Special 500th issue FREE SOFTWARE YOUR COMPLETE GUIDE

Best free programs Install them without junk Unlock hidden tools Dodgy software to avoid

Nineteen years is one small step for man, one giant leap for programs. If you were to say “remember 1998?”, we’d probably answer “of course, seems like last week”, but in software terms 1998 is prehistoric.

When the first issue of Computeractive hit the shops in February of that year, there was no such thing as Google (founded September 1998) or Windows 98 (June). No Mozilla. No Napster. No MSN or Yahoo Messenger. Bet you a fiver you were using Netscape to browse the web, if you were doing so at all.

Software has come so far since then that some people say it’s had its day. You can do everything online and on your smartphone, they argue, so programs are irrelevant. Well, we disagree in the strongest possible terms. Thanks to innovations such as open-source and portable programs, independent developers are falling over themselves to release ingenious little tools that put you back in control of your PC.

At the other end of the scale, we’re seeing amazingly powerful programs that deliver the sort of benefits we couldn’t have imagined 19 years ago. You can replace your set-top box with Kodi, tour the globe in incredible detail with Google Earth and publish your own novel using Libreoffice - all completely free. Meanwhile, the biggest downside of free software – installer junk – is under threat from tools specially designed to combat it. Free software isn’t dead – in fact it’s never been more alive.

For this bumper eight-page Cover Feature we pick the very best free programs in 10 major categories, then dig deep to find new and hidden features that might surprise you. Then we’ll share our secrets for finding the latest brilliant free tools and installing them safely. Finally, we’ll ponder where software will go next. Will you still be dodging installer junk in another 500 issues’ time?