open source tools

Windows lovers who yearn for the compact, two‑column Start menu or the dense app grid of Windows 10 have options: Microsoft has adjusted the Start experience in recent builds, but a thriving ecosystem of third‑party tools and community projects still offers the fastest, most reliable path to a...

A small, new utility called Winslop has re‑entered the long-running debate over Windows “debloat” tools by promising a targeted way to detect and remove hidden or unwanted components — especially recent AI surfaces — while giving users more granular control over what stays and what goes...

If you take screenshots regularly, the built‑in Windows Snipping Tool is a helpful default — but for many workflows it’s the start, not the finish. This deep feature guide shows which free and freemium utilities are worth installing, why they matter, how they differ from Snipping Tool, and the...

Windhawk — an open-source “mod marketplace” for Windows — has become the go-to solution for users who want to un-shackle Windows 11’s restrictive taskbar and restore the look, behavior, and useful shortcuts that Microsoft removed or limited. In short: if you’ve been annoyed by the simplified...

O Windows 11 continua a chegar às máquinas com um conjunto crescente de apps pré-instaladas, componentes de serviço e opções ativadas por padrão — e um movimento robusto da comunidade criou ferramentas de código‑aberto para devolver aos usuários controle, privacidade e leveza ao sistema. Este...

Windows 11 ships with more preinstalled apps, background services, and promotional features than many users want — and the result is a system that can feel cluttered, noisy, and less responsive than it should. A handful of mature, open-source utilities now offer reliable, auditable ways to prune...

The latest hands‑on head‑to‑head testing that compares Google’s Gemini 3 and Microsoft’s Copilot finds a clear practical winner for everyday, web‑grounded tasks — and it isn’t even close in several categories. The hands‑on review that sparked the debate ran seven real‑world desktop prompts...

A blunt, community-built PowerShell tool called RemoveWindowsAI has exploded across developer channels and social feeds this week, promising to strip Windows 11 of Copilot, Recall and a wide swath of Microsoft’s AI surfaces — and the reaction has exposed a deeper tension between user control...

Seven open‑source apps — and one quiet lesson about Windows tooling — can change how you use Windows 11 almost overnight, and the MakeUseOf roundup that inspired this list makes a persuasive case that many of these replacements are not compromises but often improvements. The original feature...

A new open‑source PowerShell project called RemoveWindowsAI has quickly become the focal point for a growing cohort of Windows 11 users who want to strip AI features out of their PCs, and the tool’s rise exposes an uncomfortable design tension: Microsoft is baking AI into system plumbing while...

There’s a practical backlash building against paying for a small set of long‑standing PC apps when modern, free alternatives now cover most users’ needs—and the cost of subscription lock‑in is getting harder to justify. Background / Overview Subscription fatigue is real: vendors have moved many...

FlyOOBE’s latest incremental release lands as a compact but consequential update for anyone provisioning or rescuing PCs that Microsoft’s Windows 11 installer would normally block: the toolkit refines the original Flyby11 upgrade engine, tightens Out‑Of‑Box Experience (OOBE) controls, and...

The Windows command line still hides a surprising number of productivity shortcuts and power tools behind a humble prompt — and the six utilities highlighted in the XDA piece form a practical starter pack for anyone ready to move beyond the mouse. The original roundup calls out winget, SDelete...

Upgrading a last remaining Windows 10 machine to Windows 11 often feels less like a checklist item and more like a small reboot of your workflow — unfamiliar Start menu layouts, a redesigned taskbar, and new default behaviors that can slow you down. These five open‑source apps — Windhawk...

Tom’s Hardware’s practical rundown of free Windows applications lands where many of us live every day: the toolkit that keeps content, code, and media moving without a subscription bill. The list — which highlights ScreenToGIF, GIMP, Inkscape, Notepad++, Rufus, VLC, and HandBrake — is both a...

Racing to meet a design deadline with zero budget is a familiar panic for creators, and the NewsBreak piece that went viral — claiming easy, legal ways to “get Windows & Photoshop for free” — captured that desperation with click-ready simplicity. The reality is messier: there are legitimate...

California’s new statewide AI education initiative — a public‑private push that ropes in Google, Microsoft, Adobe, IBM and other major vendors to deliver free AI courses, tools and credentials to millions of learners — marks one of the most ambitious attempts by any U.S. state to fold artificial...

The small open‑source utility ecosystem that helps people install or upgrade to Windows 11 on unsupported hardware has taken another evolutionary step: a popular requirements‑bypass project has become a fuller Out‑Of‑Box Experience (OOBE) toolkit, adding a smarter debloat/removal option and...

AtlasOS delivers a deliberately stripped, privacy-focused Windows 11 experience by guiding users through a Playbook-driven debloat process — the result is a cleaner, quieter desktop that can feel kinder in daily use, but it also demands clear-eyed trade‑offs on security, compatibility, and...

Microsoft’s move to add Google’s Gemini 2.5 Pro to GitHub Copilot for paying customers is a notable escalation in the cross-cloud AI arms race — but for many individual developers the better value may already be free, open-source tooling from Google that gives surprisingly broad access to the...