Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella says the corporate is specializing in its shopper merchandise and “doing the foundational work required to win again followers.” If the corporate is severe about this effort, it wants to enhance the default Home windows apps that folks affiliate with the core OS expertise as a result of most have fallen far behind third-party alternate options. I don’t use a lot Microsoft software program on my Home windows 11 PC anymore as a result of I want competing companies, and I doubt I am alone in that opinion. To win folks like me again, Microsoft has to construct apps that work even higher than those I take advantage of every single day, beginning with the ten beneath.
1. Edge: Function-Heavy, AI-First, and Dropping Its Simplicity
Mozilla Firefox, with its streamlined interface and privateness options, is my present internet browser of alternative. I’ve spent numerous time utilizing Google Chrome and Courageous, too. I first used Edge years in the past when it was codenamed Mission Spartan, because of its minimal interface. Nevertheless, through the years, Microsoft has critically bogged Edge down with options, and now I can not stand it any longer.
Firefox isn’t as cluttered as Edge, and I want Mozilla’s method to AI options (Credit score: Mozilla/Microsoft/PCMag)
And whereas Firefox has an AI kill swap, Microsoft insists on advertising and marketing Edge as an AI browser. Home windows 11 usually tries to trick me into setting Edge as my default internet browser, too, which I discover obnoxious. Microsoft Edge additionally shops saved passwords in plain textual content in reminiscence, whereas different browsers make better efforts to guard them.
2. Phrase: Highly effective, However Slower and Pricier Than Google Docs
Everybody in my private {and professional} life appears to want Google Docs for doc collaboration. Though Microsoft 365 purposes like Excel, PowerPoint, and Phrase would possibly nonetheless be the usual in some companies, nobody sends me Phrase doc information anymore.
Microsoft 365 begins at $100 per 12 months for entry to desktop workplace purposes, whereas Google Docs is free. Microsoft’s web-based workplace suite apps are additionally free, however the folks I do know nonetheless want Google Docs.
In principle, I want succesful native desktop purposes that work outdoors a browser. In apply, nonetheless, I want the sooner really feel of Google Docs and Sheets over the heavier expertise of Excel and Phrase. Microsoft 365 purposes have a deeper assortment of superior options, however most individuals don’t want them.
Google Docs beats paying a subscription price for Microsoft Phrase (Credit score: Google/Microsoft/PCMag)
I take advantage of Discord, Google Chat, Sign, Slack, SMS messages, and Telegram to speak with folks. They usually all work splendidly for his or her functions. Microsoft Groups isn’t only for companies, however I don’t use it to speak with anybody.
Sure, Microsoft has a free private model of Groups, and Home windows 11 shipped with a now-removed taskbar Chat button that used it. However dwelling PC customers had already used different chat companies, and professionals noticed Groups as a enterprise instrument, so nobody had a lot motive to undertake it.
Microsoft says Groups is the successor to MSN Messenger and Skype, however I’ve by no means met anybody who used Groups for something aside from their job. Skype reportedly as soon as had 660 million customers, so it’s a disgrace that Microsoft mismanaged its obvious successor.
4. Outlook: Purposeful, However Much less Seamless Than Gmail and Calendar
I switched to Gmail again in 2004, leaving my Hotmail electronic mail deal with behind. The Gmail internet interface works completely. Microsoft’s new Outlook connects to Gmail, but it surely does so by syncing all of your Gmail emails to Microsoft’s servers. That appears unnecessarily complicated once I might simply use Gmail and Google Calendar. I take advantage of an Android telephone too, so each of these apps work seamlessly on cell.
If I needed a desktop electronic mail app that doesn’t retailer my emails on one other firm’s servers, I’d set up Mozilla Thunderbird.
5. To Do: Weak Calendar Integration Holds It Again
I now use Google Duties as my to-do listing app as a result of it really works seamlessly with Google Calendar. Microsoft To Do doesn’t have any type of comparable calendar integration.
I used to be a fan of Wunderlist, a well-liked to-do listing app Microsoft acquired again in 2015. And when Microsoft launched To Do in 2017, it felt like Wunderlist with a special identify. Since then, nonetheless, the corporate has targeted on activity administration in Outlook and seemingly forgotten about To Do. I’d use Todoist if I needed one thing extra complicated.
6. OneNote: Function-Wealthy, However Sync Reliability Undermines It
Google Maintain is a quick, streamlined note-taking utility that’s good for writing grocery lists, reminders, and different fast notes to myself. I like Microsoft OneNote, however I’ve repeatedly encountered cross-device syncing issues. I’ve by no means run into any such issues with Google Maintain.
OneNote has highly effective options, similar to audio recording and handwritten notes, however I don’t want them. I want a quick note-taking utility with a dependable sync characteristic. If I needed one thing with extra options, I’d swap to Obsidian earlier than I attempted to make OneNote work for me once more.
Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Duties, and Google Maintain work effectively collectively (Credit score: Google/Microsoft/PCMag)
7. OneDrive Images: Serviceable Storage, Weak Picture Expertise
Google Images is a elegant, trendy photograph app. For years, I routinely uploaded my smartphone photographs to OneDrive, making the most of the 1TB of cloud storage I get with my Microsoft 365 subscription. Now, I’m uninterested in the OneDrive Images expertise, which looks like a photograph viewer shoehorned right into a cloud file storage service.
Google Images has superior search options and modifying instruments, together with a sooner interface for looking photographs. In the meantime, the Gallery expertise in Home windows 11’s File Explorer is sluggish and clunky. I’ve reached a breaking level and am shifting my photographs out of OneDrive and into Google Images.
8. Cellphone Hyperlink: Nice Idea, Unstable Actual-World Efficiency
Google Messages for Internet is an easy internet interface for texting out of your PC. All it’s good to arrange the expertise is an Android telephone with the Google Messages app.
Beneficial by Our Editors
I’ve a love-hate relationship with Microsoft’s Cellphone Hyperlink app. When it really works, I benefit from the tight integration between my Android telephone and PC. I notably like the power to repeat and paste SMS safety codes and ship messages from the consolation of my PC’s full keyboard.
Nevertheless, the Cellphone Hyperlink expertise is extraordinarily unreliable and liable to frequent connection drops. Google Messages for Internet runs in a browser and handles solely texting, but it surely’s far more fulfilling and reliable.
Google Messages permits you to textual content from an online browser in case you have an Android telephone (Credit score: Google/Microsoft/PCMag)
9. Copilot: Formidable AI Imaginative and prescient, However Lacks Consumer Belief and Management
If I needed to advocate an AI chatbot, I’d advocate Claude. I’ve by no means loved utilizing Copilot as a result of it provides fewer choices than different chatbots. I’m additionally skeptical of Microsoft’s long-term plans for Copilot. Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI, has shared his imaginative and prescient for the longer term:
“Copilot will definitely have a type of everlasting identification, a presence, and it’ll have a room that it lives in, and it’ll age,” he stated on The Colin & Samir Present in July 2025. He talked about how Copilot would comply with you thru your life, constructing a long-term reminiscence. I don’t need that have, and I’d quite keep away from Copilot.
10. Xbox: Subscription Mannequin Trails Steam’s Possession Enchantment
I want shopping for PC video games on Steam. I’ve additionally used Xbox Sport Go, which was as soon as a very good worth. Microsoft has backed off on latest worth will increase, however I don’t need to pay a month-to-month price for a library of video games Microsoft chooses for me. I need to personal copies of the PC video games I need to play and revel in them at my leisure. Video games I purchase on Steam can run on my Steam Deck or Linux PC, too. I don’t need to purchase video games on Microsoft’s Xbox app both as a result of that locks me into the Home windows platform. Some titles even provide extra options on Steam, too, similar to Steam Workshop assist for mods.
I’d quite personal video games on Steam than lease them from Xbox Sport Go (Credit score: Valve/Microsoft/PCMag)
Microsoft’s App Hole Is Undermining Home windows
I am not so sad with Home windows that I am changing primary utilities like File Explorer, Notepad, PowerToys, and the Snipping Software, however that is a reasonably low bar to clear. (I’ll say that I complement Process Supervisor with AppControl, nonetheless).
The broader challenge turns into clearer once you take a look at ChromeOS and macOS. Each ship with extra cohesive, polished, and user-friendly default apps that deal with on a regular basis computing duties in a method that feels intentional and refined. For a lot of customers, that is sufficient—they do not instantly really feel the necessity to seek for third-party replacements simply to get a clean expertise out of the field.
If Microsoft needs us to make use of its first-party software program once more, it has to develop a greater assortment of apps that makes the Home windows expertise worthwhile. In any other case, folks will search out third-party software program that runs in any browser or purchase non-Home windows machines that work higher by default.
About Our Professional
Chris Hoffman
Senior Author, Software program
Expertise
I have been writing about expertise for greater than 15 years and utilizing it in earnest for over twice as lengthy. As a member of PCMag’s software program group, I deal with Home windows protection, but in addition write about different key desktop working techniques and system apps. (I used Home windows 3.1 upon its launch and have adopted each subsequent launch intently).
Previous to becoming a member of PCMag, I wrote for How-To Geek beginning in 2011, and my articles amassed over a billion web page views. I went on to run the publication as editor-in-chief for 4 and a half years. I’ve additionally contributed to Computerworld, Quick Firm, PCWorld, Reader’s Digest, The New York Instances, and plenty of different shops about all the pieces from AI to PC {hardware} to Home windows. I based and ran my very own direct-to-reader Home windows-focused newsletters, Home windows Intelligence and The Home windows ReadMe, working in partnership with Thurrott.com.
Learn Full Bio
