Software:

Microsoft Security Essentials (virus & spayware protection). Click here.
I like this product for it's ease of use, simple interface and how little resources it uses. This has no email scanner but if you get a virus in your email it will still remove it when you try and open it.

AVG Free (virus & spyware protection plus link scanner, email scanner, phishing protection, search shield, ant-rootkit protection). Click here.
I recommend this for computers that children will be using, especially teens as it adds the link and search protection as well as an email scanner. It will slow your computer down a little but it's a fair trade for the extra protection.

Avira (virus &spyware protection plus anti-rootkit, anti-phishing and anti-dialer) Click here.
This is very much the same as AVG Free. It runs a little faster and doesn't slow down your computer as much but it also has a few less features.

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ImgBurn (Best free all around ripping/burning software for those that are somewhat experienced) Click here.
Supports CD-R/CD-RW/DVD+R/DVD-R/DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD (double layer mediums included); burns discs from images or files, creates bootable discs, creates images from files or discs, adds sessions to multisession discs, fixates discs, verifies burns, erases rewritable media; creates audio discs, creates video DVDs, HD-DVDs, and Blu-Ray discs; supports many image formats including BIN, CUE, DI, DVD, GI, IMG, ISO, MDS, NRG, PDI; enables access to drives for restricted users; multilingual, supports unicode filenames; endless amount of advanced features and options

CDBurnerXP (Great free CD/DVD burning program with a easy to use interface for beginners) Click here.
Supports CD-R/CD-RW/DVD+R/DVD-R/DVD+RW/DVD-RW/DVD-RAM/Blu-Ray/HD-DVD (double layer mediums included); burns discs from images or files, creates bootable discs, creates images from files or discs, copies discs to discs (does not bypass copyright protection), adds sessions to multisession discs, burns on-the-fly, verifies burns, erases rewritable media; creates audio discs, creates video DVDs; command line version; LightScribe cover printing support with very basic designer supporting custom background images; enables access to drives for restricted users; multilingual; some advanced features and options

DVD Shrink (Best DVD ripping software with some very nice options) Click here.
DVDShrink is software to backup DVD discs. You can use this software in conjunction with DVD burning software of your choice, to make a backup copy of any DVD video disc. DVDShrink will also burn your backup DVD, if you have installed the latest version of Nero. You can also download a demo version of Nero here. If you already possess alternative burning software and prefer to stick with it, then you can still use DVD Shrink. The output from DVDShrink can be saved as files on your hard drive, which you can then burn with software of your choice.

DVD Decrypter - Click here.
DVD Decrypter is a software application for Windows (including Windows 7 support) that can create backup disc images of the DVD-Video structure of DVDs. It can be used to image any DVD, but controversially it is especially useful for decrypting copy-protected movies. The program can also burn images to disc. CSS decrypting software (such as DVD Decrypter and AnyDVD) allows a region-specific DVD to be copied as an all-region DVD. It also removes Macrovision content protection, Content Scrambling System (CSS), region codes, and user operation prohibition.

SPAMfighter (Spam blocker for Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail and servers). Click here.
The idea with SPAMfighter is to get people worldwide to report the spam they get quickly and easily with a single click. When enough users have blocked a spam mail, it will be automatically placed in the SPAMfighter folder for all other SPAMfighter users. Right now 5,775,120 people all over the world helping to make SPAMfighter almost scarily effective.

Spybot-Search&Destroy (Spyware and malicious software scanner. The paid version offers real time protection). Click here.
For free this offers a very good scanner with free updates, the only drawback is that you have to update and scan manually. If you choose to pay you get real time protection along with scheduled update and scanning options.

CPUZ (system information). Click here.
CPU-Z is a freeware that gathers information on some of the main devices of your system.
CPU Name and number. Core stepping and process. Package. Core voltage. Internal and external clocks, clock multiplier. Supported instructions sets. Cache information.
Mainboard Vendor, model and revision. BIOS model and date. Chipset (northbridge and southbridge) and sensor. Graphic interface.
Memory Frequency and timings. Module(s) specification using SPD (Serial Presence Detect) : vendor, serial number, timings table.
System Windows and DirectX version.

SpeedFan (system monitor). Click here.
SpeedFan is a program that monitors voltages, fan speeds and temperatures in computers with hardware monitor chips. SpeedFan can even access S.M.A.R.T. info and show hard disk temperatures. SpeedFan supports SCSI disks too.

7-Zip (Great lightweight fast program that replaces Winzip & WinRAR) Click here.
Can unpack a multi-part RAR volume embedded in a ZIP archive, and gives a meaningful error message when attempting to unpack a 256 bit encrypted WinZip archive. Even though it handles fewer archive types than some other programs (It only supports 7z, ZIP, CAB, RAR, ARJ, GZIP, BZIP2, Z, TAR, CPIO, RPM, and DEB) it is a fantastic program that will fill 99% of all your file archiving needs.

