At that place's a lot of gratuitous Windows software download sites, but are they safety? Every time you lot download something, there's a possibility that you're downloading malware or viruses. Sure, you lot've got the best antivirus app, but at that place's no sense making information technology do work that it doesn't have to do.

In this article, nosotros'll talk about how you tin can check whether a download is safe and we'll also mention a couple of our favorite sites to download free software for Windows.

Are Free Software Download Sites Rubber?

There are only ii means to know if a download site is safe. Y'all can check its reputation and y'all test its downloads yourself.

There are businesses that rank how safe sites are. One of the most popular sites for this is WOT or Web of Trust. WOT rates sites based on community ratings, reviews, and their own machine learning algorithms. At that place are WOT plugins for Chrome, Firefox, and Opera browsers. If you take the plugin installed, you can check the download site.

You can also check the site earlier you go to it. Become to Virus Total and enter the web address of the site. It'll check with a bunch of other sites that track reputations and viruses and lets you lot know if the site is safe.

That does non mean that what you download from the site has no malware or viruses. There are a couple of means to test the download.

  1. Employ a sandboxed web browser like Sandboxie to download information technology. In the sandboxed spider web browser, become to Virus Total and submit the download for testing.
  2. Download the program within a virtual motorcar and exam it there.

Safe And Gratis Software Download Sites for Windows

To compile this list, we researched the sites on WOT, VirusTotal, Norton Rubber Web, URLVoid, and ScanURL. At the fourth dimension of writing this, none of the download sites showed whatsoever bug on the website checkers.

FileHippo

On the web since 2004 and Alexa-ranked at 625, FileHippo is solid. FileHippo states that they hand-selection the software, and test it for malware and viruses. They also don't let software that bundles other software into it or browser toolbars. FileHippo currently has over twoscore,000 program versions listed.

Be conscientious if yous do a web search for FileHippo. There are a lot of sites out there with like names and URLs.

Nirsoft

Nirsoft is a freeware utility site that was created and currently run past a guy named Nir Sofer. He's single-handedly written all of the software utilities that you encounter on the site.

Each utility is completely free and usually very tiny in size. That's considering each utility is designed to perform one task and one chore only. For case, some of the most popular utilities on the site are the password viewers, which will show you passwords stored on your computer, in your browser, etc.

Ninite

More than but a costless software download site, Ninite is also a packet direction system. Using it every bit a bundle direction system, Ninite tin can be used to automate the installation of your favorite software and proceed it up to engagement, with only ane click. This is likely the safest site on the list.

The number of free apps is limited. It does cover most of the software that you'd install start on a new computer though. Chrome, Firefox, 7-cypher, iTunes, VLC, Malwarebytes are amongst the free downloads Ninite can provide and manage.

Softpedia

Even older than FileHippo, Softpedia has been a software download staple since 2001. Softpedia hosts a lot of free downloads on their own physical servers. That ways they have even more than to gain from making sure the apps are safe. That's a lot of piece of work when they have over 1.ii million apps, drivers, and games available.

Download Coiffure

Offering some of the most well-known Windows freeware in an easy to read, easy to search site, Download Crew should exist on your list. Download Crew has been around for over ten years, boasts well-nigh 300,000 members, and over 33 million downloads.

Its sister site is Download Crew Store, where y'all tin become securely discounted proprietary software. Betwixt the two you lot'll get all you need as cheaply as possible.

File Horse

When it comes to free software download sites, it's difficult to tell them autonomously. They all do the same thing. They all offer downloads. What might gear up File Equus caballus apart is that they also keep archives of previous versions of the software.

So if an update to your favorite app makes an unwanted modify, you could download the older version hither and roll it back. File Equus caballus also curates a directory of complimentary cloud apps.

Major Geeks

Don't let the early-2000's design fool you. Major Geeks is a legitimate complimentary software download site. Founded in 2001, Major Geeks congenital a reputation by being one of the first to examination all the software they offer.

First, they bank check the reputation of the company and software, and so they scan it with several virus scanners, including VirusTotal. If it makes it past that, Major Geeks actually installs the software on their own VMWare Workstation to test the functionality. If it meets their standards, so the software gets listed. This thoroughness warrants their military-style theme.

Microsoft Store

Partly a website and partly an app that's probably already on your figurer, Microsoft Store does have a lot of adept freeware. Being Microsoft, in that location's already a reputation in identify and you'd like to call up they're hosting condom software.

Some of them are from the large names you already know, like Netflix, Apple tree, and, of course, Microsoft. Some are made by smaller development teams only can be very useful. Not all apps are free. There are thousands that are and it's easy to discover them. Just search on 'complimentary'.

Beyond that, you lot should also check out the great Sysinternals tools that used to be a separate site, only Microsoft purchased. The tools are still updated, just are geared more towards geeks.

Anymore Good Free Software Sites?

There are a few more good safe gratuitous software sites, but if y'all tin't find what yous need on the sites above, then they're not going to help much. Over fourth dimension, yous'll become to know the sites yous like that have the software you demand.

Call up to always check the downloaded file with your antivirus app or through Virus Total. If possible, test the plan installation in a virtual machine or sandboxed environment.