The 50 Best Mobile Apps Everyone Should Own
by Whitson GordonThere is not shortage of free mobile and desktop applications available on the internet. Unfortunately, most of them are either rubbish or trick you into parting with your cash via in-app purchases. But if you take the time to sort the wheat from the chaff, you'll find plenty of excellent apps that truly are free.
We're thankful every day for all the free apps out there that improve our lives (and the developers that make them!). Here are 50 our favourites.
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.
Alternatives: The Old Reader, Tiny Tiny RSS
2. Google Maps
Category: Maps See also: The Best Extensions to Make Google Maps Even More Awesome, 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, and Wean Yourself Off Your GPS Dependency.
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. 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, and more Chrome coverage.
5. 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, and more Firefox coverage.
6. Gmail
Category: Email See also: 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, How to Use Inbox by Gmail for More Productive Email and more Gmail coverage.
7. Onenote
Category: Notes
See also: How To Jump Ship From Evernote And Take Your Data With You, Seven Tips And Tricks To Get More Out Of OneNote.
Alternatives: OneNote vs Evernote, Springpad vs Evernote, Simplenote
8. Pocket
Category: Reading
See also: The Best Way to Save All the Useful Articles You Come Across Online, How To Use Technology To Get Through Your Reading List, How to Use Pocket Like a Pro to Save Everything from the Web.
Alternatives: Instapaper and Readability
9. Plex
Category: Media Centres See also: How to Stream Your Media Anywhere with Plex, Plex vs XBMC, RasPlex Puts Plex on the Raspberry Pi, and Create a Home Server with Plex.
10. Google Keep
Category: Notes See also: Not Just Another Notes App: Why You Should Use Google Keep, and Google Keep Adds Reminders So You'll Never Forget to Act on Your Notes.
11. Pushbullet
Category: Notifications
See also: How to Use Pushbullet to Get Notified of Anything on Any Device, How To Use Pushbullet To Get Notified Of Anything On Any Device, Send Text Messages from Your Computer with Pushbullet.
12. Skype
Category: VoIP
See also: Get Better Quality Video Chat, Disable Skype's Ads, The Five Best Webcams and more Skype coverage
13. Spotify
Category: Music Streaming
See also: The Best Spotify Tips and Tricks You're Probably Not Using, Why Spotify Apps Are Actually Pretty Useful and more Spotify coverage
14. 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, Google Drive Is Changing: Here Are The Details.
15. 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, and 8 Great Experimental Features to Enable in Google Calendar's Labs.
16. Google Play Music
Category: Music Streaming
See also: All Of Google's Confusing, Intertwined Music Services, Explained, Google Turns YouTube into a Streaming Music Player with Music Key.
17. Google Assistant
Category: Personal Assistant
See also: All The Things You Can Do With Google Assistant That You Couldn't Do Before, Everything You Didn't Know You Could Do with Google's Voice Commands, Speed Up Google Now with This Simple Tweak.
18. Swiftkey
Category: Keyboards
See also: How to Improve Your Predictive Keyboard, SwiftKey Adds Custom Keyboards You Can Resize and Move, and Improve Your Typing with SwiftKey's Heat Map.
Alternatives: Five Best Android Keyboards and iOS Keyboards.
19. Any.DO
Category: To-Do Lists
See also: The Coolest 'Extra' Features In Any.DO, Any.do Adds A Smart Assistant To Help Plan And Complete Your To-Dos, and Any.do Finally Unveils A Web App, Brings Your To-Dos To Any Browser.
20. 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.
21. LastPass
Category: Password Managers
See also: The Intermediate Guide to Mastering Passwords with LastPass, You Can Now Use LastPass On Multiple Devices For Free and Behind The App: The Story Of LastPass.
22. Kodi
Category: Media Centres
See also: Create a Kickass, Seamless, Play-Anything Media Center: The Complete Guide, How I Built the Media Center of My Dreams for Under $US500, 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 Theatre PC and more XBMC coverage.
23. VLC
Category: Media Players
See also: The Best Hidden Features of 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
24. IFTTT
Category: Automation
See also: How to Supercharge Your Favourite Services with IFTTT, How to Post to Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ at the Same Time with IFTTT, 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.
25. 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, and The Best Two-Factor Authentication App for Android and iPhone.
26. 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, and How Do I Troubleshoot My Parents' PC Remotely?.
27. Avast! Free Antivirus
Category: Antivirus
See also: The Best Antivirus App for Windows, and How to Disable Avast's Annoying Sounds and Popups.
