My New Apps, Services, and Games of 2025 ⭐

Here’s a look back at the apps, services, and games I started using in 2025. As with previous years, there was a lot of change, and a fairly obvious push to calm down Big Tech predations while adopting more Little Tech solutions.

Previous years: 2024, 2023, and 2022.

Windows 11

Windows continues to be my focus, but it’s also where I spend all my time working, and I have been evolving the set of apps I use year-by-year, not with a plan in mind, but as apps that are new (or new to me) come to light and are better than what I was using.

In 2024, for example, I switched (back) to Typora (a Markdown editor for writing), Notion, Affinity Photos 2.x, and Proton Pass (for password/identity management, also on mobile). 2025 saw a similar shift, though the most important change is tied to the single biggest issue we have using Windows these days. So let’s start there.

Windows 11 de-enshittification

I will continue using and testing macOS and various Linux distributions. And as many know, when it comes to the latter, I lean more towards those that are simpler, minimalist, and more user friendly like Elementary OS and Zorin OS. But I find that a properly de-enshittified Windows 11 is better than them all for me and, I think, for almost all Windows users. And while I’ve looked at a lot of different ways to achieve this over the past few years, a few solutions rose to the top this year. So much so that I now use these regularly on my own PCs.

The first step is to create a clean install of Windows 11 that is de-enshittified from the beginning, and that’s where Tiny11 Builder comes in. If I can’t start over for whatever reason, then I use Win11Debloat to achieve much the same effect after the fact. And Win11Debloat will be useful if (when?) some future Windows 11 update brings back some of the terrible.

Alongside those two critical tools, I also use and recommend:

• Rufus to create clean, de-enshittified Windows 11 installation media on USB
• ExplorerPatcher to remove the WinUI bloat from File Explorer and restore its underlying performance and reliability
• MSEdgeRedirect to sever all the forced Microsoft Edge usage and force Widgets, Search, and whatever else in Windows 11 to use my browser of choice

Note that when I do use Tiny11 Builder to create a clean install of Windows 11 that I have to use the Windows Package Manager (winget) to install a web browser (see below) because it does not include Edge.

Web browsers

This has been a big year for web browsers, and though that is a topic for another 2025 wrap-up post that’s coming soon, it’s worth discussing the web browsers I use myself and recommend. This is tricky because I often have to test other web browsers to keep up on what’s going on. But if you literally care about yourself, meaning you want to protect your privacy and security and do so without sacrificing a web that actually works, there is only one choice, Brave. I cannot recommend it enough.

Beyond that, I use Opera (Opera One, Opera GX, Opera Air, or Opera Neon) and Vivaldi, or even Edge or Chrome, but only with the right extensions. I use Privacy Badger and Adblock for privacy and security, plus Proton Pass (password/identity management), Instapaper (read later), Bonjourr (New tab replacement), Dark Reader (for dark mode), LanguageTool (spell checking), Google Translate, and a few others.

Synology Drive

I got two Synology NAS devices this past year, and I’ll have more about that in a coming 2025 hardware wrap-up. But I also switched to Synology Drive for my local file sync functionality, and it works as seamlessly as OneDrive or Google Drive. Just fantastic.

Affinity

Affinity Photo 2 quickly became a key part of daily workflow and it was so inexpensive it was almost silly. But for version 3 of its app suite, Affinity combined Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher into a single app called, wait for it, Affinity. And then it made the bold and incredible decision to make it available to anyone and everyone for free, with no caveats, no restrictions, no upsells, no nothing. And just like that, what was already wonderful became even better somehow. As with Brave, I cannot recommend it enough.

PC games

I continue to play games semi-exclusively on the PC, though I do sometimes venture into mobile gaming, but always on an iPad and usually with AAA-adjacent games that may have previously appeared on console or PC. I have what is basically a grandfathered-in Game Pass Ultimate subscription I would never pay for at its new and insane pricing level. But for now, that’s not an issue, and I have been more active with Steam, the Epic Games Store, and GOG.com this past year in that I purchased at least one game from each in 2025.

Tip: These services are all having holiday sales as I write this, and I’m considering a few other purchases, including Silent Hill f. But the Epic Games Store and Amazon Prime Gaming (which may be getting rebranded to Amazon Luna) both give away free games regularly, and it’s worth keeping an eye on both.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7

Call of Duty gets a lot of grief for the sameness of every annual release, but Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is one of the most egregious examples yet, a release so lackluster that Activision has pledged to never make this mistake again. So far, I still prefer the multiplayer levels in Black Ops 6, last year’s release, so I’ve stuck mostly to that, despite it being plenty stupid in its own right. But I’ve also started playing a few other similar games as noted below.

