qBittorrent is a fast. easy to use torrent client that uses as few of your PC's resources as possible for improved speeds.

Unlike most free clients, qBittorrent is completely open source, meaning there are no ads and you don't have to pay extra for extensions and add-ons. Anyone can develop their own new features and fix bugs, and you’ll benefit from regular updates.

If you’re fully immersed in the Google ecosystem, using Chrome makes perfect sense. It ties in with your Google account, allowing you to sync settings and bookmarks between computers – and even different devices thanks to mobile versions of the browser. Available for Mac, Windows and Linux, as well as iOS and Android, Chrome's cross-platform support gives it access to a large number of users, and it's little wonder that it proves so enduringly popular.

he current version of Chrome complies with more web standards than any other browser, and a frequent update cycle means that security issues and other bugs are knocked on the head quickly.

If you find that there's a feature missing from Chrome, or you like the idea of adding extra functions to websites you use frequently, you have the option of using extensions to do just that, and there's a huge selection available in the Chrome Web Store. If you like the idea of trying new tools first, there’s also a beta channel available that provides early access to new builds of the browser.

Chrome also does a superb job of managing tabs. As well as intelligently resizing tabs – and providing a pinning option for easy access – the browser also stores individual tabs in memory separately, so if one crashes, it shouldn't take the rest with it.

In terms of its basic look, Chrome offers few surprises. This is, after all, a piece of software designed to display web pages, and those web pages should be the focus of things rather than the browser itself. With this in mind, Chrome does a great job of fading into the background – it is beautifully minimalist.

There are few settings that you will need to concern yourself with on a day-to-day basis, but it's easy to change the default search engine, show or hide the bookmarks toolbar, and control the storage of browsing history and cookies. With support for multiple users, and even parental controls, Chrome is a browser for all the family, and the browser of the future.

If you're not worried by the privacy concerns associated with Google, this is the best web browser on the market.

Shotcut proves that a top-notch video editor doesn't have to cost a fortune. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux, and is totally free with no ads, bundled adware, or features hidden behind a paywall. 

If you’re looking for a free video editor that can replace Windows Movie Maker, Shotcut is a particularly good choice. This open source app contains all the tools you know and love from Microsoft’s classic video editing software, plus a raft of extras that bring it up bang up to date.

In just a few easy steps, you can use Shotcut cut your video footage to a specified length before converting it to a format of your choice. You can also edit your projects with a selection of filters and effects. 

Shotcut also includes a recording function lets you save and edit footage from your webcam, and it can handle streaming in HTTP, HLS, RTMP, RTSP, MMS and UDP formats.

Shotcut’s standard interface is smart, but sparse. Don’t be put off, though; clicking the buttons along the top bar (peak meter, properties, playlist and so on) adds modules to the display so you can configure it to your liking.

The process of importing video clips, audio and images is a familiar one. Just select your media files, then drag them to the timeline at the bottom of the screen. You can create multiple tracks for audio, video, and handy tools like snapping make it easy to join clips together neatly.

Splitting clips is as easy as positioning the playhead, then clicking a button. Trimming clips is a piece of cake too, and there are copy and paste tools for chopping and changing sections. The history timeline makes it easy to track changes, and undo any by simply tapping the Delete key.

Shotcut’s best feature, however, is its raft of video and audio filters, which are fully customizable and can be layered and combined in all sorts of interesting ways. Simply choose a filter and click the plus icon to apply it, then make adjustments using the simple system of checkboxes and sliders. It’s a brilliant system that makes even advanced effects simple to understand.

There’s no way to preview a filter before applying it, but removing an undesirable effect is so simple that this isn’t much of a hardship. Overall, Shotcut is very hard to fault, and its huge array of export formats is the icing on the cake. It would be nice to have optimized profiles for specific devices, but that’s really nit-picking. Shotcut is a remarkable video editor. Give it a try – there’s nothing to lose.

A remarkable free video editor that makes even advanced editing straightforward, Shotcut is a brilliant tool for novice videographers.

Professional-grade photo editing software that's free for home users.

The closest thing to Windows Movie Maker – fast, free and easy to use.

Advanced non-linear video editing made straightforward.

Lightworks is a remarkably powerful video editor, packed with professional quality tools that will make your clips shine. It's fast, flexible, and once you get used to its unusual workflow you'll find it remarkably easy to use.

Whatever kind of project you have in mind, Lightworks can help you achieve it. If you simply want to trim a video to size, or combine several short sections of footage before uploading them to YouTube, Lightworks’ well designed timeline will help you get the job done in moments. Once you’re done, Lightworks has preset profiles so you can export your work in the right format for your chosen video-sharing site automatically.

Equally, if you’re working on your own short film and need an advanced tool for post-production, Lightworks is packed with everything you need to get your audio and visuals just right. Real-time effects and color correction help you achieve the perfect look, and complex rendering and encoding processes take place in the background so you can continue working while they complete.

As you might expect, it will take a little while to master Lightworks’ powerful toolkit. This is no mere Windows Movie Maker substitute, and its professional roots show in its interface, which borrows terms from the world of tape-based filmmaking.

