A West Bloomfield man has been sentenced on a sexual assault case that dates back more than 25 years. 

Kurt Alan Rillema, 52, pleaded no contest in December to criminal sexual conduct in the third and fourth degree regarding an assault that happened in September 1999, the Oakland County Prosecutor's Office reported in a press release Thursday. 

He was sentenced Wednesday to 10 to 15 years in prison. 

"The Oakland County Prosecutor's Office only consented to the plea agreement after consulting the victim and obtaining her approval," the press release said. 

Genetic genealogy testing of DNA evidence connected Rillema to the case, in which a woman, then 22 years old, was sexually assaulted at Twin Lakes Golf Club in Oakland Township. Investigators did obtain DNA at the time, but didn't have a suspect. 

Investigators eventually made the connection through DNA evidence collected on a July 2000 case involving another woman, then 19, who was attacked at a golf course at Penn State University. Investigators in both states sought the help of DNA technology company Parabon NanoLabs, which can use genetic genealogy and other research methods to search for potential relatives in public databases and build out family trees.  

Through that research, the potential suspects were narrowed to three individuals. 

The next break in the investigation happened after Michigan police obtained a DNA sample of Rillema through a Styrofoam coffee cup he had used. 

The Oakland County Sheriff's Office Special Investigations Unit worked with police from Penn State and State College, Pennsylvania, on the case. 

"Rillema will serve serious prison time for his crime," Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald said in the announcement. "I know reliving this trauma after so many years wasn't easy for the victim. Her strength sustained this case, and I applaud the relentless work by law enforcement that allowed us to deliver a just ending for her.

Genealogy Bank is a subscription-based records database that has digitized, indexed and archived billions of family history records found in newspapers, census records, government documents and other historical records in all 50 states. Individuals interested in their family history can conveniently search and discover census records, obituaries, birth, marriage, death notices and much more. Learn how this database could be an indispensable part of your genealogy tool kit. Thursday, February 13, 2025.  On Zoom and in person at Cooper Memorial Library.  This Hybrid program is free and open to the general public. Meet in room 108 at 4:00 pm for refreshments and log into Zoom at 4:30. Presentation starts at 5 pm, and Q&A will directly follow the program.  Cooper Memorial Library is located at 2525 Oakley Seaver Dr., Clermont.  Registration for Zoom is required : https://tinyurl.com/GenealogyBank13Feb430pm

Speaker: Melony Young is a seasoned Customer Support Director and Corporate Trainer and has played a crucial role in developing and training teams at companies like American Express, The American Red Cross, Wayfair, and currently, GenealogyBank.com, and the entire consumer division of NewsBank, Inc. Melony has also been known to “dabble” in acting and voiceover work.

Melony developed a love and respect for genealogy work through her grandmother Arlene’s lifelong passion for family history and research and continues this legacy through an ongoing project with her children and grandson to capture and document life events and memories. Family history research and DNA testing even helped her connect with her half-brother. 

If you're wanting to learn more about genealogy, you're in luck as Richland (Washington) Public Library has a new database for folks to use.

Heritage Hub, the online genealogy resource, can be used to discover obituaries, funeral home notices, and other articles spanning more than 300 years.

Not only that, but the database can pull content from all 50 U.S. states and territories.

Whether you're interested in your ancestry or doing a school project, Heritage Hub is available for free.

"A lot of people like trying to figure out maybe like, family history, or maybe things that happened in the past, and so they're just trying to put information together. Sometimes people are just curious about family history. I remember in school I had to do a family tree, and so that would've been a nice resource to have for those types of projects," said Michael Scarfo, User Experience Supervisor for Richland Public Library.

You can use it at the library or at home, but you'll need your Richland Public Library card number if you're accessing it from home.

To reach the database, click here, then scroll down until you see the Genealogy category, and then click on Heritage Hub.

From there, you will be prompted to enter your Richland Public Library card number.

After that, you will then be free to use the database by typing in the first and last name of a person, death year if you have that, and any other keywords that could help you find who you're looking for.

Friends of Iowa PBS, in collaboration with the Iowa Genealogical Society, will offer a winter workshop series aimed at beginner and intermediate genealogy enthusiasts. 

