100 Free Apps for Windows 10: Best to Use in 2024
Many of these can be downloaded directly from the Store
49 min. read
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Windows 10 is the best operating system ever built by Microsoft, and people have been upgrading to it in increasing numbers, despite its problems. One of the best innovations that Windows 8 introduced and Windows 10 improved upon is the Windows Store – a place where developers can submit their Universal Windows apps and consumers can easily purchase them.
The Windows Store is an incredible platform – it rids the developer of worries about updating their applications and doing proper version checks as all that is built into the Windows Store itself, and it gives the consumer a single place to buy and install applications in a single click without worrying about viruses or any other issue like slowdowns etc.
But there are thousands if not millions of applications on the Windows Store, and sometimes it can get frustrating to sort the good ones from the bad – the list below are a 100 apps from the Windows Store; some of the best it has to offer.
Note – if you’re interested in games more than traditional apps, we highly recommend that you check out our list of more than 100 best Windows 10 games that we handpicked from the Windows Store. If you are not looking for games, feel free to scroll below.
Which are the best free apps for Windows 10?
Facebook started from a dorm room – anyone who has seen the infamous movie about its birth knows the story dramatic story of its inception and the conquest over its competitors that followed after; What Facebook allows us to do was possible before Facebook – but not perfected, and that’s what made Facebook famous. Today the company is worth billions of dollars and a billion people stay in touch with their loves ones by using its services. The Facebook app is quite possibly the most installed app on any operating system, and this one is no exception.
Download Facebook from the Windows Store [Free]
Messenger
Messenger is obviously an integral part of Facebook and plays an important role for Facebook’s goal in terms of what its trying to do. Connecting everyone in the world to their loved ones can get hard – doing it in real time and free of cost is even harder, which is where Messenger comes in. Facebook Messenger is obviously not the first chat program ever made, but the fact that it links with Facebook and it already knows all the people you know makes it the easiest one to use. While it does come with a lot of features – it serves only one purpose, that is to let you stay connected with the least amount of cost to you.
Download Messenger from the Windows Store [Free]
Netflix
Netflix is a company that came out of nowhere and shook everyone with awe as it changed the paradigm of entertainment within Hollywood – an industry that is too stubborn to change even in the worst of times. At an extremely affordable subscription price, Netflix offers a rich library of entertainment with an extremely diverse range of shows and movies – and if that wasn’t enough, they produce their own high-budget originals. In just a few years after its birth Netflix has managed to gather a horde of cord cutters, and continues to grow as it expands its horizons to better content and wider audiences.
Download Netflix from the Windows Store [Free]
Pandora
Pandora did to music what Netflix did to TV – it brought it into the 21st century. Once upon a time, people had to tune into certain radio frequencies and wait for other people to play a song they liked – this changed when companies realised that content can now be delivered in high quality and real time thanks to the internet. Pandora offers radio streams, genre streams and so much more with enough music to last you a century – at an extremely affordable subscription price.
Download Pandora from the Windows Store [Free]
Adobe Photoshop Express
Adobe Photoshop is a piece of software that revolutionized the photography industry – with every iteration it brought new features that made possible wizardry that was thought impossible before it; It is however a very complicated program, and requires training and learning of years to master it – so tools such as Photoshop Express bring the advanced powerful tools of Photoshop and simplifies them for use by people who just want to make a photo look fancy.
Download Adobe Photoshop Express from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Fitbit
Fitbit is a fairly new company born to fulfill the needs of today’s generation. What Fitbit offers is the ability to log and track everything you do to stay fit. This data can then be analyzed to improve your habits and increase or decrease the amount of activity you do to reach your goals. Fitbit is a strong product, and this app by them elegantly displays all of this data for you to easily analyze and export as statistics.
Download Fitbit from the Windows Store [Free]
Amazon
Amazon has managed to revolutionize the commerce industry in multiple countries across the globe. With their focus on recognizing and studying user patterns and suggesting personalized products for each user, they have managed to build a store that not only has everything from A to Z but also is smart enough to present what you need right at the front of it. The Amazon app – developed by Amazon – does justice to its interface and brings a new life to the store with seamless animations and an elegant interface to go along with it.
Download Amazon from the Windows Store [Free]
VLC for Windows
VLC is known for its ability to play anything you could throw at it – any video file format that has been ever made using any codec for video or audio can be played using VLC, and it is packed with extremely versatile feature that quite possibly make it the best video player ever to have existed. The best part? It is still under development and gets constant updates improving it further and keeping up with the various developments in video and audio industry.
Download VLC for Windows from the Windows Store [Free]
Hulu
While Netflix mostly focused on movies in its early days, Hulu had an on-point focus on TV shows – and till date it is one of the very few websites where you can watch some of the most popular shows on American networks mere hours after they air on television. Hulu has built a fantastic service and this app is a proof of that with its elegant and intuitive interface and smooth animations, it’s a joy to use. Hulu offers a wide collection of TV Shows to pick from, and all of that content is available to stream straight from the app.
Download Hulu from the Windows Store [Free]
iHeartRadio
iHeartRadio is an online service that brings radio stations from across the world to your Windows 10 device at the touch of a button. Not everyone carries a radio around anymore – even in the phones, they require earbuds to be plugged in for antenna which can be quite troublesome in a lot of situations. iHeartRadio gives you access to a massive library of radio stations from across the globe in their best pristine quality as it airs – completely live.
