Five of the best free apps

Skype

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to talk to your family and friends face-to-face rather than just listen to their voices? You can if you’re connected to Skype, and it won’t cost a thing. 

All you have to do to use Skype for free is download the Skype app, create a profile and get your loved ones to do the same. 

Skype-to-Skype calls cost you nothing, whether you talk for five minutes or five hours. For more information check out our helpful guide to using Skype.

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Dropbox

Most computers and mobile devices today have a decent amount of storage space, but it’s limited and what you store on one device isn’t accessible on another. 

Dropbox is a cloud storage application  that gives you two gigabytes of free storage. Other cloud storage apps give more, but Dropbox is one of the easiest to download and use. 

Aside from storing all types of data, Dropbox can sync with your various devices so that when you store or update something on one device, it will automatically save your work on the others as soon as you go online.

For more tips and information browse our technology section, or try one of these popular articles:

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Spotify

If you like music, you’ll love Spotify. Described as the “best music streaming service on the planet” by Tech Radar, the Spotify playlist contains more than 20 million tracks of all genres, so if you can’t find something to listen to on Spotify, you probably won’t find it anywhere. 

While you will have to listen to the occasional ad if you download the free version, they’re not nearly as long as ads on TV and won’t ruin your listening experience. 

As you use Spotify, you can create your own music library simply by clicking “Save” on albums you like. As your library grows, you can organise it by artist, title, most played and recently added.

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PayPal 

If you don’t already have a PayPal account, it’s worth signing up even if you normally pay for online purchases with a credit card. Aside from being a handy way to pay for online purchases, PayPal is also the easiest and cheapest way to transfer money online. 

When you sign up for a free PayPal account, you link it to your bank account. It won’t touch your account until you transfer funds from your account to your PayPal account, or want to transfer money to your bank account. 

If you want to send money to someone, they’ll also need to have their own PayPal account but if you’re receiving money, anyone can make a payment to your account simply by entering the email address or mobile phone number connected to your PayPal account.

Flickr

Do you love taking and sharing digital photographs? Storing your photos on is a good way to back up your photos and save space on your computer’s hard drive. After you’ve signed up for a Flikr account, you can upload as many photos as you like. You can make them visible to the public or keep them hidden for your private use only.

Remember, when you’re online, “free” doesn’t mean second-rate. You may have to put up with a few ads and PayPal does charge a small transaction fee, but all of these cloud services are yours for the taking.

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