Wikipedia is definitely one of the sites I access the most, and most of the time it is just to quickly look up something I know they'll have on there. If I'm reading an article on another site I hate having to open a new tab just to search for something on Wikipedia, and that is where the Wikipedia Companion for Google Chrome comes in.
Windows only The interface for managing the default "open with" programs in Windows isn't the best, and in the past we've recommended utilities that make managing the default apps a little easier.
Windows only It is a dream to think that there could be just one program that can view all of your different types of files, but Free Opener is getting darn close. It currently supports over 70 different files ranging from videos all the way to Office documents and compressed files (ZIP and 7Z).
Windows only Sometimes all it takes to make a great application is to develop a simple program that users clearly know whether it is something they will want to use. Taskbar Hider is that app.
Windows; Mac; Linux Many of you have likely heard of Amarok which is a popular cross-platform music player, and Clementine is a cross platform player that is benefiting from its open source nature. To me it has a clean interface the features people are looking for, such as iPhone syncing.
Windows; Mac There are a multitude of screenshot utilities out there, but the nice thing with Puush is that it really only focuses on one thing: sharing screenshots. This is your kind of app if you're the type of person that merely snaps a screenshot and immediately sends it to someone.
Windows only In Windows you can make connections to FTP clients, but when it comes to connecting to an SFTP server you'll need to turn to a third-party application. Swish tries to bring the missing SFTP integration to Windows Explorer with a fast and free download.
Windows only Personally I've never needed to compress a large number of images before, but if I did I'd definitely be using Caesium. The interface is easy to understand, and the dual-pane previews along the right side make it easy to see the before/after comparison so that you can get the right compression ratio.
Windows only I'm sure we all have hundreds if not thousands of duplicate files on our computers because of apps that make unnecessary copies of files. I'm sure we've all seen the multitude of duplicate file finders out there that help eliminate these duplicates, and I'd say Duplicate Commander deserves to be near the top of that list.
Windows only With services like Dropbox out there I find myself barely ever needing to burn a CD or DVD anymore, but the need still arises from time to time. These days most utilities like Nero are so overkill and bloated for what I need to do that I gravitate towards apps that are much simpler... and free. In the past my app of choice was CDBurnerXP, but 7Burn is also a great alternative.
Windows only The Windows command prompt is one area Microsoft didn't get around to updating until they starting rolling out PowerShell as an integrated part of Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 a few years ago.
Windows only I'm an undeniable fan of Grooveshark and have gotten quite a few people hooked on their free web-based interface for listening to their favorite tunes. Not everyone likes to stream music though, and that's when they turn to the free GrooveDown app to provide search and download capabilities powered by Grooveshark's vast library.
Windows only There are several applications that I use on a regular basis that don't have a "paste as plain text" option in them. I'm sure most of you have experienced this at some time or another, and generally what I do in those situations is fire up Notepad, paste in the stuff I just copied, and then re-copy it from Notepad. It's not ideal, but it works.
Windows only Once you've had the pleasure of using dual monitors it can be tough trying to go back to a single screen. There are, however, some things that Windows doesn't handle so gracefully.
Windows only It's always annoying when a program becomes unresponsive where you have to pull up the Task Manager to kill it, but it can be even worse when some of the fullscreen games start to freeze. That's how one developer felt, and so they decided to do something about it.
Windows only When it comes to my most important files I always have several copies distributed between multiple hard drives and offsite locations. This means I do a lot of backups, and an app called Bvckup has serious potential at making my onsite operations much easier.
Windows only I consider Dexpot to be one of the only viable virtual desktop applications available on Windows because it's constantly being improved and has many of the features you look for in a program like this.
Windows only We've come across quite a few photo viewing and editing applications in the past, but Zoner Photo Studio Free is one of the more powerful apps that we've seen.
Windows only PDFs are a great file format to send to someone because almost everyone is able to view the document, but that also means the ability to make changes are heavily restricted. Sometimes that is what the author wanted, but as the recipient it can be annoying if there is a small change you want to make.
Windows only About a year ago I wrote about a complimentary application for Windows Media Center called Remote Potato. Since then the program has continued to improve at a great pace, and the developer even put together a $7 iOS app (iTunes Link).
