My Favorite New Apps of 2022 (Premium)

We develop habits and workflows, and behavioral change is difficult. But if you’re open to improving matters and experimenting, good things can happen. It’s exciting when you discover something that’s both new and better and can make a positive change in your life.

There are lots of areas in which we might apply this thinking, and if you are a Thurrott Premium member and read the newsletter, you know that I discuss this kind of thing a lot. (If not, no worries: one of my New Year’s resolutions this year is to get an archive of those editorials on the web.)

Today, I’d like to apply it to apps.

As a decades-long Windows user, I’ve developed some obvious habits when it comes to how I work and the tools I use to undertake that work. I have never stopped experimenting with platform alternatives---like macOS, Linux, and Chrome OS---on the desktop, but I keep coming back to Windows because I prefer it. That’s a nice bit of recurring confirmation that also speaks well of being open to change: I’ve tried the alternatives again and again but I still prefer what I was already using.

At the app level, of course, there is even more choice. And maybe less incentive to change in some cases: Windows versions come and go, but many of the apps that I use do not. As I get older, I find myself less interested in the new and shiny and more likely to stick with what works. But I try. And I am surprised to report that I adopted several new apps this year. I’m perhaps overdue for a general “What I Use” article---another item for that News Year’s resolutions list---but for now I can at least list out those app experiments that stuck this year.

Brave
This was such a big deal that I wrote an article about it, and it was a switch I had tried and failed to make several times in the past. But Brave is exactly what I’m looking for: a browser that combines all of the performance and compatibility of Chrome with built-in privacy and security controls that keep Google and other nefarious ad-dealing activity trackers at bay. It is, in other words, exactly what Microsoft promised but absolutely did not deliver with the Chromium-based Edge. It’s a lightweight and fast browser that requires far fewer extensions than the competition because it does so much to protect users out of the box. More than any other mainstream browser, in fact.

Brave
Replaces: Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge
Price: FREE

ImageGlass
Frustrated by the buggy Photos app in Windows 11---sometimes you get image-to-image navigation, sometimes you don’t---I started looking for alternatives. And an incredible alternative appeared courtesy of Kevin Llyod on Twitter: ImageGlass. It’s exactly what it says it is---a lightweight image viewer with vast format compatibility and a minimal user interface---and exactly what I wanted. Here’s how I use it: after installing it, I disable the toolbar entirely (by pressing “T”) and then put it into full-screen mode (...