As we prepare to give thanks for our delicious Thanksgiving meals (and impending food comas), let's not forget to pay tribute to the wonderful developers who bring us our favorite free apps.


Earlier this week we asked you to share the free apps you're most thankful for, and you came through with thousands of votes for apps covering the desktop, mobile phone, and devices in between. With a little spreadsheet magic and a few choices of our own, we bring you the top 50 free apps we're all most thankful for. Whether you're celebrating the holiday or not, it's a great list of free software that ought to make for some gluttonous downloading. The popular apps are some of the more obvious, however, so be sure to look further down the list for new free software you may not yet know about. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!


The 50 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For






Trick Out Google Apps for Your Domain You registered a domain name and set up the free Google Apps Standard Edition to get Gmail, GTalk, Read more







Expand Your Brain with Evernote Click to viewA new school year is just around the corner, but this semester you're looking for a… Read more




Best Password Manager: KeePass Last week we asked you to share your favorite password manager and then we rounded up the… Read more






Automate Windows with AutoHotkey The No Thick Manuals wiki has a nice introductory tutorial for automating Windows with the… Read more


Best Music Discovery Service: Pandora Last week we asked you to share your favorite music discovery service, and then we rounded up the… Read more



Best File Encryption Tool: TrueCrypt Last week we asked you to share your favorite file encryption tool. We tallied up the votes and put Read more


Best DVD-Ripping Tool: Handbrake It's frustrating to not be able to get your DVDs onto your portable devices or media server. Last… Read more











Best Twitter Client: TweetDeck Last week we asked you to share your favorite Twitter client, then we rounded up the top five for… Read more








FTP for Free with Cyberduck Mac OS X only: Manage your FTP connections for free with Cyberduck. If you hate the idea of paying… Read more





Manage your music with Winamp The technology tutorial site SimpleHelp has posted a very practical how-to on changing your iPod… Read more



And that's the list! Items on this year's list garnered a minimum of ten votes (with a few exceptions), with popular apps pulling in far more. Dropbox took the lead with 137 votes, followed by VLC with 109, and Firefox with 97. Happy downloading, and happy Thanksgiving!