Interesting Apps and Websites [2026]

I am trying to list out those apps, for Windows and Android - are really impressive.

❖WINDOWS 

Browser: 

Opera, Vivaldi, Firefox, Edge

Opera was sold to a consortium lead by Chinese companies Kunlun Tech, Golden Brick Silk Road and Qihoo 360 in 2016 (July), while Opera's co-founder Jon Stephenson von Tetzchner launched Vivaldi, as a spiritual successor of Opera. 

Browser (Firefox forks): I prefer Floorp (on Windows). Others: LibreWolf, WaterFox

Browsers with VPN - Opera, Aloha Browser, Epic Browser#, Avast Browser, UR Browser

#Epic Browser had only 2 search engine options - Yahoo and Epic. EpicSearch is ad-free, requires registration and costs $2.50 per month. Epic Privacy Browser has discontinued its built-in free VPN/encrypted proxy service due to high operational costs and time constraints, as of mid-2025. 

Video Player on Windows: 

PotPlayer, 
VLC - the good one, if not best! 
MPC BE (fork of MPC HC, which is a fork of Open Source MPC, which stopped development in 2006); 
Ray AI Media Player (by OpenSubtiles.com, it can generate AI subtitle); 
Glucose - it can also generate subtitles on-device. 

Others: Jet Audio Plus, KMP, GOM Player, MPlayer (forked versions: mpv & SMPlayer)

Subtitle download: https://www.subtitlecat.com/ or, https://subdl.com or, https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/ (OpenSubtitles developed RAY - World's first AI media player that generates and translates subtitles instantly in 200+ languages. https://rayplayer.com/en)

Audio Players: Foobar2000, Winamp, jetAudio

Office apps: Foxit PDF Reader, Nitro PDF Pro (for editing pdf)

MS Office 2024 costs Rs 11,000 (as of April '26) but it does not include AI CoPilot & Cloud based subscription plan for 1 year. Microsoft is promoting Office 365. 

Alternate to MS Office: OpenOffice, Libre Office, Euro Office

File Compressors: 7Zip - open source 

(others: NanoZip, PeaZip, BandiZip, WinZip, WinRAR)

Desktop sharing: RustDesk (open source) vs TeamViewer 

[you can get comparison by TeamViewer themselves: www.teamviewer.com/en/special/teamviewer-alternative/ ]

Better Copy tool: TeraCopy (https://www.codesector.com/teracopy)

Photo Editors: Irfanview, Darktable (free, open-source photo editor & RAW processing program), GIMP (Adobe Photoshop alternative), 

Snipping Tool: ShareX

Microsoft ICE is dead, alternative: Hugin (https://hugin.sourceforge.io/)

Alt to Windows File Explorer: Files, File Pilot, OneCommander, Double Commander, Total Commander, xPlorer2, Directory Opus

Special mention: TreeSize (Free) 

TreeSize Free is a lightweight, highly efficient disk space management utility developed by JAM Software that scans hard drives to visually break down exactly which files and folders are consuming your storage. By working directly on the Master File Table (MFT), it achieves exceptionally fast scan speeds to map out storage allocations.

Debloat Windows: Winhance (https://winhance.net)

Scolect - Track Screen Time & App Usage: 
https://apps.microsoft.com/detail/9phbzxnpvhsq

USB Tools: Rufus, UsbToolbox (https://github.com/USBToolBox/tool/releases)

Chat/IM: Pidgin https://www.pidgin.im -> supports Jabber/XMPP, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Lotus Sametime, SILC, SIMPLE, Zephyr and many more with plug-ins.

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ANDROID 

🤖 Android App stores apart from Google Play Store: 

https://www.openapk.net

https://f-droid.org/

https://www.indusappstore.com/ - made for Indian users, by developers of PhonePe. Xiaomi/Redmi comes with it preinstalled. 

