adjust. But you need to have an extra storage chip on your phone to use it because quality sound files really take up space. Drawback is that EACH recording needs to be exported one at a time.
The other app I really use often is a phone music player (android) that's designed for LOoooong file names. It supports my activities recording my musician friend. Ineed it because I'm recording original music from a friend of mine on different dates that need to be re-classified, have their endings and/or beginnings trimmed, etc. The capacity for a longer title can keep track of what I'm doing with specific files. ...Making Opus 1 really, really handy beyond the classical music purposes it spouts.
Called: Opus 1 Music Player.

I'm going to take DaveLembke's advice on the search app. I've been using a tiny search engine called "Everything," which works faster than the native search feature in Win10 that I have turned off because I really hated Cortana.
DaveLembke, agreed how you need to separate and categorize your online purposes. Since you mentioned separating utilitarian apps and games, this isn't really a download, but it's a tip to save you from being scammed if your Paypal gets compromised...

I have an unused savings account that's connected to Paypal that I can phone up and transfer the exact amount I'm about to use into it. I keep about five bucks in that account when I'm not immediately buying anything on Paypal. At my bank, I have auto-transfer to pay any bill that comes to my account explicitly turned off - so any scammer's "request" essentially bounces. (Be aware that "Courtesy-Pay" is turned on by default, because banks want to charge you hugely unfair amounts for "loaning" even pennies to you if your account doesn't have enough money to pay the demanded scammer's billing.) Having turned off "Courtesy-Pay" prevents a scammer from billing me via PayPal and getting anything by auto-transfer from my other accounts that DO have money in them.

Thunderbird has been recommended by multiple privacy experts as the only mail client that protects your privacy. Agreed, it's got so many features that it's a hassle to use - I'm not sure HOW do I transfer my emails I've saved when I upgrade to another laptop?? So I keep my emails on BOTH Thunderbird AND the original sources...and that's a pain. So Dave, I can see why you're looking for another email client. Plus - Thunderbird is ONLY useful on a laptop - it's not made for phones.

Speaking of email, ($50. a year for five different emails,) I'm convinced that BraxMail is the most private email source to use - better than MulVaad or Proton Mail by far. To learn more about WHY it's the most private, join Brax.me (Brax.me is free, only a password and username is required,) and search the "Community" link under "Chats" for "BraxMail." That BraxMail chat is the user support; if you go back to the beginning of the chat you can find out about how and why it's more private that any other email source and what's involved to set it up on an email client such as Thunderbird and K-9 for phones.