The "Genealogy for All: Essential Tools, Records and DNA Insights" program will consist of four virtual sessions designed to help participants explore public records and gain insights into their ancestral heritage.

The workshop series, which will take place via Zoom, will cover various aspects of genealogical research, including organizing research, military and immigration records, naturalization processes and DNA analysis. The sessions will also focus on two key resources for family history research: FamilySearch and Ancestry.

Each two-hour session will feature a combination of lecture, discussion, and Q&A time, along with handouts for participants to use. The sessions will be recorded, allowing registrants to review the material at their convenience. However, due to the interactive nature of the workshop, participants are encouraged to attend live.

"We’re thrilled to collaborate once again with the Iowa Genealogical Society, providing individuals with valuable tools and insights to delve into their family history," said Darla Hassebroek, donor engagement manager at Friends of Iowa PBS. "This workshop offers an incredible chance for participants to connect with their heritage and discover the fascinating stories that make up their family’s legacy."

Registration for the full series costs $100, which includes live access to all four sessions, recordings, and supplemental materials. Tickets are available for purchase at here. You do not need to be an Iowa resident to participate.

Video footage of all General Synods going back to 1988 and documentaries of all 11 Sacred Circles has now been digitized—converted from videotape into a format that can be processed by computers—and will soon be fully indexed in a free online archive that a leading scholar calls useful not just for church historians, but for all interested Anglicans.

Anglican Video—a ministry of General Synod that produces video resources, comprising senior producer Lisa Barry and project manager Shane Roberts—is leading the digitization project. Barry outlined the project in a Nov. 8 presentation to Council of General Synod (CoGS). Former church librarian Karen Evans, brought on board to identify and transcribe all the videos, called the digitization project “an incredible gift to historians” who now have access to church history not just on the printed page, but as Anglicans experienced it at the time.

Alan Hayes, professor emeritus of church history at Wycliffe College and member at large of the Canadian Church Historical Society, said the digitized videos—which are available online at archives.anglican.ca, complete with identifiers and official transcriptions—would assist historians in their work.

“I think it’s really useful,” Hayes told the Anglican Journal. “It’s not just for professional church historians. I can imagine lots of Anglicans being interested in that to look things up.”

Aside from preserving old video recordings and making them more accessible to researchers, digitization—converting them into data files—can prevent loss of quality in future migrations (though poor digitizing, such as the use of data compression to save space, can result in quality loss). Digitization also makes it easier to copy videos and allows them to be transferred electronically, so that they no longer need to be physically mailed.

The impetus for the digitization came in 2016, when a parish contacted Anglican Video looking for footage of the 1993 apology by then-primate Archbishop Michael Peers for the Anglican Church of Canada’s role in residential schools.

“That piece of video has been viewed literally thousands of times and we’ve had literally thousands of requests for it,” Barry said. When Anglican Video staff grabbed the video from their library to make a copy for the parish, they were aghast at the level of deterioration they observed on the tape.

“That was scary for us,” Barry recalled. “We realised that all of our 30-plus years of recorded footage, the tapes had started to deteriorate.” Anglican Video began checking all their tapes. While they had backed up footage of Peers’ apology and other important clips, Barry said, they realized they needed to find a long-term solution.

Through conversations with General Synod archivist Laurel Parson, they developed a plan to preserve their footage through digitization. The Anglican Church of Canada supports the project through a Ministry Investment Fund grant. Determining that they could not digitize their entire library, they chose to focus on digitizing each General Synod they had filmed, as well as their documentaries of each Sacred Circle.

Anglican Video has now reached both of these goals, digitizing every General Synod and every Sacred Circle documentary. However, the question arose as to how people could access the digitized videos and find what they were looking for.

Enter Karen Evans, who joined the project and began watching, naming and indexing all digitized footage. As of Nov. 8, Evans had indexed all but four General Synods, totalling 325 hours of footage; and all Sacred Circle documentaries, totalling nearly 14 hours.

A key objective, Evans told CoGS, is making sure that all material is accessible in a user-friendly way online. To this end, she said, “We want to create a text record that is complete, accurate and free of editing for interpretation.” Deeming summaries for each speaker or presentation insufficient, Anglican Video decided it was necessary to create authoritative verbatim transcripts of everything said in the digitized videos.

