- AVG free anti-virus software at http://free.grisoft.com/.
For a review of half a dozen free anti-virus programs see http://askbobrankin.com/free_antivirus_programs.html. There's NO EXCUSE to run a computer with no antivirus software on it! - Free firewall software -
ZoneAlarm http://www.download.com/3000-2092-10039884.html
Comodo at http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/ - OpenOffice at http://openoffice.org. A complete alternative to Microsoft Office.
- Firefox at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/. A great Web browser. Be sure to check out the "extensions" you can add on to Firefox.
- xplorer2 at http://www.zabkat.com/. A greatly improved file manager compared to Windows Explorer.
- Text editors better than Microsoft NotePad
NoteTab Lite at http://www.notetab.com/. Excellent, with lots of features.
NotePad2 at http://www.flos-freeware.ch/notepad2.html
NotePad++ at http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm. Especially good for writing computer code because it includes syntax highlighting for HTML, XML, Javascript, PHP, Pascal, C++, and many other programming languages.
PDPad at http://www.pspad.com/en/pspad.htm. Syntax highlighting, templates, FTP client to edit files from your website, macro recorder, hex editor, and more. - Hex Editor XVI32 for programmers at http://www.chmaas.handshake.de/delphi/freeware/xvi32/xvi32.htm
- IrfanView, great image viewer/editor for daily use at http://www.irfanview.com/. Also plays video files, slideshows, and more. (Great, but does not seem to work with Vista.)
- GIMP image editor, an alternative to Photoshop at http://www.gimp.org/windows/
- 7-Zip alternative to WinZip or WinRar http://www.7-zip.org/
- Audacity editor for sound files at http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
- TrueCrypt file encryption at http://www.truecrypt.org/
- VLC Media Player at http://www.videolan.org/vlc/. Capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac ...) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
- NVu HTML creator, an alternative to Dreamweaver at http://nvudev.com/index.php. Or Kompozer at http://www.kompozer.net/, or BlueGriffon at http://bluegriffon.org/.
There are lots of freeware websites. Some, however, waste your time by listing trialware as well as genuine freeware. An example of a good freeware site is FreewareHome at http://www.freewarehome.com/
Sites for open source software include The OSSwin project: Open Source for Windowshttp://osswin.sourceforge.net/. This might be a little overwhelming.
One site listing open source software and freeware is Jason's Free Useful Software at http://www.jasonchen.com/free_software/