Download iHeartRadio from the Windows Store [Free]
PicsArt
Photo editing can get complicated – as Photoshop as shown us, and while Photoshop has made efforts to build a simpler tool, competition can never heart in this endeavour. PicsArt gives you some incredible photo editing tools and some very simple step-based tools to make photo collages, digital drawings and much more. It also has its own little network where you can meet other creative people who share your hobby and interests.
Download PicsArt – Photo Studio from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Line
The market of socializing is massive – and so it is required to have competition in this arena to void any monopolies. Line is not a revolutionary idea, what it is though is a refined one – an instant messenger that is quick, simple and can be learned even by those who are not tech-savvy. Line supports not only text messaging but also voice and video calls – and all of it is free except the data charges.
Download Line from the Windows Store [Free]
Network Speed Test
Network Speed Test is a tool built by Microsoft Research – it is supposed to determine your internet’s quality and measure its speed. This is obviously not the first tool or website to do this – however it is necessary to have an impartial tool from a reputable company to dispute any issues with your internet service provider, and this application serves that criteria. It will also locally store all of your previous speed tests so you can compare them for future reference.
Download Network Speed Test from the Windows Store [Free]
Tweetium
Tweetium is an extremely feature rich Twitter client, and while it is not free it comes with support for up to 7 accounts simultaneously and push notifications for mentions, DM’s, RT’s, quotes, favs, and new followers. It also integrates with another app by the same developer – Newseen and enhances the experience of reading news from Twitter. The app is fully compatible for all platforms – including Windows phones and tablets.
Download Tweetium from the Windows Store [2.99$ with IAP]
RemindMe
While this functionality will soon be added to Cortana in the Anniversary Update for Windows 10, for now this app is quite necessary for productivity on Windows 10. RemindMe – as the name suggests – can remind you do something no matter what you ask for. You can not only set the reminder by minutes but also specific dates and time. The app deeply integrates with all of the Windows features and gives you constantly updating live tiles and rich toast notifications. Your reminders also show up on the lock screen, and all of them are synced between all of your Windows 10 devices over the network.
Download RemindMe for Windows from the Windows Store [Free]
The information era we live is fast and requires you to be faster. For a long time people used RSS for their news delivery – a technology that is not only slow but also cumbersome and not at all nice to look at. Flipboard presented itself as a personalized magazine – and that it is. The point of Flipboard is to deliver you news and articles that might interest you in the most elegant way with the least delay, and this app does it full justice.
Download Flipboard from the Windows Store [Free]
Audible
Audible is not only a store to buy some fantastic audio books, but also one of the only and the best audiobook library management softwares out there. Audible has over 200,000 audiobooks to choose from, and regularly runs offers and discounts so you can continue being entertained and keep gaining knowledge without spending a lot of money. The app supports all of the native Windows 10 features such as integration with Cortana and sync’ed page position across devices.
Download Audiobooks from Audible from the Windows Store [Free]
Foursquare
Foursquare is a service that singlehandedly revolutionized how people traverse the urban jungle that our cities are today. Foursquare personalizes the places you should visit near you, be it restaurants or something with a little night life. Foursquare also makes it fun to discover new places with its rewards and competitive features like the mayorship program. The Foursquare app brings all of these features and presents them in an elegant way.
Download Foursquare from the Windows Store [Free]
Duolingo
Duolingo is an incredible tool that does exactly as its name implies – it teaches how to converse in dual languages, or triple, whatever you want really. The app is designed to teach you many languages without much effort – don’t fool yourself, you won’t become proficient in the language, but you will learn it enough to have a simple conversation with a native of that language.
Download Duolingo from the Windows Store [Free]
ooVoo
ooVoo brings you some really high quality video and voice chats – not only 1 to 1 but with up to 12 people simultaneously. The app also comes with some unique filters to make your chats just a little bit more fun. You can also share good old text, and photos as well, and make free phone calls over your data connection with other ooVoo users.
Download ooVoo from the Windows Store [Free]
Movie Edit Touch
Video editing is tough job even for a professional – it is something that takes quite a lot of man hours for very little output, but sometimes you just want something simple, and something simple can be achieved with simple tools. Movie Edit Touch is an extremely simple tool that allows you to just fine tune your videos to make them a tiny bit better. It allows you to trim your videos, add music to them, add filters, stabilize them, and much much more.
Download Movie Edit Touch from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Police Radio Scanner 5-0
The law enforcement of every city in the world works hard to keep its citizens safe, sometimes you could be curious about how they do their job; Police Radio Scanner 5-0 provides you with radio chatter of hundreds of police departments around the world. The radio is picked up by volunteers, but what you get is a clean mp3 stream of the live radio chatter.
Download Police Radio Scanner 5-O from the Windows Store [Free]
Vine
When Twitter gained its popularity, you could attribute it to the simple 140 characters limit it held upon its users. Vine is essentially the Twitter of video, and gives its users 7 seconds to tell their story – no more, no less. Vine has turned into an incredible platform with millions of users sharing their day. Vine has also gained popularity among the creative – a 7 second limitation presents an interesting challenge to build something that can entertain. The app lets you not only make and upload your own Vines, but also follow and watch the Vines uploaded by other people as well.