You begin by creating a project and setting a frame rate for the finished video – probably 30fps or 60fps. You’re then ready to get to work. Lightworks lets you record video directly from cameras, and import existing clips (both audio and video). Once you have all your resources, you can start adding them to your timeline to create your first cut. It looks intimidating at first, but is surprisingly intuitive once you’ve spent some time experimenting.

Lightworks is packed with advanced realtime effects to help you perfect your video, including color correction, blurs and masks. There are dozens of preset effects, or you can create your own manually.

The professional edition of Lightworks was used to edit box office hits including Shutter Island, Pulp Fiction, The Departed, 28 Days Later and Mission Impossible. Now it's your turn.

Lightworks 14 adds lots of new fixes and features, including:

An amazing video editor that makes even advanced tasks straightforward.

The closest thing to Windows Movie Maker – fast, free and easy to use.

Advanced non-linear video editing made straightforward.

Lightworks is free for home users. The only restriction of the free license is that you can only export your finished videos in MP4 format, and you'll need to register for a free license code periodically (the software will give you instructions explaining how to do this).

For more export options, or to use the software commercially, you'll need to upgrade to Lightworks Pro.

VLC is a hugely popular free media player, and for good reason – it supports almost all file formats without the need to download additional codecs, can optimize video and audio playback for your chosen device, supports streaming, and can be extended almost infinitely with downloadable plugins. These not only add extra features to the player – they also enable integration with other programs and streaming services.

VLC Media Player supports MPEG and DivX streaming, and can play videos as they're downloading, letting you watch the beginning of a film and then decide whether it's worth downloading in full. You can also play ZIP files without having to unpack them individually. If a video is too quiet, you can manually increase the film's volume up to 200% after the download is finished.

VLC Media Player can also search for album covers. A playlist function allows for multiple films to play one after the other. This is particularly useful if you have downloaded a film in several parts or just want to watch several shorter videos.

VLC Media Player isn’t just an app. It’s a life-saver. Are you trying to open a video that’s in a format your Windows or Mac machine doesn’t support? VLC. Do you need to listen to music in a long-forgotten format but don’t have a player that supports anything but MP3 and AAC? VLC. Do you need a decent DVD player for Windows? VLC. Do you need… you get the idea. 

In an ideal world everything would just work when you wanted it to, but over the years we’ve evolved all kinds of competing formats for music and video - and different delivery mechanisms too, ranging from discs to downloads and streaming. VLC Media Player knows about all of them, and that means it’s our go-to app for any kind of media playback.

VLC Media Player has excellent tools for tweaking video and audio playback, it can play formats nobody’s mentioned for years, it’s blazingly fast and it does everything without spyware, ads or anything else unnecessary.

Factor in a whole bunch of interface skins and a big library of add-ons, and VLC Media Player is the Swiss Army Knife of digital media.

Its standard interface isn't as stylish as some media players, and doesn't make tagging as simple as some other tools (specifically MusicBee), but VLC is superb, and easily good good enough to become your main media player for both audio and video.

VLC offers everything you could need from a media player - comprehensive format support, streaming, downloading and much more besides.

WPS Office Free isn't just an alternative to Microsoft Office – it manages to mimic pretty much the entire look and basic set of features. Available completely free of charge (although there are ads associated with certain features), this office suite comprises a word processor, presentation tool, spreadsheet and more, and is fully compatible with Microsoft document formats.

There's a lot to like here. The cloud element is a very nice touch, and while 1GB of free storage is nothing to get too excited about, it's useful for small files like text documents.

Other additions – such as the ability to convert PDF files into Word format – give WPS Office Free an edge over other free office suits, and the incredibly low system requirements mean it's ideal for installing on even the oldest of Windows PCs.

For anyone who likes the idea of working on the move – and taking advantage of the cloud storage – there are iOS and Android version of the software available, as well as one for Linux. With a raft of supported language, this is an incredible versatile suite.

If you've ever used a recent version of Microsoft Office, WPS Office Free will feel immediately familiar. It employs the same ribbon interface, and all of the most common tools and options are intuitively placed so you won’t spend ages searching for the setting or tool that you need. Performance is swift too, thanks to the light system requirements.

Not everyone will be happy with the ads that need to be endured to gain timed access to certain features of WPS Office Free, but that's the only sacrifice you have to make to enjoy this otherwise superb software suite.

This suite goes a long way towards proving free software can be simply incredible. For day-to-day office needs, and beyond, it has everything.

YouTube gives anyone the opportunity to become a broadcaster, but in order to get started you're going to need some sort of software to mix together your content. It may be that you're just recording a straight piece to camera, but it’s more likely that you'll want to create something a little more complicated that involves the use of multiple sources.

Mixing sources can be intimidating if you're doing it live, so you might want to get used to how things work by recording a few test videos. The workflow does take a little getting used to because it's not entirely intuitive, but nothing is so complex as to be unusable. 

The latest version of OBS Studio features a new modular interface that lets users enable, disable and move elements to suit their preferences. There's also a new streaming option for Twitch that selects the best server automatically. For a full list of all changes, see the full release notes.

Where to download: https://obsproject.com/
Type: Video streaming
Developer: Jim
Operating system: Windows, Mac, Linux
Version: 20