To aid in this process, they used the AI transcription software Simon Says, which includes time codes for new speakers; then carefully went through the transcripts to correct any errors. While transcription takes longer than producing summaries, Evans said, it is ultimately more efficient, since researchers who want to know exactly what is said in videos would end up producing their own transcripts.

“We wanted to produce a neutral record,” she said, noting that every researcher brings their own perspective or bias which might have coloured their impression of summaries.

“Every time you produce a summary, you’re making judgements,” Evans said. “You’re saying this is what’s important and perhaps even more importantly, what isn’t. We have removed that. What you have is a complete unadulterated record.”

The resource of video with transcriptions, Evans said, “continually illustrates how our past informs our present—with challenges, but also with hope and inspiration.”

Hayes says having access to indexed digital video footage from these General Synods and Sacred Circles will allow historians and others to see the dynamics of discussions over contested issues for themselves.

Researchers’ ability to study past synods has fluctuated over the history of the church, he says. In the 19th century, weekly Anglican church newspapers would report on provincial synods, and later General Synod, with speaker-by-speaker summaries of what was said.

By the 20th century, reports were getting briefer with less information, as Hayes says he found in writing a book on the history of the Anglican Church of Canada. By the 1920s and 1930s, he says, “some important decisions are being made where you’re relying on, really, skeleton notes in the minutes about who moved something and where it was reviewed.”

Even when the church press, by then the Canadian Churchman—later the Anglican Journal—provided more information, Hayes says, “you didn’t have a sense of all the different points of view that were being expressed and the passions that you could say were expressed. That’s been true ever since.”

Watching video and reading transcripts of every General Synod as well as Sacred Circle documentaries, he says, “is a great way to know who’s speaking and what they’re speaking about, what the issues are considered to be, what the pros and cons are, how much passion is going into it and how divided [opinion] is.”

Hayes says making the videos freely available online with official transcripts also shows the commitment of the Anglican Church of Canada to transparency—providing a way “to let people know that this is not stuff that happens in a corner behind closed doors secretly… They can watch it years later and know exactly what happened. I think that’s just good for the reputation of the church—to be transparent about decision-making.”

The Delaware & Hudson Railway Historical Society, Inc., (D&HRHS) on Jan. 17 announced its establishment. Its goal is to not only “preserve, interpret, and celebrate the rich history of the Delaware & Hudson Railway and its predecessors,” but also “reinvent what it means to be a member of a historical society in the digital era.”

This New York 501(c)(3) non-profit organization “is about more than just preserving artifacts,” D&HRHS President and Director Brad Peterson said. “It’s about keeping the spirit of the Delaware & Hudson [D&H] Railway alive for future generations, using 21st century tools to connect enthusiasts worldwide.”

D&H—“the longest-running transportation company in U.S. history”—operated from 1829 to 1991, when it was purchased by Canadian Pacific (now Canadian Pacific Kansas City).

The new railroad historical society said is it distinguishing itself from similar groups “by operating almost exclusively online, with membership options … available exclusively via Patreon.” Additionally, it will produce the Champlain Shield digital newsletter, host virtual events featuring interviews with D&H veterans and historians, and partner with other preservation organizations “to maximize impact while maintaining low overhead costs.” Now up and running and available to members is the organization’s interactive online archive of more than 1,700 D&H documents, drawings, maps and photographs.

D&HRHS also reported acquiring the historic D&H RS3 locomotive #4085 on Nov. 24, 2024, which it aims to preserve. The project, it said, reflects the group’s commitment “to protecting and showcasing significant artifacts” that tell the D&H story, and locomotive #4085 represents a key piece of the railway’s legacy, “embodying the innovation and engineering that defined the D&H.” 

Currently located at the Erie Turntable in Port Jervis, N.Y., the unit is slated for restoration at the Saratoga, Corinth & Hudson Railway, which operates a portion of the former D&H Adirondack Branch based in Corinth, N.Y.

D&HRHS’s senior advisors include Carl Belke, former President, D&H Railway; Dennis Shaffer, former Vice President of Marketing, D&H Railway; Bill Collins, former Vice President of Administration, D&H Railway; and Jim Howarth, former General Manager of Marketing, D&H Railway.