Download Vine from the Windows Store [Free]
Sway
Sway lets you build interactive presentations with simple tools and is fully integrated with OneDrive so you can add photos, videos and music from anywhere you like in your stories. It comes with some beautiful templates, and while it likes to call itself a storytelling tool, that could in theory also be used for presentations – which is why Sway is useful for more than just play.
Download Sway from the Windows Store [Free]
Shazam
Ever went to a bar and wondered what sort of music is being blurted out by those speakers? Yeah, everybody does that. Shazam is going to answer all of your questions related to music; wanna know what song is playing on the radio? Shazam can answer that. What song is used in that video game trailer you like? Shazam it. Shazam features an incredibly simple and quick interface that lets you quickly pull out your phone and Shazam whatever is playing around you – it also saves a history of it, so you can check it out later and add more music to your own library.
Download Shazam from the Windows Store [Free]
Autodesk Pixlr
Audodesk Pixlr is yet another tool to edit your photos on your Windows 10 device with tools that keep things simple and let you make the perfect photo without much learning curve and by doing most of the work for you. It comes with various filters, borders, overlays and lets you fine tune every aspect of your image – from colour to gamma with extreme precision in real time.
Download Autodesk Pixlr from the Windows Store [Free]
Nano Antivirus Sky Scan
Windows is the most popular operating system on the planet – but its popularity also makes it a massive target for people who intend no good. Therefore in today’s world an antivirus is not an option but a necessity. By the nature of Windows Universal Platform applications – Nano Antivirus cannot do a lot in terms of features, but it can let you scan individual files via its cloud checking for free, and that’s what it offers with an elegant and easy to use interface.
Download Nano Antivirus Sky Scan from the Windows Store [Free]
Cover
Comics books are an all-time favorite for reading by all ages – it not only engages its readers by using well drawn characters but also brings some wit and creativity to the artistic design of every page. Comic books are indeed one of the best ways to tell a story, and Cover is does them a justice by providing a brilliant way to organize them and showcase them in a gorgeous interface. Cover supports a wide range of comic book formats and can import all of your comic books in a single step. It comes with various customizable options for its reader functionality – from animations to a dark mode, and even comes with full support for foreign language fonts such as Japanese so you don’t miss out on that manga.
Download Cover from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Khan Academy
Online learning tools are getting extremely important in the current times where education is becoming extremely expensive and out of reach for a major part of the population. Khan Academy fulfills this demand by providing a wide variety of courses in hundreds of different fields and subjects – all created by respectable and reputable professors and professionals from some of the best universities in the world. What you learn in Khan Academy can even be added to your resume and a lot of companies will consider it as genuine knowledge today.
Download Khan Academy from the Windows Store [Free]
Keeper
Keeping a secret in today’s world can get very hard specially when everything is connected over the internet allowing someone on the other side of the world access to your personal network. Keeper is an app that will encrypt and keep not only your passwords safe but also your files and folders. It will also help you auto-fill your passwords on websites within your browser, giving you the freedom to have unique and complicated passwords for every website – as it should be – while removing the headache of remembering each and every one of them. It also syncs across all of your devices and comes with a pretty decent interface.
Download Keeper from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Tripadvisor
Traveling across the world is the most wonderful experience you could go through – our ancestors could only dream of it. Tripadvisor helps you plan your trips so you can make the most of your time and enjoy everything you do in the lands foreign to you. Tripadvisor will help you find the cheapest hotels, flights and food all around the globe so you can save money to do more things and make a better trip.
Download Tripadvisor from the Windows Store [Free]
UC BrowserHD
Web browsers are everywhere – without them, you wouldn’t be able to access most of the internet, however building a good web browser is a challenge only the best could tackle. UC BrowserHD is one of the best Windows 10 web browsers out there. Its speed and smoothness reflect what is possible with the Windows Universal Platform and it just gives you an extremely quick experience. While it is fast, it is not very feature rich – with lack of extensions, it is quite limited in possibilities, but if you want something fast look no further.
Download UC BrowserHD from the Windows Store [Free]
Evernote Touch
Evernote is a service that lets you make notes and store them forever – thus the name Evernote. While this sounds simple, Evernote is an extremely feature rich platform and not only does it let you make notes it also lets you organize them with tags – something crucial when you can make infinite amount of notes. It also supports sketches and image notes and comes with various collaboration tools as well that allow you to work on projects and share notes with a team of people.
Download Evernote Touch from the Windows Store [Free]
Wattpad
Wattpad brings you stories and books from authors that haven’t made it big enough to be popular yet. However it is a bit different from simply giving you a book; on Wattpad authors can upload books as they write them – so you could get new chapters for your favorite book as you get new episodes for your favorite TV shows. You can also write your own stories and books if you want to get into that, and share it with your friends and all of the other millions of Wattpad users instantly.
Download Wattpad from the Windows Store [Free]
Spending Tracker
Keeping track of your money can get hard, specially when you have all of these awesome applications to purchase! With Spending Tracker you can add up all of your earnings and expenses and see where you could save money. It can help you properly categorize all of your expenses so you can see what you are spending most of your money on and build graphs and charts to make it easy to understand. The interface isn’t the most elegant thing you have looked at, but it gets the job pretty well.
