Windows

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PC Software of the Day

FileZilla

Quick, stable and secure FTP client

Friday Night Funkin’

Follow the rhythm of the rap battles with lots of flow

• Google Drive

Google’s cloud storage service

TikTok

The social network with music videos

CleanMyPC

Clean and improve the performance of Windows

Left 4 Dead 2

The second part of Left 4 Dead for PC

Dr.Fone for Android

Recover all sorts of lost data on your smartphone

MobileGo

Manage your Android from your PC

AOMEI Backupper

Simple and efficient tool for your backups

Snapchat

The Windows version of the popular instant messaging app

Google Chrome

Google’s web browser

TeamViewer

One of the best remote access apps for PC

• GTA 5 — Grand Theft Auto

The PC version of Grand Theft Auto V

GTA Vice City — Grand Theft Auto

Become the most fearsome criminal of Vice City

Adobe Premiere

The best real-time digital video editing program

Minecraft

Build your own virtual world

Need for Speed Most Wanted

One of the most popular installments of the NFS series

GTA San Andreas — Grand Theft Auto

Help CJ in his comeback to San Andreas

FL Studio

Powerful DAW to compose music on your PC

Photoshop

Professional photo enhancement on your PC

PES 2021 — Pro Evolution Soccer

The 2020-2021 season PES for PC

The Sims 4

Fourth installment of the social simulation game

Editor’s Pick

• WhatsApp Messenger

The official version of WhatsApp for Windows

Google Chrome

Google’s web browser

Fortnite

The best battle royale game for PC

Firefox

The web browser by the Mozilla Foundation

uTorrent

The best client to download torrents

VLC Media Player

The most stable and versatile multimedia player

Virtual DJ

The most complete free software for DJs

BlueStacks

The best Android emulator for PC

Driver Booster

App to automatically update drivers

Office 2016

Microsoft’s office suite

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Categories

Follow the rhythm of the rap battles with lots of flow

Run Android applications on your computer

Viking and Norse mythology action role-playing game

Kodi add-on for watching TV series and movies

Client for downloading anime

The tool to solve problems on your iPhone

Games

One of the best shooters in gaming history

A battle royale in which we can destroy everything

Possibly the best soccer game

Tool to create cheats for games

A battle royale shooter that intends to compete with Fortnite and Overwatch

The fastest and most acrobatic car races

Multimedia

Download videos from YouTube to your PC

Practical program to download videos from the Internet and much more

Manage the videos you download from the Internet

Watch YouTube videos from your desktop

Download videos from any Internet site

Download songs and videos from YouTube

Online TV

Online TV on your PC for free

Online TV and series on demand

Online movies and series player

Enjoy the best television offer on your computer

A way of watching TV through the P2P network

Editor’s Pick

Android game emulator for PC

The king of multimedia suites

Mount virtual units on your PC

The best Android emulator for Windows

The P2P client for nostalgic users

Listen to music via streaming on your PC

Latest tips & tricks

Microsoft Windows

Windows is Microsoft’s operating system created in 1985, extremely popular due to its graphical user interface (GUI) based on windows. This operating system not only runs on personal computers, but is also available in different versions, for mobile devices and servers, being the most implemented OS in the world.

With Windows 10 the Company based in Redmond has made a great effort to create a single operating system that runs regardless of the device, so that both smartphone and desktop users access the same interface, but adapted to their respective devices.

At Malavida we analyze and curate the best Windows programs, and our experts offer detailed information about this software, which is complemented with how-to manuals, tutorials and videos so users like yourself have as much information as possible.

4 Free Ways to Run Android Apps on Your PC

Want to use Android apps on a PC? There are plenty of good, free ways to emulate Android right on your computer, including the Your Phone app, BlueStacks, Genymotion, and Android-x86. Let’s take a look.

Ever wish you could run an Android app or game on your PC so you weren’t relegated to a tiny phone screen? Or maybe you need to test a feature on Android, but don’t have an Android device handy. Here are four free ways to run Android (and its apps) on your computer.

Mirror Your Phone With Windows

For apps installed on your phone, you don’t need anything fancy to get Android on your PC. The Windows Your Phone app provides the ability to mirror the screen of many Samsung phones to your PC, with access to most of your apps through a simple desktop window. Just follow our instructions on connecting your phone to Windows, then choose the Phone Screen option in the sidebar to mirror your device.

Microsoft is working on expanding this feature even further, with the ability to pin Android apps on your taskbar and launch them individually, as long as your phone and computer are connected. At the time of writing, this feature is available in Windows 10’s Insider Previews and is slowly rolling out to the general public.