To learn more about the group and how to become a member, click here.

Episodes of five historic WOUB TV series are now available for streaming on the free PBS App. The programs from the WOUB archive include two documentaries, a teen dance show, an educational series on government, and 36 episodes of a nationally syndicated children’s show.

“We are so excited to be able to share these programs with the community for free on the PBS App,” said WOUB General Manager Mark Brewer. “We know the programs mean a lot to so many people in our region.”

Some of the shows were produced in the 1960s and were originally recorded on two-inch quadruplex videotape. The others were on a variety of tape formats that were popular at the time. All had to be digitized to be uploaded.

“The WOUB Archive Room contains a variety of media, each saved on the preferred format at the time they were recorded,” said Digital Broadcast Archivist Kaycee Warren. “As time passes, viewing the oldest formats require obsolete machinery. We send these formats to be restored and digitized. The film and quad tapes are deteriorating, and we are working quickly to save the content.”

Merlin the Magician (episodic series) was produced by WOUB and premiered in 1964. It appeared on more than 70 television stations across the nation. 36 episodes are available for streaming. The show’s host was Bob Faulkner. Joe Berman, a longtime Ohio University professor, was the producer and director.

Opening the Door West: The Story of the Ohio Company of Associates (documentary) is the story of how the Ohio Company organized the first American settlement in the Northwest Territory, perhaps the most important unknown chapter in American history.

Passion Works: A Story of Flying (documentary) tells the early story of a thriving arts studio designed around the talents of artists with developmental disabilities. Told through heartwarming stories and eye-popping art, the film reveals how an active community arts program can inspire, transform and even transport people to new passions and new places.

Take Me to Your Leaders (episodic series) is a six-episode educational interactive series on Ohio government. Each episode explores the roles of different government leaders at the state, county and school district levels.

Teen Beat (episodic series) was a 1960s live Bandstand type show produced at WOUB that won a national Broadcast Media Award. There are three episodes uploaded for streaming.

You can watch any of these programs now by downloading the free PBS App or visiting pbs.org.

From: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20250115254005/en/en/Ancestry-Announces-Leadership-Transition

Ancestry, the global leader in family history, announced that its Board of Directors has selected Chief Financial and Chief Operating Officer Howard Hochhauser to succeed Deb Liu as the company’s President & CEO effective February 1. Hochhauser will continue to serve as a member of the Board.

“Leading Ancestry over the last four years has been both demanding and fulfilling. I have been inspired by the company’s mission and by the journeys of personal discovery that we have enabled for our customers since I joined the company in March 2021. I’m proud of all that the team has accomplished in service to our customers and I’m confident the company is well positioned for future success,” said Liu. “Working alongside Ancestry’s talented and purpose-driven team has been an honor and I know I’m leaving the company in Howard’s very capable hands.”

Hochhauser said, “I’m honored to serve as Ancestry’s next President & CEO. I have never been more confident in the future success of the company. As the global leader in Family History, we have a strong brand, exceptional talent, unparalleled content, the world’s largest consumer DNA network and a loyal base of subscribers. I look forward to building on our momentum.”

“Deb has had a tremendous impact on the business, building a strong foundation for future growth, strengthening our team, and evolving our products,” said Sir Mark Thompson, chairman of Ancestry’s Board of Directors. “On behalf of the Board and our employees, I want to thank Deb for her many contributions and wish her the very best in her next chapter.”

Thompson added, “Howard has been with Ancestry for more than 16 years and deeply understands the business, its culture, and our customers. He has been instrumental in building our strategy and we're confident that he and the management team will accelerate growth in the years to come.”

Ancestry’s Board of Directors has initiated a search for a new CFO.

About Ancestry

Ancestry®, the global leader in family history, empowers journeys of personal discovery to enrich lives. With our unparalleled collection of more than 60 billion records, over 3.5 million subscribers and over 25 million people in our growing DNA network, customers can discover their family story and gain a new level of understanding about their lives. Over the past 40 years, we've built trusted relationships with millions of people who have chosen us as the platform for discovering, preserving, and sharing the most important information about themselves and their families.