Download Spending Tracker from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
TouchMe
Touchscreens revolutionized the way you interact with a computer – but sometimes the things your fingers allow you to do can get quite limited, and that’s where gestures come in. Gestures allow you to do more complicated tasks while keeping them intuitive – pinch to zoom is a gesture for example, something very simple and obvious but adding a massive usability boost. TouchMe allows you to build custom gesture files that you can use in any popular gesture engine – you can basically create your own gestures and use them however you like.
Download TouchMe Gesture Studio from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Readit
Reddit is one the most popular websites around – as it likes to call itself the homepage of the internet. While it is extremely popular, the interface isn’t something to brag about and considering how much people like it – it’s not going to change anytime soon. For those of us who prefer to have something more elegant, Readit offers an incredible app that is designed intuitively and presents all of Reddit’s content without any of its ugly designs. Readit also adds some nice native feature support such as Windows 10 toast notifications for new replies and messages.
Download Readit from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Karaoke One
Karaoke is a gift of the beautiful Japanese culture – you sing a song to its tune among your friends. Not only is it an extremely fun activity, it also boosts your self confidence as you are displaying your skills – no matter how embarrassing – in front of a live audience. Karaoke One lets you have the same karaoke experience – but over the internet, by allowing you to sing and share your karaoke performance with extreme ease. It features thousands of songs and comes with properly synced detailed lyrics for you to sing along, so you don’t miss a beat.
Download Karaoke One from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Autocad 360
Autocad is an extremely powerful drawing and drafting tool – Autocad 360 however is pretty much a lite version of it, intended for use when you are on the move and just need to make some simple adjustments or show your work to clients. Autocad 360 is full of the features you would be familiar with if you use Autocad and lets you edit, and look at the objects you create in full 3D while giving you all of the measuring and technical tools you require.
Download Autocad 360 from the Windows Store [Free]
Wolfram Alpha
Wolfram Alpha is an amazing tool built to enhance the capabilities of a computer – it can resolve complex equations and figure out literal sentences to give you a satisfactory result. While it is mostly a math tool, it can be used for various things such as currency conversion and doing your homework. Wolfram Alpha is also one of the few tools that will solve your mathematical equations – and give you steps for doing it yourself.
Download Wolfram Alpha from the Windows Store [2.99$]
Dictonary Pro
Any website on the internet will be willing to define words for you – but if you want something more detailed, something that will give you not only the meaning of a word but also the origin of its meaning, you need better tools. Dictionary Pro is an extensive tool for anyone interested in languages. Not only does it give you definition of every word that ever existed but it also packs its own advanced translation engine that will help you translate words nad trace their history to their known origins.
Download Dictionary Pro from the Windows Store [3.99$]
Flixter
Flixter intelligently and elegantly organizes all of the trailers and showtimes of recently released movies for you so you can check out whats new and find a seat to watch it in your nearest theater. It also shows the top reviews from the best critics around the world and gives you a solid rating for every movie – helping you determine whether it is worth spending your time watching a movie.
Download Flixter from the Windows Store [Free]
Lastpass
Lastpass is an incredible tool that has a name describing its exact purpose – it is going to be the last password you will ever have to remember. Lastpass is an extremely secure password manager that will store and generate passwords for you, so you don’t have to deal with them ever again. Lastpass comes with not only this app but also apps for various other platforms allowing full automated auto fill of your password information, making it extremely convenient yet at the same time safe and secure – a combination that is very rare.
Download Lastpass from the Windows Store [Free]
TED
TED brings you access to thousands of talks by various people of knowledge – from musical artists, tech geniuses, businessmen and even politicians. TED is famous for its intellect and the push to share ideas with complete freedom. The TED app does justice to its content and gives you an organized way to browse through the thousands of TED talks at your disposal and watch something that interests you – or even go beyond your safe circle and learn something new.
Download TED from the Windows Store [Free]
Code Writer
Code Writer is a code writer built on top of the Universal Windows Platform – something not very common to see. Code Writer features all of your usual code editor features such as syntax highlighting and automatic indentation. It supports over 20 different file formats and features a tabbed document interface allowing you to work on multiple files simultaneously with ease.
Download Code Writer from the Windows Store [Free]
7z Zip Rar
7Z Zip Rar is a simple tool designed to do only one thing – compress and uncompress files. It features a a simple UI that lists all of the files you have recently uncompressed or compressed and is able to create password-protected archives as well. It also supports various file formats such as 7zip, RAR, zip, cab, tar, iso and much more.
Download 7z ZIP RAR from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Timemaster
Timemaster is an incredible application used by thousands of professionals across the world – if you charge by the hour, you need to have a look at Timemaster. Timemaster lets you easily keep track of your time and expenses incurred during that time so you can easily bill your clients. You can have multiple timers running at the same time, and have customized billing rates for everything. You can also export all of this data as HTML or CSV files and use it for analyzing whatever you like.
Download Timemaster + Billing from the Windows Store [9.99$ with IAP]
PC Benchmark
PC Benchmark – as the name suggests – is a tool to benchmark the various components of your computer and give them a solid score that you can use to compare other computers with yours. It will test various components of your computer such as the storage, CPU, GPU, and RAM. It will also work on ARM-based Windows 10 devices and benchmark them as well.
Download PC Benchmark from the Windows Store [Free]
The New York Times
The New York Times is one of the oldest newspapers to have ever existed and the quality of its journalism reflects that. The application does full justice to its content by providing clear and concise view of them without any distractions. Unless you subscribe – the app lets you access three free articles everyday, and gives you a beautiful interface to read them in.
