12 Essential Software For College Students: Programming, Media, & More

Essential Software for College Students: College is the one place where every student goes in as a student and comes out as an adult. All our thought processes, friends, lifetime connections, and collaborations are made in college. And to have a pleasant and memorable college experience in these hectic times, it is essential to utilize certain software and technology to make life a little easier. In this article, we shall be seeing a few of these software tools.

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12 Essential Software for College Students

1. Internet Download Manager (IDM): IDM, developed by ToneC, is a file-downloading program that gives users control over how files are downloaded through their browser. This is intended to be a more efficient and speedier alternative to the device’s default downloading capabilities. Apart from speedier downloads, Internet Download Manager also allows users to schedule and halt downloads, as well as recover downloads in the event of external failures such as a power outage or network problems. IDM integrates into all popular browsers and has a customizable interface as well.
2. VLC Media Player: VLC media player is a cross-platform, free, and open-source media player and streaming video server developed by the VideoLAN project. VLC is compatible with a variety of desktop and mobile operating systems, including Android, iOS, and iPadOS. VLC is well-known for its near-universal compatibility since it can open and stream over 150 different music and video file types, as well as act as a media converter.
3. Word Web: Word Web is an international dictionary and word finder software with over 300,000 words and phrases to search up. Available as a Windows application, it covers American, British, Australian, and Indian English spellings and words. It is updated on a regular basis and does not contain any bothersome advertisements. If a word isn’t found, the search feature looks it up in other dictionaries and an encyclopedia and displays the results. You can also lookup definitions on other websites, or click on a word in a definition to go to its meaning. Word Web also offers a Pro version, where you can look up pronunciation guides, create custom glossaries, and solve anagrams.
4. VMWare: VMware Workstation Player, originally VMware Player, is a free virtualization software package for x64 PCs running Microsoft Windows or Linux, provided by VMware, Inc. It has the ability to run current virtual appliances as well as generate new virtual machines (which require a functional operating system to be installed). It employs the same virtualization core as VMware Workstation, a similar but more expensive tool with more capabilities. It is free for personal, non-commercial use, or by written consent for distribution or other uses. Although VMware, Inc. does not formally support Player, there is an active community website with a knowledge base for discussing and resolving issues. It also offers a Pro version, designed specifically for IT developers and large-scale use.
5. Picasa: Picasa is a cross-platform image organizer and image viewer for organizing and editing digital photos, originally created by a company named Lifescape in 2002 but later bought up by Google. It has a free license (with no Pro version or any withholding of features), and while no longer updated by Google, it allows for a Google account sign-in, integrating your photos with the Google Drive cloud and offering a backup for them. It allows you to create albums and custom collages and is almost mandatory for budding photographers and enthusiasts.
6. Pocket: Pocket, formerly known as “Read It Later”, is a social bookmarking tool that allows you to save, share, and discover web bookmarks. The service was first released in 2007 for desktop and laptop computers as an extension for Mozilla Firefox, but it is now available for macOS, Windows, iOS, Android, and web browsers as well. It is completely free to use and offers great integration with almost all major browsers. Pocket is an absolute necessity for those who like reading, catching up on the news, and exploring new fields of study.
7. WinRAR: WinRAR is a tool that offers data compression, encryption, and archiving services for Windows that opens RAR and ZIP files. Compatible with many other file formats, it is available as a free service, along with having a paid version as well. It is extremely useful for those who regularly work with large files and have to transport them from one device to another, being able to compress large amounts of data in a single click with self-extracting archives.
8. qBitTorrent: qBittorrent is a cross-platform free and open-source BitTorrent client. It runs on all major OSes, with near-universal compatibility with all major browsers. It allows for peer-to-peer (p2p) file-sharing, giving users the ability to freely distribute files among themselves for mutual benefit. It is not developed by any corporation, but by amateur enthusiasts in their spare time, hence giving it a wonderful community and support system for users. It is completely free to use and has no ads either, surviving on user donations instead. It offers sequential downloading, bandwidth scheduling and is available in 70 languages, making it an extremely efficient and ubiquitous tool.
9. LibreOffice: LibreOffice is a free and open-source office productivity software suite, a project of The Document Foundation. It was forked in 2010 from OpenOffice, an open-sourced version of the earlier StarOffice. It offers an alternative to Microsoft Office, being able to open and work with a much larger number of file formats, along with being regularly updated, hence being almost absolutely bug-free. Unlike most office suite software, it also utilizes a very small amount of RAM, making it much more efficient and lightweight on older computers. It is also available on Android and iOS/macOS.
10. ToDoist: ToDoist is a task management application that allows users to create lists to manage their tasks. Professionals, small organizations, and individuals can use ToDoist as a to-do list and task organizer. ToDoist helps users streamline their personal and team productivity and work more successfully by combining tasks, projects, comments, attachments, notifications, and more. It is completely free to use and will boost the productivity of its users by allowing them to schedule and manage multiple tasks at once. An absolute must for college students with their hectic schedules!
11. RescueTime: RescueTime is a time management software that gives you a personal daily Focus Work goal and automatically keeps track as you work on your computer. It tracks what you’re working on and alerts you to the best times for uninterrupted work or when you’re losing focus and trying to tackle too many tasks at once. It helps avoid distractions by blocking them, reporting on your focus as well as generating graphs of your time management. It tells you which activities are distracting you, as well as how much it affects your work. A must for students to avoid procrastination and be abreast of their goals.
12. Turbo C++: Turbo C++ is a modernized and optimized version of Borland’s famed DOS-based Turbo C++ integrated development environment, which can now be run on Windows Vista, 7, 8, and 10. It has all of the previously appreciated features and toolkits found in Borland Turbo C++ for PC, but it has also managed to eliminate nearly all of the past incompatibility issues it had on recent Windows versions. The latest versions of the software completely support both 32-bit and 64-bit operating systems, which further improves compatibility. It is completely free to use and is a must for any coding learners and enthusiasts with its simple and minimalist interface.

Essential Software for College Students: Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

• Where do I download these software tools from?

Most of these software tools can be downloaded directly from their official websites. Otherwise, they can be found on software websites such as Softonic, Softpedia, CNET, or FossHub.

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• Do these software tools require a lot of storage or memory?

Almost all of these software tools require less than 500 MB of free space to install, and less than 1 GB of RAM to run smoothly. As most of these programs are designed for those who work on a budget and cannot afford computer systems with high-end specs, they are built to work on limited amounts of space and memory,

• Do any of these software tools require some form of training to properly utilize them?

These software tools do not require any form of courses or training to use, as they are designed to be used by one and all. With the exception of tools such as Turbo C++, which requires one to know to code beforehand, everything else is directly usable by the layman.