Browser : Mozilla's FIREFOX http://www.mozilla.org/
Probably the best free software of all time.
Where have you been, under a rock or something. The only real alternative in the browsing stakes to Microsnots Internet Explorer yes there is Safari from Apple but the Apple policy of over-engineering leaves you with a lot of swish but unusable features & Google's chrome, while blindingly fast, has nowhere the extensibility of FIREFOX. & while you are at the Mozilla site pick up Thunderbird Email Client
http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/, Sunbird Calender or Lightning extension for Thunderbird Email Client
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/[adds the same calender functionality to Thunderbird] ,
Flock social browser http://www.flock.com/[for all those myspace/facebook/twitter addicts etc..],
Prism for creating stand alone web apps http://prism.mozilla.com/,
Kompozer a WYSIWYG html editor http://www.kompozer.net/,
Songbird http://www.getsongbird.com/ an Open Source Alternative to iTunes with extra functionality built in.
Miro internet television http://www.getmiro.com/[with built in torrent client]
Office Suite: Sun's OPEN OFFICE [& derivitives]
http://www.openoffice.org/
OXYGEN OFFICE :http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=170021
Sun used to be a hardware company [& still make specialized server & supercomputer componentry] & then along came JAVA & MYSQL & Suddenly SUN was a player in software. Out of this came OPEN OFFICE probably the best office suite of all time, equal to Microsnots office in nearly every respect it wins extra brownie points for being FREE. Oxygen Open Office OOo is a hugely expanded version of open office & is the superior version for serious writers.
A Honorable mention goes to EVERNOTE http://www.evernote.com/ which I've already written a blog about, but once more for the hard of thinking, EVERNOTE is a web based notepad synchronzer each evernote notepad stands alone but syncs with all evernote notepads on all machines including their central server making them available through any browser. the best of cloud/local solutions
Virtual DVD/CD Drive Emulator: GIZMO Drive
One of the pieces of software that nobody ever thinks of, But one in these days of optical drive-less netbooks that is ESSENTIAL, with GIZMO you can have up to 10 virtual DVD/CD drives on your PC, enabling you to watch dvd images or listen to cd images use images of game disks to run & play your favorite games.
It shouldn't be to long before Blu-ray Support is added.
CD/DVD Burner : IMGBURN
Bugger NERO, that huge bloated & poor excuse for software, Usually installed as an OEM program or with a new optical drive & usually a "lite" version which has little or no real functionality. Let's face it 90% of NERO is USELESS so what would you have if you stripped out that 90% , most probably a bigger mess... so go & download IMGBURN it does what the name implies & a few other things besides & does them exceptionally well.
[side note #1 : DVD DECRYPTER http://www.dvddecrypter.org.uk/ a DVD imaging Program {that removes CSS encryption} is based on IMGBURN & is also a worthwhile download especially for those backing up video libraries]
Paint/Image Editor : Paint.Net
It could have so easily been The Gimp http://www.gimp.org/ except for one small exception, the gimp is HUGE & Paint.net isn't, for most people The gimp is Overkill, too many choices give the inexperienced too many ways to screw things up... fatally. Paint.Net is simple with a short easy learning curve & you can get really quite professional results with it.
Uninstaller : Revo Uninstaller
Why ?. Because in most cases when you uninstall software you leave traces of it somewhere, [sometimes all an un-installer does is remove registry entries & start menu icons leaving the actual files still in the program files folder] REVO Uninstaller fixes these problems, it can be set to totally remove a piece of software Safely it then scans for any unwanted files left behind it then asks you what you want to do wit them. Now when you Uninstall a program it'll be Uninstalled Properly.
Secure File Eraser : Eraser
All of us have sensitive data that we don't want people looking at, so we use Encryption software such as TrueCrypt [http://www.truecrypt.org/downloads] or BitLocker, but what happens when we trash that file?.
In general it ends up unencrypted in the trash and even when the trash is emptied it can still be recovered by software such as RECUVA [http://www.piriform.com/recuva] hell you can even reformat the drive & still probably recover it, at this point you say bugger it & go get a beer, but there is a solution and it's name is eraser from simple one pass overwrites to the strenuous Gutzmann 35 Pass overwrite if you want to get rid of it... forever, this is the software.
Internet Telephony/VOIP : Skype
There really isn't much of a argument here, as there are only a handful of programs that do this & only one that makes the grade, Skype, Stable,secure,free with cheap upgrade paths to enable you to all but throw away your landline [you'll still need it for 000 calls & to use during blackouts or if the internet goes down, you will soon be able to replace mobiles with it [ with the advent of smart phones like the iPhone & the Android Phone OS with the ability to install software just as if it were a computer, in fact the iPhone has a skype app but it only works via WiFi.
Image Viewer/Collection organizer : (TIE) Picassa/XnView
This was Hard for every thing that this software does or needs to do it does well the features missing in one are in the other & vice versa they both have the same great price $FREE or $0.00 so why not get both
along with Paint.Net http://www.getpaint.net/download.html You have all the tools that you would have with something like Adobe's Hugely overrated & overblown Behemoth Photoshop with a greater degree of flexibility.
Multimedia: (3way Tie) VLC,Klite Mega Codec Pack,DVD videosoft Free Studio Manager
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html - http://www.codecguide.com/download_mega.htm - http://www.dvdvideosoft.com/ .
This honestly couldn't have gone any other way, the best Player VLC, all of the CODECS you could ever possibly need including ffmpeg[for decoding & encoding Video] in KLite Mega Codec Pack & the best Free Video encoding/converting software in DVD Videosoft's Free Studio Manager.
If you have these installed & come across a media file that you can't play or convert using these programs you havn't got a media file, VLC can play from .ISO & other images natively as well as from compressed [.zip] files.
Honorable Mention [with arm twisted up back]
iTunes http://www.apple.com/itunes/ , yes it is bloated,overly engineered,& can slow a system to a crawl, but if you own an iPod Touch or iPhone & do not want to Jailbreak it you don't really have much of a choice, Bugger you Steve Jobs.
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