Download The New York Times from the Windows Store [Free]
GOM Player
GOM Player is an extremely simple media player – you simply point it at the file you want to play and it will play it. You can also add folders to it and use its extremely simple library management features as well. It supports popular file formats such avi, mp4, mkv, wmv and much more. It also comes with built in support for custom subtitles as srt and smi files, and features a very simple gesture based interface to move within the media file.
Download GOM Player App from the Windows Store [Free]
Discovery Channel
The Discovery Channel app brings you an insane amount of content to watch from the famous Discovery network – an incredible amount of educational and knowledgeable content that makes you smarter every time you watch an episode. You get access to various Discovery favorite shows such as Mythbusters, Deadliest Catch, Gold Rush and a lot more.
Download Discovery Channel from the Windows Store [Free]
5 Minute Relaxation
Relaxing in today’s stressful life can get quite a challenge – when everything is moving so fast, you rarely have time to sit down and take a deep breath. It is however extremely important for your health to do so, and so apps such as this have to exist to remind you to take care of your body more often. 5 Minute Relaxation will only take 5 minutes of your life, and calm you down enough to make you sleep – or wake you up if you are tired. It uses a combination of vocal guidance and soothing music to relax your mind and body and bring some calm to the chaos.
Download 5 Minute Relaxation from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
myHomework
There was a time when schools used to be simple – you had a teacher who taught you things and then you went home. Today schools are more complicated than ever, and so myHomework lets you plan and organize your school life so you don’t miss any goals. myHomework lets you easily track your classes and homework, with reminders to keep you up to the mark. It is also available on multiple platforms and syncs across devices so you can never be out of touch with your schedule.
Download myHomework from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Cortanium
Cortana was introduced with Windows 10 on the desktop – but it was very limited at the time of its launch in terms of what it could od. Cortanium fills the void by allowing you add custom commands for Cortana and bringing more flexibility to the platform. With ease, you can make Cortana do anything you like from controlling your LED lights to turning on your pop corn machine – anything is possible.
Download Cortanium from the Windows Store [1.99$]
Poki for Pocket
Pocket is an incredible tool – basically it lets you put your regular internet webpages in a “pocket” when you don’t have time to look at them, and allows you to then access them later – when you do have time. Poki for Pocket is an extremely beautiful and elegantly designed app that does justice to Pocket’s idea and brings incredible design to its features. Poki is highly polished and beautiful, and comes with full support for all of the Pocket features including tags and folders.
Download Poki for Pocket from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Microsoft Math
Microsoft Math is an educational tool developed by Microsoft that helps you learn mathematics – not just the basics but also advanced parts of it. There is a worrying abundance of educational applications on the internet – however, good educational applications are hard to find. Microsoft Math features a UI that is simple to traverse and attempts to teach you the most complicated math in its simplest form.
Download Microsoft Math from the Windows Store [Free]
Teleprompter Pro
Teleprompter Pro is quite possible a necessity if you give a lot of presentations – much like a real teleprompter, this app will provide you with large scrolling text as you speak in a variety of colour and font variations to make it easy to read even from a distance. Everything in the app is configurable from font colours to scrolling speed. It also allows you to import scripts from standard text files – so you don’t need any specialized software to write your speech.
Download Teleprompter Pro from the Windows Store [4.49$]
My Fitness
My Fitness is an attempt to put you in shape by frequently reminding you to exercise – and also changing up your routine to keep it more interesting every once in a while. Basically it is a virtual coach that will push your body further and help you stay fit and healthy. Some very experienced fitness trainers were consulted to build this app’s routines with hundreds of different exercises. You can pick and choose what exactly your goals are, and the app will attempt to give you the best routines possible.
Download My Fitness from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Start Screen Clock
The Start Menu was completely revamped in Windows 8 and 10 – so much that even it’s name changed to the Start Screen. Microsoft forgot one very important thing though – they built a start menu that takes up all of your screen, but forgot to add a clock to it. Something so simple yet so essential was ignored and now has been taken care of, thanks to this app. Start Screen Clock gives you a live tile that updates with the current time – something of a technical challenge.
Download Start Screen Clock from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post was founded quite recently – in 2005, and has managed to make a name for itself in such a short time. Also known as HuffPost, the news site brings you stories from all around the world in almost every category – from entertainment to politics. The app itself is information dense – something of a rarity when it comes to Windows Applications – yet presents all of its content elegantly in an organized way that makes it easy to sort and read the content you want.
Download The Huffington Post from the Windows Store [Free]
CleverToDo
CleverToDo is an app that will help you manage your tasks and stay focused on things that need your attention. The app will attempt to reduce the time you spend procrastinating and help you stay productive. The app is based on the “Get Things Done” methodology devised by David Allen, and features an extremely intuitive and slick interface that attempts to keep the focus on your work and gives you a daily agenda for things that you need to get done.
Download CleverToDo from the Windows Store [8.99$]
Artezio
Diagrams are an essential part of any technically job – they are even a necessity in a lot of presentations, but they can be quite difficult to make with standard tools. Artezio is an app specifically designed to make designing a diagram simple. It is quite frankly absurdly easy to build an extremely complicated diagram with Artezio – it features an extremely simple interface and also comes with full support for touch screen displays.
