50 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For

As we prepare to give thanks for our delicious Thanksgiving meals (and impending food comas), let's not forget to pay tribute to the wonderful developers who bring us our favorite free apps.

Earlier this week we asked you to share the free apps you're most thankful for, and you came through with thousands of votes for apps covering the desktop, mobile phone, and devices in between. With a little spreadsheet magic and a few choices of our own, we bring you the top 50 free apps we're all most thankful for. Whether you're celebrating the holiday or not, it's a great list of free software that ought to make for some gluttonous downloading. The popular apps are some of the more obvious, however, so be sure to look further down the list for new free software you may not yet know about. Happy Thanksgiving, everybody!

The 50 Free Apps We're Most Thankful For

Dropbox

1. See also: Dropbox Syncs and Backs Up Files Between Computers Instantaneously, The Cleverest Ways to Use Dropbox That You're Not Using, and Create a Highly Organized, Synchronized Home Folder with Dropbox

VLC (Video Lan Client)

1. See also: Master Your Digital Media with VLC, Set a Video as Your Wallpaper with VLC, and VLC 1.0 Records Video from DVDs

Google Chrome

1. See also: The Power User's Guide to Google Chrome, 2009 Edition, Create Your Own Google Chrome Themes, How and Why Chrome Is Overtaking Firefox Among Power Users, and Top 10 Must-Have Browser Extensions

Firefox

1. See also: Power User's Guide to Firefox 3, Top 10 Firefox 3.5 Features, and Top 10 Must-Have Browser Extensions

Opera

1. See also: Opera 11 Beta Introduces Tab Stacking for Customized Grouping, Opera 11 Alpha Brings Chrome-Like Extensions to the Speedy Browser, and Top 10 Must-Have Browser Extensions

Google Apps

1. See also: Trick Out Google Apps for Your Domain, Seven Easy Ways to Integrate Your Google Apps Collaborate with Co-Workers Using Google Apps Team Edition, A First Look at Google Voice,Top 10 Clever Google Voice Tricks, and Turn Gmail Into Your Ultimate GTD Inbox

Simplenote and Notational Velocity

1. See also: The Holy Grail of Ubiquitous Plain-Text Capture, Simplenote Offers Synchronized Notes on iPhones-And Now It's Free, and mNote Syncs Your Simplenote Notes with Android Phones

CCleaner

1. See also: CCleaner 2.0 Decrapifies Your PC, Run CCleaner on a Schedule to Keep Your PC Crap-Free, and CCleaner Enhancer Makes CCleaner Even Better, Now Cleans 270 New Apps

uTorrent

1. See also: uTorrent 3.0 Alpha Adds Web Interface Support for iPad, Android and How to Boost Your BitTorrent Speed and Privacy

Transmission

1. See also: Manage Your BitTorrent Downloads with Transmission and Transmission 2.0 Adds a Whole Lot of Stability to the Popular BitTorrent Client

sabnzbd+

1. See also: How to Get Started with Usenet in Three Simple Steps

Open Office

1. See also: A First Look at OpenOffice.org 3.0, OpenOffice.org 3.2 Improves Startup Times, Office 2007 Compatibility, and OpenOffice.org 3.1's Usability Tweaks

Skype

1. See also: our full Skype coverage

Evernote

1. See also: Expand Your Brain with Evernote and Clever Uses for Evernote

GIMP

1. See also: Is GIMP better than Photoshop?, Tweak GIMP to be More Like Photoshop, and Cartoonify Photos with the GIMP

KeePass

1. See also: Best Password Manager: KeePass and Eight Best KeePass Plug-Ins to Master Your Passwords

LastPass

1. See also: The Intermediate Guide to Mastering Passwords with LastPass

7-zip

1. See also: Hive Five Winner for Best File Compression Tool: 7-Zip

ImgBurn

1. See also: Download of the Day: ImgBurn (Windows), Hive Five Winner for Best CD and DVD Burning Tool: ImgBurn, and Turn Your PC into a DVD Ripping Monster

Microsoft Security Essentials

1. See also: Microsoft Security Essentials Ranks as Best-Performing Free Antivirus and Stop Paying for Windows Security; Microsoft's Security Tools Are Good Enough

AutoHotkey

1. See also: Automate Windows with AutoHotkey, Turn Any Action into a Keyboard Shortcut, and The Best Time-Saving AutoHotkey Tricks You Should Be Using

Pandora

1. See also: Best Music Discovery Service: Pandora, Discover new music with Pandora, and How to access Pandora from outside the U.S.