If you tried to read new articles on this web site in the past 2 or 3 weeks, you immediately found that you could not do so. The reason is that my home computer was broken.  I have to apologize for that.

In short, my home computer was broken. I consider myself to be a “techie” but this time my technical expertise was lacking. It was frustrating for me and I am sure it was frustrating for you also.

I’ll skip over the nitty-gritty details except for one thing: a couple of weeks ago, in frustration, I went to a local computer store and purchased a brand new computer (a Macintosh although it could have been anything else). And brought the new computer home, plugged it in, and within 2 or 3 minutes the new machine was also broken.

Yes I broke it. So much for my technical expertise.

OK, I eventually figured out what I did wrong and now (I hope) I am back in business.

Anyways… a lot of things happened while I was offline and I think I have a lot of “catching up” to do….

So please excuse me, I have work to do.

 - Dick Eastman

The best free PC software programs aren’t about the cost (or lack thereof), they’re about a fresh opportunity—collections of code that put the dumb hardware in your computer to smart use, tools that can accomplish anything from balancing your household budget to helping cure cancer.

Stocking your PC is an intensely personal task. But some programs are so helpful that we heartily recommend them to everybody. These free PC programs—a mix of must-haves and delightful auxiliary apps—deserve a place on almost any computer. There are times when a paid alternative makes sense, however. We’ve pointed out the circumstances where an upgrade over the free offering is warranted, along with our recommendation for the category.

And if you’re selecting these programs as part of breaking in an all-new PC, be sure to check out our guide to how to set up new computer up the right way. Let’s dig in!

A better browser

Microsoft

Before you roll up your sleeves and start slinging software around, make sure to snag your web browser of choice. Using Windows 10 and 11’s default Edge browser when you’re accustomed to something else feels like wearing somebody else’s shoes. (Blech.)

That said, our money’s actually on Edge if you’re not a Chrome die-hard — it’s pretty great in its own right. Firefox is great for privacy-minded users. But hey, browsers are all all free! Try before you “buy”—we’ve published some extensive looks at compelling features you’ll only find on Edge, Firefox, and Vivaldi (a.k.a. the enthusiast’s browser)

Ninite makes loading up a new computer a breeze. Simply head to the Ninite website, select which free software you’d like to install on your PC—it offers dozens of options, including many of the programs named here—and click Get Installer to receive a single, custom .exe file containing the installers for those programs. Run the executable, and Ninite installs all of them in turn, and it automatically declines the offers for bundled bloatware so many free apps try to sneak in. No muss, no fuss, no hassle. 

For most users there really isn’t a worthy alternative, and even if there was it wouldn’t justify the cost. That said, there is a paid complementary utility called Ninite Updater that costs $10 per year that makes it easy to keep all your desktop programs up-to-date.

Unchecky

Accidentally installing unwanted bloatware is one of the greatest dangers of free software, the sanctity of Ninite aside. For everything else, use Unchecky. Unchecky automatically unchecks all of the checkboxes when you’re trying to install a program, and warns you if shady software is trying to sneak something ugly onto your machine. 

Again Unchecky is in a league unto itself, and while you might find similar capabilities bundled in an antivirus program, there’s little reason to look elsewhere.

Microsoft PowerToys

If you want to fine-tune your Windows experience, be sure to check out Microsoft’s killer PowerToys suite. Ostensibly for enthusiasts, PowerToys is absolutely loaded with tools designed to streamline all sorts of PC hassles. It offers utilities to batch resize images, quickly find your mouse cursor, always keep a chosen window on top of your others, remap your keyboard keys, show file previews in File Explorer, and a whole lot more. And you should definitely be using FancyZones, Microsoft’s killer multitasking app.

Launchy

On the surface, Launchy is a simple app launcher, and that’s swell all on its own! App launchers let you activate software far faster than navigating Windows, even if you use the Windows key and search for an app by name. But Launchy can do much, much more: Open any file or folder in mere seconds, shut down your PC, or even kill processes and perform math calculations with the right plug-ins. Install Launchy and forget about your Start menu.

Launchy is another Windows utility that is unto itself; however, the developers do accept donations, and we highly recommend tossing the developers a few dollars for this excellent program.

