Best Free Software

[JaJae]

In another thread I suggested a piece of freeware and figured I might as well make a thread about free Windows software. A lot of people don't realize the power of free software for PCs these days. In fact, most people really don't have to pay for software at all, save for a few specialized programs and games.

You can get everything you need, anti-virus, spyware removal, firewall, office suites, multimedia players, etc all for free and they'll often work just as well if not better than many retail software suites.

So I've decided to make a list, many of these programs I currently use and have hand picked after trying out many alternatives.

Anti-virus
AVG Free
Grisoft AVG Anti-virus is free for home users and works fairly well. The user interface is a bit dated, but it is regularly updated and auto-updates itself. It also contains an e-mail scanner and a scheduler to auto-scan. I use this at home.
AVG Free Advisor: Installation files & documentation

Avast Home
Avast produces a free anti-virus for home users. It acts much like AVG, but the user interface is a bit more intuitive. I actually use this on the PCs at work since it's a little more user friendly than AVG.
Free antivirus - avast! 4 Home Edition Download

Firewall
Comodo
Comodo offers a free firewall which does the job well and is light on system resources. It has a learning mode to recognize programs you wish to allow access to the internet. I've recently switched to this from Zone Alarm to test it out. It's becoming more and more popular.
Free Firewall Protection Software Best Firewall Computer Security Free Personal Firewall

Zone Alarm
Has a learning mode. Does the job well. Trusted my home and work PCs with this for years. Excellent firewall.
Check Point ZoneAlarm - Download & Buy

Spyware Removal
There are tons of good spyware removal programs. I choose not to run anything in the background just to clear up memory usage.

Spybot Search & Destroy
It's an oldie, but goodie. Still works well for system scans.
The home of Spybot-S&D!

Microsoft's Spyware Utility
Works well, but don't try running it on a pirated Windows version.
Download details: Windows® Defender

Spyware Terminator
Can slow your PC a bit, but works very well
Spyware Terminator - Spyware & Adware Real-Time Protection

HiJack This!
Not exactly a removal tool, but lets you know every process running on your PC. Good to find viruses and malware.
Merijn.org

Web Browsers
Mozilla Firefox
By far the most popular alternative to Internet Explorer. More secure and use of extensions make this a favorite.
Firefox - Rediscover the Web

Opera
My personal favorite. Packed with features out of the box. Fastest browser available. Secure.
Download Opera Web Browser

Office Suite
Open Office 2.2
No need to use any other. This was developed by Sun Microsystems to be run on Linux. It looks and acts just like MS Office and the files are 99% compatible. For most computer users there is absolutely no reason to pay for MS Office.
download: OpenOffice.org 2.2 Downloads

Google Docs
AJAX based, stores you data online for retrieval anywhere. Not as feature packed as Open Office, but serves the its purpose.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets

E-mail Client
Thunderbird
Basically the Mozilla Outlook Clone. Does most of what Outlook can do without the security risks.
Thunderbird - Reclaim your inbox

HTML Editor
NVU
A very basic Frontpage/Dreamweaver style program. Developed for Linux, ported to Windows
Nvu Downloads

Image Editor/Viewers
GIMP 2.0
Photoshop replacement. Designed for Linux ported to Windows
GIMP - Windows installers

Irfanview Image Viewer
Small, fast, lightweight image viewer. Can convert image types and do quick image touch-ups.
IrfanView - Official Homepage - one of the most popular viewers worldwide

Picasa
Google bought this piece of software quite simply because it rocks. Excellent image viewer/editor. Best used for photos.
Picasa

Archive Utility
Winrar
Fast and free utility to extract and create zip/rar files.
WinRAR archiver, a powerful tool to process RAR and ZIP files

FTP Clients
SmartFTP
The neato thing about SmartFTP is that it allows multiple FTP sessions at the same time.
SmartFTP - Download

Filezilla
Reliable and lightweight FTP editor. I use this frequently.
SourceForge.net: Files

Media Player
VLC
Plays any media file... Period. DVD, CD, audio, video, doesn't matter.
VLC media player - Overview

Instant Messenging
Trillian
Allows you to connect to all your messaging clients at once, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, IRC, etc.
Trillian - Free Software Downloads and Software Reviews - Download.com

VOIP
Skype
Free calls over the internet
Download Skype for Windows

If I think of more I'll update. Feel free to list your own favorite free software.

[IminWonderland]

What does FTP mean?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by IminWonderland

What does FTP mean?

File Transfer Protocol.

It's an old method and still used (for some stupid reason nobody has really thought of anything better) to upload files from a computer to an off-site server.

[Stylerod]

Wow, I use a lot of those!

[kinggovernor]

you are the winrar

[Dumpy Dooby]

Originally Posted by JaJae

File Transfer Protocol.

It's an old method and still used (for some stupid reason nobody has really thought of anything better) to upload files from a computer to an off-site server.

Oh c'mon! It's effective. I use FTP all the time. I keep a portable version of FlashFXP on my pen drive at all times!

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by Dumpy Dooby

Oh c'mon! It's effective. I use FTP all the time. I keep a portable version of FlashFXP on my pen drive at all times!

It's a silly transfer protocol to still be the standard in the 21st century.

[kinggovernor]

how about a decent free GIF animator?