Download Artezio Diagram Designer from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Sharpen
Sharpen is an image enhancement tool – basically it will attempt to improve the images you take by running various sharpness and colour correction algorithms on it, and give you a better photo without doing much work. It supports a wide variety of image formats such as JPG, PNG, JXR, WDP, TIFF to even highly uncompressed formats such as RAW and ARW. The app preserves all of the metadata from the original photo and also comes with a built-in after and before slider so you can compare your original photo with the enhanced image that Sharpen produces.
Download Sharpen from the Windows Store [0.99$]
Adobe Content Viewer
Adobe Content Viewer lets you preview rich interactive publications built using the Adobe Digital Publishing Suite – this might not sound very interesting, but if you do any kind of work in this field you will know how important this application is for you. Using this, designers of such magazines can preview the content from the Distribution Service prior to the publication of it.
Download Adobe Content Viewer from the Windows Store [Free]
Earthquake Watch
Mother nature is cruel, and when it decides to do harm – it knows no bounds. Earthquakes are not only a geological wonder, but also extremely deadly and can cause severe damage in terms of life and property. Not only are they extremely hard to account and counter for – they are close to impossible to predict, and so when an earthquake happens, it can be a life saver to know where and when it happens. Earthquake Watch gets real time data from the seismological services of United States, Mexico and Chile and notifies you immediately if there is a major earthquake anywhere in the world.
Download Earthquake Watch from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Battery Tile
Once again an application is here to fix the mistakes of Microsoft – Battery Tile displays the current battery level of your Windows 10 device in a live tile that you can pin to your Start screen. This can be essential if you use your device on battery frequently and need to know how long you can stay up and running. Battery Tile also displays the estimate time remaining for your battery life within the live tile.
Download Battery Tile from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Microsoft Hololens
The Microsoft Research division comes up with some insane ideas every few years – Hololens is one of the products developed by them. It is quite possibly the closest we have gotten to immersive augmented reality – a dream that we have thought of since the 90s. The Hololens app is a necessity if you are one of the very few lucky ones who have access to a Hololens headset, as it lets you view a live stream of what the AR headset’s wearer is seeing.
Download Microsoft Hololens from the Windows Store [Free]
RealPlayer Daily Videos
RealPlayer used to be one of the most popular video players on Windows at one time – it is long past its glory days now, but it still sticks around and brings interesting ideas every once in a while. RealPlayer Daily Videos brings you a new video everyday – personalized for you, so it will always be something that interests you. It uses various sources such as YouTube, DailyMotion, and even Facebook and also comes with a built-in advanced search engine that can search across all of its sources at once.
Download RealPlayer Daily Videos from the Windows Store [Free]
VK
VK is a social network – much like Facebook – but it is more popular in eastern European countries and Russia. It is always good to have some competition in every industry, and VK is that competition against Facebook that is needed. Although most of the functionality is quite similar, you could say this app for VK is miles ahead of Facebook’s attempt of one.
Download VK App from the Windows Store [Free]
NBA Fan
NBA Fan is an app that well… any NBA fan should have installed. The app delivers every breaking news and tweets from the stars of NBA in real time for the best of its fans. It will also give you highlights from the various NBA games and keep you in the loop. The app itself features a simple design that is easy to navigate as well.
Download NBA Fan from the Windows Store [Free]
Pulseway
Pulseway is an essential app for any network or IT system manager – in a single view, you can monitor hundreds of systems for faults and issues and get notified when something goes wrong. The monitoring is of course done on client side with the Pulseway monitoring software, which works on every major operating system. You an also monitor cloud instances and even run commands and scripts remotely. Almost everything can be controlled remotely with Pulseway – you can force updates, reboot the clients and even set custom rules for certain clients so you can get alerts when something specific goes wrong.
Download Pulseway from the Windows Store [Free]
Mediafire
Mediafire is a service that lets you upload any file you like and share it with your friends, family or even just the general public over the internet. The app of course lets you keep track of what files you have uploaded, manage them, delete them and see detailed statistics about them such as how many people have downloaded that specific file. Mediafire can also sync files from your Windows 10 devices if you set it up for it.
Download Mediafire from the Windows Store [Free]
Writr
Writr introduces a trait to your life that is being forgotten by every passing day – journaling. Writr prompts you along your day to write about your aspirations and goals. It helps you do some self-analysis and realise your full potential, by helping you grow as a person. The app helps you keep your focus on your life’s goals, and brings some inspiration to your everyday life. It also syncs everything over the cloud across all of your devices so you know you are never going to lose it.
Download Writr from the Windows Store [Free]
NFL Fantasy Football
NFL Fantasy Football is more of a game than an app – it lets you build an NFL team of your own, and drops you down in its fantastical world where anything is possible. The app is essentially a simulation of an NFL season – except you make your own fantasy team and watch as they fail or become the best.
Download NFL Fantasy Football from the Windows Store [Free]
Hair Stylist
Your hair is an important part of your looks – a different hairstyle can make you look like a completely different person, so deciding what kind of hair would be the best for you can get quite difficult. With Hair Stylist you can try out different hair styles and colours within the app – without actually changing it up for real. The app has hundreds of hair styles for both men and women and all of them are properly categorized so you can easily browse through them. You can also upload your own picture within the app and try the hairstyles on yourself.
