Paint.NET is far more powerful than Microsoft Paint but doesn’t overwhelm you with loads of confusing tools. You can easily blur out parts of an image, auto-level photos to make them look better, and add text and shapes to your pictures in just a few clicks. Plenty of plugins allow you to expand its functionality, too.

VLC Media Player is capable of playing nearly every video and audio format imaginable. You might not break it out often, but give VLC a download and save yourself the hassle of messing with video codecs or using the awfully insecure QuickTime.

Spotify Spotify is one of the best and most used music streaming services which you can use on your Android. Spotify for Android will eliminate the need for buying individual albums digitally. Well, there are actually tons of music streaming apps available on the internet, but Spotify stands out of the crowd due to its amazing offerings.

Netflix In case you’re looking to stream videos, and not music, on your device then you’d be glad to hear that Netflix is also available on the Microsoft Store. Now that you know this, there’s no need for you to watch Netflix on the web and considering the fact that the Netflix app allows you to download videos for offline viewing, I know I, for one, am not going back to watching Netflix on my browser again. The Netflix app is a must-have for anyone with a Windows 10 device, even those who’re not Windows 10 S users, and a Netflix subscription.

Amazon Music Amazon Music is a great music streaming app for people who are already subscribed to Amazon Prime. The app lets you access a curated selection of 2 million songs for free without any ads. You also get unlimited skips and offline music download. These are the features that are reserved for the paid tier of other music streaming services like Spotify. You might have noticed that the music selection here is far lesser than what is offered by Spotify (over 30 million songs), however, I rarely found a popular song that was missing on this platform. This is a great app for music lovers who don’t want to pay extra for streaming music. On the other hand, if you do want a larger selection, you can subscribe to Amazon Music unlimited service that gives you access to 50 million songs at $7.99/month. Non-Prime members will have to pay the full price at $9.99/month.

7-Zip; File Compression and Extraction Windows includes native support for simple zipped files, but anything beyond the basics requires a more powerful tool. While this isn’t the most exciting software category, it’s important to have so you can work with any kind of archived files you might encounter.

7-Zip is the gold standard for file compression and extraction apps. It’s small and installs in seconds, is easy to use, and stays out of your way when you’re not using it. Those who need advanced features will still find them in 7-Zip, though.

Hulu With the Hulu app, you can watch the latest episodes of your favorite TV show on your device, however, it doesn’t offer as great of an experience as the web version of the service and doesn’t include quite a few features which are rather disappointing. Another thing worth noting that the Hulu app for Windows 10 doesn’t include the option to download videos for offline viewing, which is another major setback for the app.

Kodi If you have a big offline media library and want to be able to easily manage it and stream it across devices, you should install Kodi. The best part about Kodi is that it is completely free to use. Once you set up Kodi on your device, you will be able to use it as a home server and stream content using Kodi on any device. Not only that, but Kodi also comes with various plug-ins which lets you enhance its power. For example, you can install Kodi add-ons for Live TV shows and various Kodi repositories to stream content for free. If you are a media buff, there is no better Windows 10 app out there. If you have never used Kodi, be sure to check out our beginner’s guide on Kodi to get started.

ShareX Taking a Windows screenshot is useful for everything from capturing funny moments to having a record of important information. The basic Snipping Tool and Snip & Sketch apps only provide a barebones feature set, so you need something better. You won’t find a better free screenshot tool than ShareX. With tons of capture methods, a powerful built-in editor, automated steps after you take a screenshot, and extra tools like a color grabber and ruler, ShareX has an impressive feature set for no cost.

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