TrueCrypt (File encryption). Click here.
 Encrypts your sensitive data. You can encrypt a folder that will mount as a removable drive called a container or you can encrypt an entire drive.

FileRenamer (Rename Files). Click here.
Allows you to rename many files at once with many perimeters. I use this regularly, nice program.

JkDefrag (Disk defragmenter). Click here.
This will defreagment your drives faster and more efficient than the built in defragmenter that comes with windows.

FilePhile (file sharing/transfering over the internet). Click here.
FilePhile is a peer-to-peer, multi-platform app for getting files of unlimited size between yourself and anyone else.

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MKW Audio Compression Tool (Convert .mp3 to .wav to .shn and so on). Click here.
This is one of the best converters out there.

Exact Audio Copy (extract audio from CD's). Click here.
This is the best program for taking music from a CD and putting it on your hard drive, converting to .mp3's or just copying CD's.

Flac Frontend (Lossless audio compression). Click here.
This will greatly compress music for storage and file sharing with no loss at all (.mp3's lose quality during compression that you can't get back), the only one I use.

WinAmp (Music player, great for .mp3's, flac and many more formats). Click here.
This was meant for .mp3's when I first started using it back in 1995 but now it plays pretty much any media file including videos. In my opinion this is the nicest player there is, I use it all the time for music.

Windows Media Encoder (convert audio into Windows media (.vma)). Click here.
Use this to reduce the size of waves making them easy to email and share with others.


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Digsby (Instant message with YahooIM, AOL instant messenger, MSN, Google talk and more). Click here.
This one program can connect to all the popular instant messengers at once, Yahoo, MSN, Google, ICQ, AOL, etc.. I use this every day.

Trillian (works with all the IM chats like Digsby). Click here.
There is a pay and a free version of this, I used the free version for years until Digsby came out. For me I like Digsby but they both have their good points.

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VLC Media player (media player like Windows media player). Click here.
VCL Media player uses less memory than other media player yet it plays almost all types of video: MPEG, AVI, ASF, WMV, WMA, MP4, MOV (quicktime), 3GP, OGG, OGM, MKV, Realplayer, WAV, AAC, AC3, FLAC, FLV, DVD and more.

Photoscape - Click here.
This is really a different class product than the editors above in that it does things that are beyond the focus of the average editor, and is more of an image suite. I have had a number of users request that this product be included and have finally decided to oblige. Once you get used to its unusual interface you will find it is much more than a photo editor.

Image Resizer (Provided be Microsoft, this is the easiest way to resize an image for email or web use) To download click here for instructions click here.
This PowerToy enables you to resize one or many image files with a right-click.

Gimp (photo editor like Photoshop). Click here.
This photo editor will do just about everything Adobe Photoshop will do, many pros use this and it's free.

DVD Shrink (copy, shrink, edit menus from DVD's) Click here.
This program allows you to remove menu items, compress parts or the whole DVD to fit dual layer DVD's on one DVD or it can split it into two so you can keep the full quality and just burn it to two discs.

DVD Decrypter (copy DVD's). Click here.
This is one of the best programs for ripping DVD's to your hard drive. Then you can edit or burn another copy.

Windows Media Encoder (convert videos into Windows media (.vmv)). Click here.
Use this to reduce the size of videos making them easy to email and share with others.

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Google Docs (documents and spreadsheets). Click here.
Google Docs allows you to make documents and spreadsheets that are compatible with Microsoft Office.

Faxing (send). Click here.
This service allows you to send faxes for free. You can make .pdf files (see CutePDF below) with images and text to be uploaded and faxed or you can type or past text into a text box and send that as a fax.

Faxing (recieve). Click here.
efax allows you to have a free account and phone number for receiving faxes. You have to pay for the ability to send faxes but for that you can use the service mentioned above. You have to install their program to view the faxes and they will send you stuff (spam) from time to time but for the service they offer it's worth it.

PDF Viewer (Best pdf viewer I've ever used, far better than Adobe Acrobat) Click here.

FreeMyPDF.com Use this site to remove passwords and restrictions (such as printing, copying text, etc.) from PDFs.

PDFill PDF Tools - Click here.
Clean and nice user interface with most of the functions covered, such as merge pdf files, split or reorder pages, rotate or crop pdf pages, add headers and footers complete with page numbers, etc.

CutePDF (create and .pdf files). Click here.
This free program is for creating pdf documents that can be viewed it programs such as Adobe Acrobat and Adobe Reader.

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Firefox (Web Browser). Click here.
At the time this is the best web browser. It's much safer than Internet Explorer that comes with Windows. There are many add-ons so you can customize many thing as well as themes to change the look.

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