Ten free apps to install on every new PC

Bags of functionality for nowt

Product Round-up You've just taken delivery of a new PC, and you're looking for some good apps to run on it. You'll no doubt have a few in mind, but before reaching for your wallet, check out these ten essentials, all of which we think you'll find darn useful - and they won't cost you a penny.

OpenOffice 3.2

Many new PCs come with a copy of Microsoft Office, but it's almost always a demo version designed to encourage you to cough up for the real thing. We say, uninstall it - and Microsoft Works too. Download OpenOffice instead for your word processing, spreadsheet, database and presentation needs. It won't cost you a penny, it's just as powerful as the Microsoft offering - and comes without the confusing user interface tweaks Microsoft introduced into the last version of Office. And it's fully compatible with its namesake too, able to open and save Microsoft Office documents.

Reg Rating 90
Price Free
More Info and Download OpenOffice

Foxit Reader 3.1

Whether Adobe Reader comes pre-installed on your new machine or not, you're certainly going to need a PDF viewer. Adobe's offering is a colossus of an application, packed with functionality you'll probably never use and a hard disk footprint to marvel at. It's not exactly what you'd call 'resource light', either. But Foxit Software's Foxit Reader is, taking up a tiny amount of hard drive space and taking nothing out of your wallet. It's fast, fully compatible and quick.

Reg Rating 80
Price Free
More Info and Download Foxit Software