Best Free Software Everyone Should Have Installed: The Essential List

[Nomad22]

Free software has never been better. Genuinely excellent tools exist at zero cost across every category of use. The challenge is knowing which free options are actually good versus which are free because they're monetising you in other ways. Ad-supported free software that sells your data is not really free in any meaningful sense.

What free software do you actually use daily and would recommend without hesitation? What's on every machine you set up? What did you not know existed until someone pointed you at it and immediately became essential?