Lightroom Classic (I’ve tried Darktable, just not for me. I take a lot of photos on my DSLR and I’ve been using Lightroom since 2015 so for me it’s worth eating the awful monthly subscription that I split with someone else.)
Anki (flashcard app, very popular among med school students and folks trying to learn new languages. Open source and tons of useful decks available. I’ve aced plenty of exams thanks to Anki.)
Bitwarden (finally caved and got a password manager-- could not be happier)
CHIRP (the best for programming handheld, mobile and base station radios)
CrystalDiskInfo (great for checking the health of SSDs and HDDs)
DaVinci Resolve (love using this for video editing-- pirated copy was easy to find)
Deluge (great for torrenting)
foobar2000 (I love it for music)
Greenshot (useful screencapture software)
inSSIDer (great for wifi analysis)
IrfanView (very good for photo management)
MusicBrainz Picard (amaaaaaaaaazing god tier music management software to get all the correct metadata/album art)
reWASD ($7 but it’s so good for no BS macro’ing of keyboard/mouse/gamepad shortcuts and profiles. I have two PCs and two mice + gamepad attached to my PC and this software is very helpful. I think the license is for life.)
WizTree (SSD/HDD visualization tool that is useful for figuring out what’s taking up too much space on your drive)