FileZilla

1. See also: Hive Five Winner for Best FTP Client: FileZilla, FTP File Transfer Across Platforms with Filezilla 3.0, and Build a Home FTP Server with FileZilla

TrueCrypt

1. See also: Best File Encryption Tool: TrueCrypt and Geek to Live: Encrypt your data

HandBrake

1. See also: Best DVD-Ripping Tool: HandBrake, Rip DVDs to Friendlier Formats with HandBrake, and Calculate the Perfect HandBrake Video Encoding Settings for Your Device

VirtualBox

1. See also: The Beginner's Guide to Creating Virtual Machines with VirtualBox and How to Run Mac OS X in VirtualBox on Windows

Audacity

1. See also: Digitize and Clean Your Analog Audio Collection with Audacity, Learn how to use Audacity for podcasting, and Remove Vocals from MP3s with Audacity

Paint.NET

1. See also: Download of the Day: Paint.NET 3 (Windows), Pinta Brings Paint.NET's Just-Enough Image Editing to Every Computer, and Basic image editing with Paint.NET

iTunes

1. See also: Geek to Live: iTunes power tips, Install iTunes Without the Extra Bloat, The 23 Best iTunes Add-ons, and our full iTunes coverage

Thunderbird

1. See also: our full Thunderbird coverage and Backing up Gmail with Thunderbird

Foobar2000

1. See also: Hack Attack: Roll your own killer audio player with foobar2000 and Screenshot Tour: The beautiful and varied world of foobar2000

Pidgin

1. See also: Chat Across IM Platforms with Pidgin 2.4, Ten Must-Have Plug-ins to Power Up Pidgin, and Use Dropbox to Sync Your Pidgin Profile Across Multiple PCs

Adium

1. See also: our full Adium coverage

avast!

1. See also: Avast Free Antivirus 5.0 Adds Behavior Monitor, Heuristics Engine, and Improved Performance and Free anti-virus roundup

TeamViewer

1. See also: Download of the Day: TeamViewer (Windows) and TeamViewer Arrives on Android for Small-Screen Remote Control and Tech Support

TweetDeck

1. See also: Best Twitter Client: TweetDeck, TweetDeck Offers Features Twitter Lacks, and Use Evernote with TweetDeck for Better Twitter Memory

Launchy

1. See also: Integrate Everything Search Tool and Launchy, Take Launchy beyond application launching, and Screenshot Tour: Tweaking Launchy

Quicksilver

1. See also: Hack Attack: A beginner's guide to Quicksilver and Top 10 Quicksilver Plug-ins

Instapaper

1. See also: Battle of the Bookmark-and-Read-Later Apps: Instapaper vs. Read It Later

ReadItLater

1. See also: Battle of the Bookmark-and-Read-Later Apps: Instapaper vs. Read It Later

XBMC

1. See also: Build a Silent, Standalone XBMC Media Center On the Cheap, Turbo Charge Your New XBMC Installation, Transform Your Classic Xbox into a Killer Media Center, and Turn Your XBMC Media Center into a Video Game Console

PuTTY

1. See also: Put PuTTY in the Tray with PuTTY Tray, Add Tabs to PuTTY with PuTTY Connection Manager, and KiTTY Adds Session Saving, Portability, and More to PuTTY

Cyberduck

1. See also: FTP for Free with Cyberduck and Cyberduck FTP Client Updates with Google Docs Support, New S3 Features

Perian

1. See also: Perian Makes Nearly Every Video Playable in QuickTime

XAMPP

1. See also: Run Your Personal Wikipedia from a USB Stick

Windows Live Essentials

1. See also: First Look at Windows Live Essentials Beta's New Social Features and Lifehacker Faceoff: iLife '11 vs. Live Essentials 2011

Winamp

1. See also: Manage your music with Winamp and Control Winamp Remotely from Any Browser

TeraCopy

1. See also: Speed up file copying with TeraCopy and Hive Five Winner for Best Alternative File Copier: TeraCopy

Eclipse

1. See also: Tips for Using Eclipse Effectively

MediaMonkey

1. See also: MediaMonkey 3.2 Syncs with More Devices, Adds Auto Folder Watching

And that's the list! Items on this year's list garnered a minimum of ten votes (with a few exceptions), with popular apps pulling in far more. Dropbox took the lead with 137 votes, followed by VLC with 109, and Firefox with 97. Happy downloading, and happy Thanksgiving!