This isn’t always the ideal solution. If you’re looking to play games, this may come with some delay and graphical blurriness, and you won’t be able to easily share files from your PC directly to an app in Android. But for quick access to Android apps you already have installed, it definitely works in a pinch.

Run Your Favorite Apps With BlueStacks

If you’re just looking to run a couple apps and don’t need the emulator to look like Android, you should try BlueStacks. Over the years, it’s become the best Android app emulator around, and it’s packed with features that ensure your apps and games run smoothly. Since it uses virtualization to emulate Android, you’ll want to jump into your computer’s BIOS and enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V, if your computer supports it, for best performance.

Download and install BlueStacks as you would any other Windows or Mac application. It’ll take up about 2GB of space on your computer (plus any apps you download), and when it launches, you’ll be greeted with its customized home screen. It doesn’t mimic a traditional Android launcher, but you do get access to the Play Store to download any apps you want—they’ll appear on BlueStacks’ home screen and on your Windows desktop as their own shortcuts. Just double-click an icon to run the app in question.

BlueStacks is great for apps that don’t have corresponding desktop apps, but the emulator really shines when it comes to games. BlueStacks comes with built-in mappings for your mouse and keyboard, which you can customize to the touch controls you find on different Android games.

You can also adjust the resolution, DPI, FPS, and amount of CPU or RAM allocated to the emulator, ensuring you get the best balance between speed and graphical fidelity. (This is particularly useful given that BlueStacks is fairly resource-intensive, as many virtual machines are.)

BlueStacks does, unfortunately, come with some ads and clutter, but it’s not as intrusive as it once was, and it’s a small price to pay for the functionality you get—especially considering it uses Android 7.1 as its base, which is higher than most alternatives on the market.

Emulate Full Android Experience With Genymotion

If you’re looking to explore the Android operating system itself—rather than individual apps—Genymotion is a decent emulator. Its main product is designed for developers and costs money to use, but there is a free version of the software you can download for personal use; you just need to create an account on the website first.

Genymotion uses VirtualBox to emulate Android, so you’ll either need to have VirtualBox installed on your PC or download the version with VirtualBox bundled. Install it like you would any other Windows program, ensuring you select the version for «Personal Use» during the wizard. (And like BlueStacks, you’ll want to enable Intel VT-x or AMD-V from your computer’s BIOS if you have it.)

When you start Genymotion, it’ll present you with a list of device templates you can install—this determines the screen resolution, Android version, and resources allotted to the emulator. Install the template you want and double-click it to enter Android. You’ll be able to navigate around the home screen, launch apps, and emulate certain events like GPS location.

Note that you’ll start with a very barebones version of Android that doesn’t even come with many of Google’s apps or modern features, though you can add the Play Store by clicking the «Open Gapps» icon in the sidebar to install it. Also, no matter which template you choose, you won’t get any custom versions of Android—picking the Samsung Galaxy S10 template, for example, won’t get you Samsung’s One UI. It just determines the resolution and specs of the virtual machine. (Genymotion does support Android versions from 4.4 all the way up to 10.0, though.)

Genymotion works well for exploring Android’s settings and other built-in features, though I wouldn’t necessarily use it to run individual apps, as it just doesn’t integrate as well with your PC as something like BlueStacks. If Genymotion doesn’t suit your needs, Google’s official Android software development kit also comes with an Android emulator, though setup is a bit more complex, so I wouldn’t recommend it for most users.

Run Android Directly on Your PC With Android-x86

If you’re looking for something a bit more full-featured, the Android-x86 project gets you as close as you can get to true Android on your PC. Android-x86 is an open-source project that ports Android to the x86 platform, allowing you to run it on your computer instead of an ARM-based phone or tablet.

To run Android-x86, you have a couple of options. If you want to run Android on its own, as a desktop operating system for your PC, you can download it as an ISO disc image and burn it to a USB drive with a program like Rufus. Then, insert that USB drive into the PC in question, reboot, and enter the boot menu (usually by pressing a key like F12 during the boot process).

By booting from your Android-x86 USB drive, you’ll either be able to run Android in a live environment—without having any effect on your PC—or install it to your PC’s hard drive for permanent usage (and better performance).

Alternatively, if you want to run Android-x86 on top of your existing operating system, you can download the disc image and run it inside VirtualBox. This is, again, a bit more advanced if you aren’t familiar with VirtualBox, but our guide to running Windows on a Mac can get you acquainted with the process.

The official site has some tips for getting Android-x86 up and running in a virtual machine as well. It’s more work than using something like BlueStacks, but it’s also closer to pure Android, which is a nice perk.