A selection of my favourite free software (freeware) for windows. If you bought commercial software to do these jobs it would cost over £500. These free alternatives are very good and I use them at home every day.
I regularly update this article. If you find a broken link please leave a comment and I will update the broken link.
Antivirus
AVG Free Antivirus
PDF Tools
FoxitPDF Viewer - faster than Adobe PDF Reader and uses fewer
resources.
PrimoPDF - makes a PDF file from any type of file.
Text Editor
EditpadLite - better than Notepad
File Compression
Jzip - like Winzip but free
Utilities
Tree Size Free - Gives a breakdown of the usage of every directory on your computer hard drive including those used by other users on the same machine.
SyncBack Freeware - for backing up your files automatically to a second drive, even an external USB hard disk.
Office Suite
Open Office - free alternative to Microsoft Office, requires Java runtime
environment (also free)
Image Editor
Paint.net image editor - handles layers and has lots of filters available.
Media
Real Alternative - simpler plug in codec for Real Audio and Real
Video
AVS DVD Player - very good free DVD player for Windows. If you
can't get DVD's to play in Windows Media Player this will work instead.
Divx Player - plays divx files and installs the codec so you can play them in
Windows Media Player too.
Video
DVD Flick - turns any video clip or collection of clips into a fully functional DVD with menus. Even burns the DVD.
Auto Screen Recorder Free - for making screen capture video recordings of activity on your computer screen.
Audio
Audacity - comprehensive audio recording and editing software with lots of effect plug ins, also does multi-track recording.
Free Rip - Rips audio files to MP3, WAV and several other formats
Music
Electronic Piano - Play music from your qwerty keyboard using the midi synthesizer in your sound card.
Internet
Kompozer - WYSIWYG HTML editor for designing and building web sites.
Sam Spade for Windows - network tools like whois, ping and traceroute.
PuTTY - SSH and Telnet client.
Win SCP - FTP client