Download Hair Stylist from the Windows Store [4.99$]
NewsHunt
Newshunt is a newspaper aggregator – basically it lets you browse through hundreds of regional and national newspapers in various languages with a breeze. It supports hundreds of newspapers without any bias and brings its users current news from all across the world in an organized interface that is easy to browse through, despite all of the information available.
Download NewsHunt from the Windows Store [Free]
MinimaList
MinimaList is not only a great pun but also an incredibly well designed application that lets you build a to-do list that is very intuitive. You can build multiple lists for any task you want and it comes with various options for how you want to be notified for the tasks. It also integrates well with the Windows search and lets you search through your tasks via Windows itself.
Download MinimaList from the Windows Store [Free]
Tom’s Hardware
Tom’s Hardware is a publication that started in a decade when computers were starting to get extremely popular – the 1990’s. Today Tom’s Hardware brings you the latest news from every field of IT and gives you the latest information related to tech. Tom’s Hardware also features a very active forum where experts and other users are willing to help you with your computer problems no matter how simple or absurd they are. The app of course brings all of this to a beautiful interface that is easy to navigate and is not an eye sore.
Download Tom’s Hardware from the Windows Store [Free]
Runtastic Situps Pro
The Runtastic Situps Pro app pushes you to do that extra work everyday and shape up your body into something you would desire. The app builds a scientifically proven training program just for you and challenges you everyday to do just a little bit more until you hit your goal. On a mobile device, your sit ups will be automatically counted with the accelerometer – so you don’t even have to count them, and the app will tell you when you can rest. All of your workout data can also be uploaded to Runtastic and analyzed further to see where you can improve.
Download Runtastic Situps Pro from the Windows Store [1.99$]
Save Battery
The lithium ion batteries that are used in most of the mobile devices and laptops today have a weird catch to them – while they do last long, their life can be extended by charging them up to 80% and no further; while this does sound absurd, it is how lithium ion batteries work – however it can become extremely tedious to keep track of how much charge your devices have gained since you put them to charge. Save Battery will notify you when the charge reaches a certain threshold and help you protect your battery from overcharging, making it last longer. It also shows your battery status as live tiles in your Start Screen.
Download Save Battery from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Windows App Studio Installer
The Windows App Studio Installer is an app developed by Microsoft with the intention to make installing a Windows App Studio app an extremely quick and simple process. This app will automatically configure your device so you can easily deploy your app developed in Windows App Studio within minutes.
Download Windows App Studio Installer from the Windows Store [Free]
Screenshot Tool Pro
Screenshot Tool Pro is a tool that lets you take screenshots of your desktop and edit them to highlight the important parts. It comes with various brushes and tools to give you freedom in terms of what you can do to your screenshots. Add text or simply use the highlighter to highlight text – and then use the inbuilt share function to share your screenshots with your friends and colleagues instantly.
Download Screenshot Tool Pro from the Windows Store [5.99$]
Perfect Voice Recorder
Voice recording softwares are in abundance – good ones are however a rare sight. Perfect Voice Recorder is an extremely simple tool that does exactly as its name suggests. You can record your voice, and store the clips – or upload them to OneDrive and sync across all of your devices. Perfect Voice Recorder also has built-in protection, so if your computer has an unfortunate crash, the voice recording gets saved regardless of it.
Download Perfect Voice Recorder from the Windows Store [Free]
BB-8
The BB-8 app is built to control the BB-8 toy from the Star Wars franchise. The lovely cute little robot that rolls around on its curious ball has been turned into a toy, and this app is how you control this extremely well made toy. The app lets you drive your BB-8 around, set it in a patrol mode and even make it do some cute expressions that can entertain your kids for a long while. The BB-8 toy can also do holographic messaging – simply record a video with the app and the app will turn it into a holographic message for the BB-8 to broadcast.
Download BB-8 App Enabled Droid from the Windows Store [Free]
Wikio
Wikipedia transformed the world by bringing the knowledge of every encyclopedia in the world to a website that can be search through in an instant – essentially bringing all of human civilization’s knowledge at your fingertips. Wikio is an app for Windows 10 that will let you access the vast library of Wikipedia on your Windows 10 device with an easy to use interface. It lets you do everything the Wikipedia website has – from search to reading long articles and browsing their citations everything is possible.
Download Wikio for Wikipedia from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Series Tracker
Keeping track of your favorite TV shows and their seasons can get very cumbersome very quickly, so services such as Trakt.tv exist to help you keep track of everything you watch and log it in your profile. Series Tracker is a beautiful Windows 10 application that integrates with your Trakt.tv profile and helps you keep track of everything you watch with ease. It notifies you of new episodes of the TV shows you follow, displays detailed information about the cast and crew of every show with a description for every episode and lets you share what you are watching with your friends.
Download Series Tracker from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
ATC Navigator
ATC Navigator is an interesting app – it shows you your plane’s path and the ATC circles around airports, basically giving you the same view as your pilot. There isn’t much you can do with this information though, except extinguish your curiosity. For now, the app only has map data for Netherlands, but the developers are working on further improving it.
