James Lao

This is just a list of free software that I've found over the years. It's a work in progress so don't complain if your favorite program isn't on here.

Internet

• Mozilla Firefox – the best alternative to IE
• Mozilla Thunderbird – the best alternative to Outlook
• Mozilla Suite – basically Firefox and Thunderbid put together
• Opera – the second best alternative to IE
• RSSOwl – A nice RSS reader written in Java
• Trillian – my favorite universal IM client
• Gaim – an open source universal IM client
• GMail Drive – Use your GMail space for storage
• Juice – A very nice cross-platform podcast receiver

Anti-Spyware

• Lavasoft Ad-Aware – The best free anti-spyware program
• Spybot Search & Destroy – The second best anti-spyware program
• Microsoft AntiSpyware (Beta) – Microsoft's anti-spyware solution
• SpywareBlaster – Prevents spyware infection from happening

Privacy

• CCleaner – Erases unecessary files
• Asmw Eraser Pro – Also erases unecessary files
• Free Internet Eraser – Erases internet cache, cookies, and temporary files

Firewall

• ZoneAlarm – My favorite firewall
• Kerio – A decent firewall
• Tiny Firewall 2005 – A small effecient firewall

Anti-Virus

• AVG Free Edition – The free version of AVG anti-virus
• avast! 4 Home Edition – The free edition of avast! anti-virus
• BitDefender 8 Free Edition – The free edition of BitDefender

Bittorrent

• Bittorrent – The official bittorrent client
• Azureus – The most popular bittorrent client
• µTorrent – An amazing client gaining popularity
• BitComet – A C++ bittorrent client
• ABC – Another Bittorrent Client

Image Manipulation

• FastStone Image Viewer – Excellant for batch conversion/renaming and simple editing
• The GIMP – Free powerful alternative to Photoshop
• Paint.Net – A fairly advanced paint application
• Pixie – A useful mouse tracking screen color picker

Video

• DVD Dycryptor (not legal in the US anymore)
• DVD Shrink (pretty sure not legal in the US anymore)
• ShrinkTo5 – A DVD shrinker
• PSP Video 9 – Free video conversion software for PSP
• Quicktime – Apple's video player

Audio

• CDex – CD ripping program
• iTunes – Apple's media player. Also a decent podcast catcher
• Winamp – A popular media player

Office

• OpenOffice – An open source and cross-platform alternative to office
• AbiWord – Excallent word processor similar to Word
• Foxit PDF Reader – An extremely fast PDF viewer