Camera app: OpenCamera, ProCam X, GCam

RAW Photography: FreeDcam

Editing: SnapSeed (Google), Adobe Lightroom Mobile, Lens Distortions, Image Toolbox

Encrypted vault for sensitive photos: Photok

Gallery App: Fossify Gallery, Aves Libre

Retro photography app - HujiCam, OldRoll

Duplicate finder - Awesome Duplicate Photo Finder

Premium apps - AppDoze, CrasksHash, haxNode

🤖 OTT: Netflix, JioHotstar, Prime Video, SonyLIV, ZEE5

🤖 OTT Bengali: Klikk, HoiChoi, Platform 8, AddaTimes, Fridaay, Aro Ananda

🤖 OTT Bengali (Bangladesh): Chorki, Binge, Bongo BD, Bioscope

🤖 Music Player: JetAudio (Plus), Sony Music (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.sony.songpal&hl=en_IN), PixelPlay 

🤖 Video Player: VLC, MX Player (Pro), NOVA Video Player, MPV-Android, XPlayer, Exo Player, Next Player (download from F-Droid - presently my default player, beats MX Player as it is free) 

🤖 Android apps (free vs paid/subscription): 

🤖 NewPipe vs YouTube (YouTube Vanced is dead, then came Revanced, then Revanced Extended (RVX) and Morphe - https://morphe.software)

🤖 OuterTune vs YouTube Music (OuterTune can also play stored songs)

🤖 OsmAnd~ vs Google Maps

🤖 Aegis Authenticator vs Authy/Google Authenticator

🤖 Thunderbird Email Client (previously K-9 Mail) vs GMail

🤖 Heliboard vs GBoard

🤖 muPDF Mini - https://f-droid.org/packages/com.artifex.mupdf.mini.app/ [can open PDF, XPS, CBZ, unprotected EPUB, and FB2 documents.]

Online Image Editing: Squoosh ⇨ https://squoosh.app (can compress images)

Online Video editor - OpenCut ⇨ https://opencut.app

Online PDF Editor - StirlingPDF ⇨ https://www.stirling.com

Get symbols & Emojis: coolsymbol.com

Websites: 

Track flights live: https://www.flightaware.com/live/

Fakeupdate.net - generate fake update screen while resting 

Globetv.app - any tv channel

PerChance.org/image-generator-professional - generate AI Images from text, free, no sign up

Cobalt.tools - download video from tiktok, YT, FB, X, IG

Streamex.net - stream any movies from Hulu, Netflix, Prime etc at HD, free, no sign up

OmniTools.app - boost your productivity - like sort a list, create transparent image, compress PNG, Spilt a PDF, Trim video etc. 

https://toolesh.com - download from YT, Scribd, Slideshare etc etc. 

https://ssdownloader.com 

https://huggingface.co/spaces/black-forest-labs/FLUX.2-dev - Online Photo Editing

https://www.photopea.com Online Photo Editing

Tech updates: 

https://www.neowin.net

https://betanews.com

Cyber India Online - https://www.ciol.com (CyberMedia backed, who published PCQuest magazine) 

https://arstechnica.com/

https://techcrunch.com ---> also look into: https://techcrunch.com/tag/india/

https://phet.colorado.edu - Stimulation of Math, Physics, Chemistry, Biology !

https://ptable.com/#Properties  Chemistry's PERIODIC TABLE online! 

Google Maps alternative: 

Bing Maps - https://www.bing.com/maps
https://www.petalmaps.com - developed by Huawei

Yandex Maps - https://yandex.com/maps/ 

Apple Maps for iOS users

Waze - https://www.waze.com 

Here WeGo - https://wego.here.com/ (⇐ Ovi Maps ⇐ Nokia Maps)

OsmAnd - https://osmand.net [It stands for OpenStreetMap Automated Navigation Directions. It is a popular open-source, offline mobile mapping and navigation application for Android and iOS that utilizes data from OpenStreetMap (OSM).]

Mappls - from MapMyIndia for India - https://www.mappls.com/

RIL's JioXplor - beyond maps, AI based location services. 

Get more app details from my 2023 post on Windows 11: https://drrdb.blogspot.com/2023/02/windows-11-experience-issues-and-how-to.html