Essential Software to Install on Your New PC or Mac in 2025

You just turned on your new PC or Mac and wondering where to start? This comprehensive guide brings together the must-have software to transform your new machine into a complete workstation. From security tools to creative software, discover a selection of 50+ free and paid programs with their official download links. This list will help you save time when setting up your computer.

🔒 1. SECURITY & PROTECTION

Antivirus

• Avast (free) : https://www.avast.com
• Norton (paid) : https://norton.com

VPN

• ProtonVPN (free) : https://protonvpn.com
• NordVPN (paid) : https://nordvpn.com

🌐 2. BROWSING & COMMUNICATION

Web browsers

• Mozilla Firefox (free) : https://www.firefox.com
• Google Chrome (free) : https://www.google.com/chrome
• Brave (free) : https://brave.com

Messaging & Video

• Discord (free) : https://discord.com
• Zoom (free) : https://www.zoom.com
• Signal (free) : https://signal.org
• Teams (free) : https://www.microsoft.com/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software

📝 3. PRODUCTIVITY & OFFICE

Spreadsheet, text editor, presentation

• LibreOffice (free) : https://www.libreoffice.org
• OpenOffice (free) : https://www.openoffice.org/download/index.html
• Microsoft 365 (paid) : https://www.office.com

For PDFs

• Adobe Acrobat Reader (free) : https://get.adobe.com/reader

Advanced text editor

• Notepad++ (free - Windows) : https://notepad-plus-plus.org

Organization

• Trello (free) : https://trello.com
• JIRA (free/paid) : https://www.atlassian.com/software/jira
• Slack (free) : https://slack.com

🎵 4. MULTIMEDIA & CREATIVE

Media players

• VLC Media Player (free) : https://www.videolan.org/vlc

Audio editing

• Audacity (free) : https://www.audacityteam.org

Simple photo editing with layer support

• Paint.NET (free - Windows) : https://www.getpaint.net

Professional photo editing

• GIMP (free) : https://www.gimp.org/

🔧 5. UTILITIES & SYSTEM

ZIP, RAR compression/decompression

• 7-Zip (free) : https://www.7-zip.org
• WinRAR (paid) : https://www.win-rar.com

System cleanup

• CCleaner (free/paid) : https://www.ccleaner.com

🔌 6. DRIVERS & COMPONENTS

Graphics drivers

• NVIDIA GeForce (free) : https://www.nvidia.com/drivers
• AMD (free) : https://www.amd.com/support

Drivers, SDK...

• Microsoft various (free) : https://www.microsoft.com/download

Printer drivers

• HP : https://support.hp.com/drivers
• Canon : https://global.canon/support
• Epson : https://epson.com/support

⚙️ 7. PROGRAMMING

Java Runtime Environment

• Java (free) : https://www.java.com/download

IDE

• Visual Studio Code (free) : https://code.visualstudio.com
• Eclipse (free) : https://eclipseide.org
• WebStorm (paid) : https://www.jetbrains.com/webstorm
• Xcode (Mac) : https://developer.apple.com/xcode
• Android Studio (free) : https://developer.android.com/studio

🎮 8. GAMING

Platforms

• Steam (free) : https://store.steampowered.com/about
• Epic Games Store (free) : https://store.epicgames.com/download

🧠 9. AI PLATFORMS

Chatbots

• ChatGPT : https://chatgpt.com
• Le Chat : https://chat.mistral.ai/chat
• Perplexity : https://www.perplexity.ai
• Gemini : https://gemini.google.com
• Meta.ai : https://www.meta.ai
• Copilot : https://copilot.microsoft.com
• Grok : https://grok.com
• Claude : https://claude.ai

Images

• Midjourney (paid) : https://www.midjourney.com/home
• Leonardo (paid) : https://leonardo.ai

Audio

• Suno : https://suno.com/home
• ElevenLabs : https://elevenlabs.io

📋 10. INSTALLATION CHECKLIST

Recommended order:

1. Security (Antivirus, password manager)
2. Drivers (GPU, system components)
3. Browser and communication
4. Office suite
5. System utilities
6. Specialized software according to your needs