7-Zip

Windows can create and extract ZIP files natively, but if you find yourself staring at another compressed archive you’ll need a dedicated program to handle it. A lot of them cost money. 7-Zip is open-source and completely free, ready to perform all your archiving needs from Windows’ right-click context menu. You can even encrypt 7-Zip archives with a password to send them securely.

7-Zip is great, and paid parallels such as WinZip really don’t offer enough to justify the fee. For most of us, 7-zip is just great — and Microsoft has integrated RAR and 7-Zip file support directly into Windows 11 itself.

VLC

Windows 10 and 11 have a prickly problem: Unlike Windows 7, they’re incapable of playing DVDs out of the box. Your PC might have a DVD-playing program installed if you bought a boxed system, but if not, the simply wonderful VLC media player can play your flicks (and music, and podcasts, and…) for free. It can even play (some) Blu-ray discs with a little fiddling.

VLC is just fantastic, and you won’t find a paid option that justifies its worth compared to this free workhorse. You can, however, send the VideoLAN organization a donation as a thank you for its hard work.

Paint.net

Don’t let Paint.net’s freebie status fool you: This image editor may not have all the bells and whistles of Photoshop, but it packs everything that most people need (even layer-based editing) and costs hundreds of dollars less. We’ve got Paint.net tips to help you get started with this killer no-cost software.

If you’re a graphics professional, and you can’t afford Photoshop but require more than Paint.net offers, check out GIMP. It has a challenging learning curve, but its capabilities are damned impressive once you wrap your head around it. Those aren’t your only options though. Check out our roundup of the best free Photoshop alternatives for more no-cost programs for everything from quick and dirty tweaks to nitty-gritty image edits.

ree image editors are generally great and GIMP is looking better than ever. But Adobe’s Photoshop remains the unrivaled titan for image editing, while the hobbyist level Photoshop Elements has advanced features that you won’t find in the free programs.

Audacity

If you need to record or mix audio without spending big bucks on pro software, Audacity is hands-down the best option around. This powerful open-source audio editor offers excellent production capabilities—and a dizzying array of buttons and options. Snag it, then read PCWorld’s Audacity primer to wrap your head around the basics.

For most users Audacity is a powerful tool, but if you’re rising to the level of semi-pro and need a deeper level of audio editing then Adobe’s Audition CC for $23 per month might be worth it. Keep in mind, however, that Adobe Audition is a pro tool and not a starter option.

Revo Uninstaller

When you delete software using Windows’ default uninstallation utility, it can leave a lot of remnants behind in weird places, sucking up precious storage space. Revo Uninstaller wipes out everything. It’s great. 

(Pro tip: If you encounter a program that says it can’t be deleted because it’s currently in use by your system, IOBit’s free Unlocker can loosen its grasp, as can Microsoft PowerTools.)

Revo Uninstaller only takes care of the basics. If you need features like getting rid of remnants from previously uninstalled programs or mass uninstalls then spending $20 on Revo Uninstaller Pro or a $20 yearly subscription to Iobit Uninstaller Pro is worth it.

SpaceSniffer

Managing your computer’s storage space is kind of an all-or-nothing experience. Windows will tell you how much space is left on your drive, and that’s it; it’s up to you to dive into a million different directories and clear out the gunk when you’re running low on space. SpaceSniffer (try not to giggle) from Uderzo Software solves this by scanning an entire drive and presenting your files and folders in a visual grid, which makes it easy to find “lost” programs eating up huge chunks of your hard drive space. It’s one of the five Windows power tools we can’t live without.

WinDirStat is another free program that behaves similarly to SpaceSniffer. If you’re looking to free up some space for the latest massive game install, you’ll want one of these installed on your PC.

Recuva

Sumatra PDF

dobe Reader may be the go-to PDF reader for many people, but it’s clunky, constantly updating, and frequently targeted by malware peddlers. If you need only basic functionality, go with Sumatra PDF instead. Sumatra lacks the fancy extras found in many full-featured PDF readers, but when it comes to straight-up reading Portable Document Format files, Sumatra PDF is blazing-fast and completely accurate. Oh, and since it’s less ubiquitous than Adobe’s offering, hackers tend to stay away from Sumatra PDF.