Download ATC Navigator from the Windows Store [Free]
My 500px Universal
500px is an incredible social network for photographers around the world to share their amazing work online, and sometimes get rewarded for it. While the website is beautifully crafted and designed, a native application is always appreciated – and My 500px fulfills that duty beautifully. It allows you to upload photos directly from within the app, features a live tile that cycles through any feed of your choice everyday, and can automatically update your desktop wallpaper to whatever feed you set it to. It also has all the features you would find on the website such as an advanced search engine and all of the social features.
Download My 500px Universal from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
MALClient
MALClient is an app built for the users of MyAnimeList and Hummingbird. Basically if you are into Anime or Manga – you need this app. You can browse through a vast range of Anime and Manga and check their reviews, and read the latest news about their development. The app is fully open source as well, which is a rare treat to behold in Windows Apps. The app fully integrates with MyAnimeList and Hummingbird and lets you customize your profile from within the app.
Download MALClient from the Windows Store [Free with IAP]
Cortana Triggers
Cortana Triggers adds some extensibility to Cortana and lets you add custom commands that can trigger any sort of HTTP request you like – be it over to IFTTT or a server that you own. The interface is extremely simple and holds your hands through the whole process of setting it up and then setting up the custom commands as well. The app also comes with live tiles that you can use to trigger certain tasks manually.
Download Cortana Triggers from the Windows Store [4.99$]
GoodDoc
GoodDoc gives you access to an extensive network of highly rated doctors all across the USA. There are doctors from various fields from dentists to ophthalmologists. The app also fully integrates with Windows – so you get to ask Cortana for a doctor, and have them appear on Bing Maps. The app will also notify you with realtime CDC alerts and allows you to save your health insurance data within the app securely.
Download GoodDoc from the Windows Store [2.99$]
Sticky Notes Pro
Sticky Notes Pro gives you a place to put your notes on – the app is very simple in terms of what it can do. It is basically a pinboard, where you can put an infinite amount of sticky notes. Simply write the text, pick a colour and pin it within the app – and you will have access to it across all of your devices.
Download Sticky Notes Pro from the Windows Store [7.99$]
GuitarTapp Pro
GuitarTapp Pro lets you access over half a million different chords, guitar tabs, bass tabs, power tabs and drum tabs all with a search and a few clicks. It also has an auto scroll feature for the chords and comes with a massive chords dictionary with diagrams and variations. It also lets you transpose songs and create setlists.
Download GuitarTapp Pro from the Windows Store [3.49$]
Maps Pro
Maps Pro is an extremely powerful navigation application that not only gives you access to the usual cloud maps such as Bing Maps with full directions, geolocation, point of interest and street view support but also lets you open your own custom map files in various formats such as CSV, KML, KMZ, GPX and much more. It also lets you record your journey as a GPX file and export it for later use.
Download Maps Pro from the Windows Store [4.99$]
Player for SoundCloud
SoundCloud has pretty much revolutionized the indie music scene by giving the power to public niche songs in the indie hands. The website is well design and the revenue sharing is fair – compared to the labels at least. A good native app is well deserved though, and that’s what Player for SoundCloud offers. The app comes with built-in search and gives you access to the full SoundCloud library that includes hundreds of genres and thousands of unique tracks by thousands of artists.
Download Player for SoundCloud from the Windows Store [6.99$]
Scan
The internet has made it super simple to share knowledge and build vast networks and communities of people that intend to do good – but the internet world progressed faster than the physical, and the divide between both kept increasing, until people start devising ways to bring them together. QR Codes are one of such endeavours to bring the virtual world just a little bit closer to the physical one. Scan plays an important role of being a good scanner app – so you can scan QR codes in the physical world and act on them in the virtual world. It can also scan the good old barcodes and save a history of scans so you don’t have to log them.
Download Scan – QR Code and Barcode Reader from the Windows Store [1.99$]
Emby
Emby lets you organize your physical library of all the BluRay’s and DVD’s you have collected over the years and put them in a digital library that you can access and watch at any time you want. The Emby Windows 10 app is merely a client – you will require the Emby server, which is where you configure your library. The Emby app supports various file formats, and shows proper metadata for all of the media – from the episode description to its cast and crew.
Download Emby from the Windows Store [4.99$]
AV Remote
AV Remote lets you control all of your DLNA and UPnP devices around your house and play music, videos and display images across all of them in harmony. You can also browse all of your DLNA server libraries with ease and play any media from them on your DLNA compatible TV. The app also supports Chromecast and OpenHome media player.
Download AV Remote from the Windows Store [2.99$]
Algebra Touch
Algebra Touch attempts to reintroduce you to the mysteries of Algebra that you have long forgotten in unique way. It lets you solve algebra equations in a fun way by dragging and dropping numbers to the right places. You can get to re-learn algebra without using any of the known methods that you probably find tedious anyway.
Download Algebra Touch from the Windows Store [2.99$]
Files & Folders Pro
Files & Folders Pro is a fully functional file manager that lets you browse through the file system on your Windows 10 mobile device and desktop likewise. It includes all of the features a good file manager should such copy, delete, and opening certain formats of files. It can also extract and compress file archives in some formats and features a simple and clean interface.
Download Files & Folders Pro from the Windows Store [7.99$]
Conclusion
These were 100 of the best free Windows 10 apps – hopefully, you enjoyed this list as it took a long while to curate it, and even longer to write about the apps. The Windows Store platform is still in its infancy, and its growing more every day adding newer and better applications that push the limits of the Universal Windows Platform.