Alternatives: Five Best Antivirus Programs
28. Trello
Category: To-Do Lists
See also: How To Organise Your Entire Life With Trello, and Get Both A Focused And Bird's Eye View Of Your Tasks With Trello.
29. 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 Customised 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, and more Linux coverage.
30. MusicBee
Category: Music Players
See also: The Best Music Player for Windows, Five Best Desktop Music Players, Top 10 Underhyped Windows Apps, and Music Player Showdown: Which Desktop Player Is Best for Syncing to Android?.
31. uTorrent
Category: BitTorrent Client
See also: How to Completely Anonymise 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 and more uTorrent coverage.
Alternative: Transmission
32. CCleaner
Category: Utilities
See also: What Should I Be Cleaning With CCleaner?, The Maintenance You Need to Do on a Windows PC, and CCleaner Enhancer Makes CCleaner Even Better, Now Cleans 270 New Apps.
33. HandBrake
Category: Video Conversion
See also: How to Rip a DVD to Your Computer, The Hassle-Free Guide to Ripping Your Blu-Ray Collection, and Calculate the Perfect HandBrake Video Encoding Settings for Your Device.
34. VirtualBox
Category: Virtualisation
See also: The Power User's Guide to Better Virtual Machines in VirtualBox, The Beginner's Guide to Creating Virtual Machines with VirtualBox, Should I Run a Second Operating System in a Virtual Machine or Dual Boot?, and How to Run Mac OS X Inside Windows Using VirtualBox.
35. CyanogenMod
Category: Android ROMs
See also: Everything You Need to Know About Rooting your Android Phone, How to Flash a ROM to Your Android Phone, Are ROMs Really Necessary on a Nexus?, Android ROMs vs Xposed, and CyanogenMod Unveils New User Accounts for Remote Find and Wipe.
Alternatives: Five Best Android ROMs
36. F.lux
Category: Utilities
See also: Make Your Computer and More Friendly to Use at Night, and Prevent Eyestrain at Your Computer.
37. GIMP
Category: Image Editing
See also: Top 10 Photoshop Tricks You Can Use Without Buying Photoshop, How to Make GIMP Work More Like Photoshop, and Build Your Own Adobe Creative Suite with Free and Cheap Software.
Alternatives: Five Best Photoshop Alternatives
38. LibreOffice
Category: Office Suite
See also: Battle of the Office Suites: Microsoft Office and LibreOffice Compared, LibreOffice Updates, Doesn't Look Like Crap Anymore, and Four Skills That Will Turn You Into a Spreadsheet Ninja.
39. Outlook
Category: Email
See also: 10 Outlook Tricks You Need To Master, How To Master Outlook.
40. Google Photos
Category: Photo Manager
See also: How The New Google Photos Makes Your Picture Library Awesome, Google Photos Can Now Free Up Space On Your Phone, and Picasa Now Offering Virtually Unlimited Photo Storage, Brings Google+ Tagging.
41. 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, Why's Everybody So Pissed About Twitter, and Should I Care?, How to Deal with Your Biggest Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ Annoyances and more Twitter coverage.
42. AutoHotkey
Category: Utilities
See also: The Best Time-Saving AutoHotkey Tricks You Should Be Using and more AutoHotkey coverage.
43. Launchy
Category: Utilities
See also: Why You Should Be Using an App Launcher (and How to make It Do More Than Launch Apps) and The Best Application Launcher for Windows.
44. Quicksilver
Category: Utilities
See also: Turn Any Action Into a Keyboard Shortcut on Your Mac.
Alternatives: Alfred
45. Crashplan
Category: Utilities
See also: There's No Excuse For Not Backing Up Your Computer: Do It Now, and Speed Up CrashPlan Backups And Free Up CPU Power With These Scripts.
46. Titanium Backup
Category: Utilities
See also: How to Set Up a Fully Automated App and Settings Backup on Android, How to Upgrade to a New Android Phone and Take Everything with You, and How to Speed Up Your Old or Sluggish Android Device
47. Notepad++
Category: Text Editors
See also: How to Get More Plus Out of Notepad++, The Best Programming Text Editor for Windows, and Make Notepad++ an Even Better Editing App with Powerful Plug-Ins
Alternatives: Five Best Text Editors
48. 7-Zip
Category: File Compression
See also: From Saucy Pics to Passwords: How to Share Sensitive Information Over the Internet.
49. Rolling Sky
Category: Game
See also: The Best Offline Android Games, 8 Classic Games Actually Worth Playing On Your Phone, App Deals.
50. MenuLog
Category: Food delivery
See also: Menulog Makes It Easy To Order Takeaway, KFC Is Launching A Home Delivery Service In Australia.
This story has been updated since its original publication.