Spotify or iTunes

Sometimes, blasting tunes is the only thing that makes slogging through a spreadsheet or a stuffed inbox even remotely tolerable. The exact music client you’ll want will depend on whether you’ve already bought into a service, naturally. For musical neophytes I recommend two programs: iTunes and Spotify.

The iTunes Windows client notoriously sucks, but it gets the job done—and that job includes giving you access to a vast universe of premium music downloads and keeping your iPhone’s music library synced with your PC. Spotify, meanwhile, is an all-you-can-eat streaming service with millions of top-tier tunes available, all for free if you don’t mind listening to a few ads.

Yes. In fact, if my editors let me use “Hell Yes” as an option, I’d say, “Hell Yes!” You don’t need to be an audiophile to recognize the sound difference in the higher-quality versions Spotify and Apple Music premium subscribers get, plus no ads and the freedom to listen to your music anywhere? Sold.

A password manager

lastpass

The never-ending stream of high-profile hack attacks of the past few years have driven home the point: You need strong passwords, and you need a different password for each site you visit. Rather than juggling dozens of alphanumeric codes in your noggin, download a password manager. 

There are several options available, but our favorite freebie is Bitwarden, a no-cost password manager with few restrictions (unlike the free offerings from premium favorites like LastPass and Dashlane). PCWorld’s guide to the best password managers and the best free password managers can help walk you through all the available options.

A productivity suite

libreoffice writer

PCs excel at helping you Get Things Done—but few of them ship with a productivity suite installed. Fix that, stat! Even if you don’t plan to use a productivity suite regularly, it’s smart to have basic editing capabilities available on your computer.

Legions of people swear by Microsoft’s legendary Office; I do, too. But you don’t have to drop big dollars on Office if you don’t need its myriad bells and whistles. Free—and good—alternatives abound, with LibreOffice (pictured) being the flagship free-and-open-source option. The online-only Google Docs also rocks. PCWorld’s guide to the best free Microsoft Office alternatives explains your various options. 

AutoHotKey

Macros sure are great in Microsoft Word and Excel, aren’t they? AutoHotKey lets you create customized keyboard shortcuts for any program or action on your PC. It’s not exactly beginner-friendly, as configuring AutoHotKey requires some very basic scripting, which most people will be able to pick up quickly enough. It’s downright magic once you wrap your brain around it though.

Proton VPN

Browsing websites and sending private data over open Wi-Fi hotspots is just begging for hackers to capture the details. Virtual private networks secure your connection. If you need to log in to your work website or email at Starbucks, use the free version of Proton, a VPN we love, to keep your data safe. It’s fast, easy to use, and has a straightforward privacy policy, unlike many VPNs.

The only real limitation to this service is that you can only connect with one device at at time. Other than that it’s practically a premium VPN.

Free games!

steam razer blade

All work and no play makes Homer something something! Valve’s outstanding PC game marketplace, Steam, makes it easy to shrug off the stress of the workday and blow off some … well, you know. You’ll find tons of free games available on Steam, and games are frequently given away free for a limited time. If you want a steady stream of freebies, the rival Epic Games Store gives way a free game or two every single week.

Is it worth it to upgrade to a paid version?

Probably. Free games can only take you so far before you’re left wanting more. Steam, GOG, EA’s Origin, the Epic Games Store, and Blizzard can all satisfy your gaming needs once the free games aren’t enough. 

Bonus: Back up your PC!

ssds mike homnick

This isn’t an official recommendation because the best way to back up your PC for free is to use a hodgepodge of native Windows utilities and no-cost third-party solutions. But backing up your data is so vital—especially in this rising age of ransomware—that it needs to be highlighted here.

If the idea of using a mish-mash of tools makes you wince, check out PCWorld’s guide to the best Windows backup software  for more options. You’re going to need some portable storage to stash your bits on, too. PCWorld’s best external drives roundup can help there.

Master your Windows PC

windows 10

Now that you’ve loaded up your PC with the best free software around, it’s time to put Windows itself to work. Head on over to PCWorld’s guide to 10 obscure Windows features that will blow your mind to seize even more control over your PC for the low, low price of nothing.