Here's a collection of really great software, most of it open source (which means others are free to examine and modify it's code). I use these myself!

Open Office
     This is an open source (read:free) replacement for Microsoft Office - it is corporate and donation supported, much as Firefox is. I use it personally, and I find it as least as easy to use as Microsoft Office, and it is compatible with it - you can read and write Word, Excel and Powerpoint type files with this office suite. I even have a few clients using it to free themselves of the cost and restrictive licensing of Microsoft. Most homes and even businesses are not in compliance with Microsoft licensing terms, because they install the program on multiple machines - this leaves especially businesses open to potential lawsuits and fines. I highly recommend this suite as a replacement to avoid these issues.

Download and more information at openoffice.org It's available for all operating systems. It even prints directly to PDF format - no expensive Adobe Acrobat here! (see below)

Real Alternative
     This is an alternative to the very intrusive (and in my opinion annoying) commercial, but free, audio and video player, RealPlayer from Real Networks. I found this on the net and it does a great job playing all those realplayer format audio files that out there, mostly for recorded or live versions of audio programs. It does seem to handle most video formats as well. Install this and avoid all those annoying RealPlayer popups. Windows only.
Website to download

WinAmp
     There are two versions of this software - either one can play just about any audio or video file out there "out of the box" or thru free add-ons. It's also "skinnable" - which means that you can change the look, sometimes dramatically, of the player. It also features cool visual effects, like Windows Media Player - in fact, think of it as a replacement for Windows Media Player. It's fast, flexible, and free! The paid version lets you burn CD's at the maximum of your CD-writer, and convert music into MP3 format. It costs only $14.95, so if your burning needs are of the music variety, that's all you'd need, and much cheaper than other burning software. Here's the website: www.winamp.com. Windows only.

VLC Media Player
     A multimedia player for audio and video formats (includes mp1, mp2, m3, mp4, divx, ogg, dvd, vcd, and more). Available for both Windows and Mac (and then some). Open source and free to use. If you want to get fancy, it can even stream what it plays to other computers in your network. Handy, huh? www.videolan.org

IZArc
      If you need a zip or unzip program, this is the one. Not only can it create and open .zip files, it also opens most any other format out there. Very useful, free, and no nag screens (like Winzip) or anything! Go to www.izarc.org to get it! Windows only.

Adobe Acrobat Reader
      Invented by Adobe, Portable Document Format is a popular file format designed to preserve the original formatting of electronic files, without requiring the viewer to own the program it was created in. It's often used for downloadable brochures, technical specifications, menus, etc... Heck, even the federal government uses it for all their forms. It's a free download.
This just in! There's a neat and FAST PDF reader available for free from Foxitsoftware - here's the link - better than the bloatware that Adobe Acrobat Reader has become. Download link at the top.
     Mac Users: You can already view and even create PDF files in OS X, so you don't even need these things.

PDFCreator
     While you can go out and buy Adobe Acrobat, if you just need to convert a document into PDF, you can do that for free, via CutePDF Writer.
Mac Users: You can already view and even create PDF files in OS X, so you don't even need these things.

Cloudmark
     While not free (tho it does have a free trial), if you simply MUST stay with Outlook or Outlook express as your email, this software will act as a go between for your email - it very effectively blocks spam, since it uses the combined intelligence of all its subscribers. It's $39.95 for a 1 year subscription.

SyncBack
     A nice free backup solution that can backup on a schedule of your choosing to an external hard drive, FTP server, or other device. There's a fuller featured version available for $25.00. Look for the freeware version about halfway down the page.

DriveImageXML
     A full drive backup software program (XP only), if you have an external hard drive, or a second hard drive in your system, this program can back up the entire system for you, while it's running. (It doesn't even give you a choice, it's all or nothing). We use this ourselves when backing up client computers before reformatting.