Mozilla Firefox
A new design for a venerable old browser brought Firefox back to the top—it's now our Editors' Choice. That's because it's highly customizable, strong on security and privacy and performance, and supports a slew of new standards. It's even on iPhone now.
Google Chrome
It's been a leading browser since its debut in 2008, especially when it comes to speed and minimalism. Chrome still ranks high as a browser to keep in your arsenal. Especially if you're a devotee to Google products—and it's built right into the ChromeOS on Chromebooks so much that it practically is the OS. However, it's probably not the browser you want if you're a privacy advocate.
Read our review of Google Chrome, plus Hidden Chrome Features That Will Make Your Life Easier.
Opera
The Opera browser has been keeping up with the big boys for years, and it does so now by incorporating features no other browser has, in particular a built-in VPN service to keep your browsing secure, as well as ad blockers, a turbo mode, and even a battery saver that lets your laptop run longer than other browsers accessing the same content. It also comes in multiple versions for mobile, including Opera Mini, which compresses pages before you even load them.
Clean-Up / Maintenance Utilities
The first of a few Piriform programs on this list, CCleaner—the first C is for Crap!—is one of the best, and pretty much essential for keeping a system going. What it does is simple: it cleans up extraneous files to keep a system running better. Get it and run it, regularly. It'll even delete some apps you didn't think you could get rid of—like those provided in Windows 10, whether you wanted them or not.
Defraggler
Another gem from Piriform. Defragmenting a hard disk has become a little passé in the age of terabyte drives, but it's still a smart thing to do to eke out a little more data-access speed. Defraggler's interface makes it brain-dead simple to do on NTFS and Fat32 file system drives. It even works with solid-state drives (SSDs).
SlimCleaner Free
Tuning up a PC is a lonely process. SlimCleaner introduces community-based problem solving to the mix; it makes improvements based on data collected from all users. It does it so well, it earned our Editors' Choice award for free tune-up utilities.
Autoruns
A lot of things happen at the startup of a Windows session, including the booting up of a lot of software and processes in the background. Autoruns makes it easy to make a little more sense of what's happening, and helps you shut down the auto-start applications you don't need. Works with Windows Vista on up to 10.
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