Battlefield 6

Battlefield 6 is a welcome surprise, with astonishingly realistic multiplayer graphics that put modern Call of Duty titles to shame. It’s normally $69.99, which seems egregious to me, and I can’t access it through Game Pass. But I got it on sale for $49 on the Epic Games Store (it’s the same price elsewhere) and I’m trying to get into it. This is a bit difficult to explain, but it’s just different enough from Call of Duty that it can be a bit tedious. However it’s also close enough that I suspect many will make the switch, and maybe for good. I will keep trying.

Fortnite

I tried PUBG and Fortnite when they arrived, respectively, several years ago and gave Call of Duty its first real competition of the modern era. But I couldn’t really get into these battle royale-type games because they were initially a kind of one-and-done experience where your character would be eliminated and you had to sit around and watch everyone else play until the match ended. And, of course, Call of Duty responded with Warzone, which I also couldn’t get into for basically the same reasons.

But the popularity of Fortnite, in particular, is impossible to deny. And now that it’s back on the iPhone, back on Android through the Google Play Store in the U.S., on the PC via the Xbox app in Windows 11, and is available for the first time on Windows 11 on Arm/Snapdragon X, I had to take another look.

I’m pleased to say it’s much improved and plays wonderfully on just about any device. The graphics are more cartoonish than realistic, but that can be an advantage in a fast-moving online game. And you can get in and out of games quickly now. I’ve not yet won a match, but I did place 3rd once (and in the top 20 a few other times). And it’s definitely a contender because it’s what I’m looking for: Something I can get into quickly, compete for a bit, and then get out of when needed. It being free doesn’t hurt either, come to think of it.

I’ve also tried PUBG, which is an interesting cross between Fortnite and Call of Duty in that it’s more realistic looking than the former, but I can’t really get into it. Ditto for Warzone, though I will give both a bit more time. It will be interesting to see where things stand a year from now.

Mobile: Phone and tablet

It’s weird to consider that I used 8 different smartphones in 2025, between the Apple iPhone 16 Pro Max, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL, Samsung Galaxy S25+, Pixel 10, Pixel 10 Pro, Pixel 10 Pro XL, Pixel 10 Pro Fold, and iPhone 17 Pro Max. But my basic phone usage hasn’t changed all that much year-over-year in the sense that I still use the same basic set of apps and still arrange my home screen using a single screen with a few folders.

This is also true with the iPad, the only tablet worth a damn, though I did move from a 13-inch iPad Air M2 to an iPad Mini and then to an 11-inch iPad Air M3 in 2025. I’m not proud of that, but in my defense, no one saw iPadOS 26 coming and I will have more about that and its impact on personal computing in a coming 2025 wrap-up.

Orion

I can’t recall how I stumbled on the Orion web browser, but it has that difficult to describe something and I love it. Orion is made by Kagi, the small company behind Kagi Search, and it’s only available on the Mac, iPhone, and iPad, though Windows and Linux versions are planned. It’s a native WebKit app, is somehow compatible with Chrome and Firefox extensions, and offers a Brave-like privacy stance. But to me, Orion is what Safari should be, and if Kagi can somehow get this browser working as well on Windows and Android, I will be all over it.

Proton Authenticator

Ideally, I would use one authenticator app everywhere. And ideally, that app would be Proton Authenticator, a Little Tech, privacy-first solution I love. I did replace Google Authenticator with it this year, which is good. But I still use Microsoft Authenticator for my Microsoft accounts because that sign-in experience is so seamless. Someday, I’ll only use one. It won’t be the Microsoft one.

Synology Photos (and Drive)

I installed and configured Synology Photos on all of the phones I used once I had a Synology NAS so I could back up my photos to storage I control. I also installed Synology Drive on all the phones and iPads, and though I rarely need that on mobile, it worked out well in a few cases when all I had was the iPad and I wanted to work.

Mobile games

I never play games on my phones. But I do sometimes play games on the iPad, always with an Xbox Wireless Controller, and I have been experimenting this past year to see whether certain games (or game types) can make sense. So I have Call of Duty Mobile and Fortnite to scratch that multiplayer itch. And I’m trying Red Dead Redemption and two Resident Evil titles, Resident Evil 2 (which I’d never played through) and Resident Evil Village (which I got into pretty far after finishing its predecessor). And … we’ll see.