Here's a list of useful freeware applications, arranged alphabetically by category. Please post your favourite software to this thread....

Antivirus:
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/us/us_index.php
Avast - http://www.avast.com/
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Panda ActiveScan - http://www.pandasoftware.com/activescan

Audio Players:
Foobar2000 - http://www.foobar2000.org/
Sonique - http://sonique.lycos.com/
iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/
jetAudio - http://www.jetaudio.com/
QCD - http://www.quinnware.com/
Winamp - http://www.winamp.com/

Audio Utilities:
CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
dbPowerAMP Music Converter - http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm

CD Recording:
ASPI Drivers - http://www.adaptec.com/worldwide/su...oduct/ASPI-4.70
CD/DVD Burner XP - http://www.cdburnerxp.se/
Burn 4 Free - http://www.burn4free.com/

CD Utilities:
Daemon Tools - http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/portal/portal.php

Download Managers:
WackGet - http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/
LeechGet - http://www.leechget.net/en/
wget for Windows - http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/

Encryption:
PGP Freeware Edition - http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html
Axcrypt - http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/
GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org/

Firewall:
ZoneAlarm - http://www.zonelabs.com/
Sygate Personal Firewall - http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm
Kerio Personal Firewall - http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
Outpost - http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost1.html

GUI Utilities:
Tclock - http://homepage1.nifty.com/kazubon/tclock/index.html
IconPhile - http://www.virtualplastic.net/scrow/iphile.html
PowerMenu - http://www.veridicus.com/tummy/programming/powermenu/
Glass2k - http://www.chime.tv/products/glass2k.shtml
D-Color XP - http://dliboon.freeshell.org/products/dcolor/index.php
CursorXP - http://www.stardock.com/products/cursorxp/download.html
MobyDock - http://www.mobydock.com/
Samurize - http://www.samurize.com/

Image Viewers:
IrfanView - http://www.irfanview.com/
iBrowser - http://ibrowser.fcodersoft.com/
AhaView - http://www.aha-soft.com/ahaview/free.htm

Instant Messaging:
Miranda IM - http://www.miranda-im.org/
Gaim - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Trillian - http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/downloads/
Yahoo Instant Messenger - http://messenger.yahoo.com/
MSN Messenger - http://messenger.msn.com/
AOL Instant Messenger - http://www.aim.com/
ICQ - http://www.icq.com
Jabber - http://www.jabber.org/

Networking:
Putty Telnet/SSH Client - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/
IP Tools - http://www.ks-soft.net/ip-tools.eng/
Ethereal Protocol Analyzer - http://www.ethereal.com/
HyperTerminal Private Edition - http://www.hilgraeve.com/htpe/download.html
RealVNC - http://www.realvnc.com/
Nmap - http://www.insecure.org/nmap/

Programming:
ActivePerl - http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl/
jEdit - http://www.jedit.org/
Dev-C++ - http://www.bloodshed.net/
MySQL - http://www.mysql.com
SciTE - http://www.scintilla.org/SciTE.html

Publication/Document Manipulation:
OpenOffice.org - http://download.openoffice.org/index.html
AbiWord - http://www.abisource.com/download/

Spyware Protection:
Ad-Aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Spybot: Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
CWShredder - http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
Hijack This - http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
IE-SPYAD - http://www.staff.uiuc.edu/~ehowes/resource.htm#IESPYAD
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com

System Utilities:
BootVis - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=664
Resource Hacker - http://www.users.on.net/~johnson/resourcehacker/
PC Inspector File Recovery - http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm
Motherboard Monitor - http://mbm.livewiredev.com/
Sysinternals Utilities - http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/utilities.shtml
WCPUID - http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA00...c/download.html

Video Players:
BSPlayer - http://www.bsplayer.org/
Core Media Player - http://www.tcmp.org/
Media Player Classic - http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=82303
VideoLAN - http://www.videolan.org/
Zoom Player - http://www.inmatrix.com/files/zoomplayer_download.shtml

Video Utilities:
KVCD - http://www.KVCD.net
TMPGEnc - http://www.tmpgenc.net/
VirtualDUB - http://www.virtualdub.org/

Web Browsers:
Mozilla FireFox - http://www.mozilla.org/download.html
Mozilla - http://www.mozilla.org/
Netscape - http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp
MyIE2 - http://www.myie2.com/
Avantbrowser - http://www.avantbrowser.com/
SlimBrowser - http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/sbrowser.htm

Web/FTP Servers:
SlimFTPd - http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd/
Filezilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Xitami - http://www.xitami.com/
Apache - http://www.apache.org/
Savant - http://savant.sourceforge.net/

i hope u all would like it

JEdit is my all time favorite, then I would have to say AVG.

Some more

3D Graphics:
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-s...ple/index.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.htm
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/

Anti-Virus:
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/

Anti Spyware:
Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
CWShredder - http://www.download.com/CWShredder/...4-10301586.html
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
HiJackThis - http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.html
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html

IRC Clients:
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.xchat.org/

Audio Players:
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Foobar 2000 - http://www.foobar2000.org/
iTunes - http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Jet Audio Basic - http://www.jetaudio.com/
Musik - http://musik.berlios.de/
QCD Player - http://www.quinnware.com/
Sonique - http://sonique.lycos.com/
Winamp - http://www.winamp.com/

Audio Tools:
Audacity - http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
CDex - http://cdexos.sourceforge.net/
dBpowerAMP Music Converter - http://www.dbpoweramp.com/dmc.htm
EAC - http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/
Encounter 2003 - http://www.waschbusch.com/
GermaniXEncoder - http://www.germanixsoft.de/
K-MP3 - http://www.katarncorp.com/
KraMixer - http://www.kramware.com/
ModPlug Tracker http://www.modplug.com/
MP3 Book Helper - http://mp3bookhelper.sourceforge.net/
MP3 Tag - http://www.mp3tag.de/
mp3DirectCut - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch/
MP3Gain - http://www.geocities.com/mp3gain/
mp3Trim - http://www.logiccell.com/~mp3trim/
MusicBrainz - http://musicbrainz.org/
Rarewares - http://rarewares.hydrogenaudio.org/
SoundEngine Free - http://www.cycleof5th.com/en/index.htm
TagScanner - http://xdev.narod.ru/tagscan_e.htm
The GodFather - http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/

CD/DVD Burning:
Burn4Free - http://www.burn4free.com/
Burnatonce - http://www.burnatonce.com/
CDBurnerXP - http://hem.bredband.net/cdburnerxp/
CDRDAO - http://cdrdao.sourceforge.net/
CDR Tools Frontend - http://demosten.com/cdrfe/
Deepburner - http://www.deepburner.com/
DVD Decrypter: http://www.dvddecrypter.com/
Easy Burning, DropCD & Audio CD - http://www.paehl.de/cdr

Compression / Decompression:
7-zip - http://www.7-zip.org/
bzip2 - http://sources.redhat.com/bzip2/index.html
FilZip - http://www.filzip.com/
IZArc - http://www.florida.plus.com/izarc/
QuickZip - http://www.quickzip.org/
TUGZip - http://www.tugzip.com/
UltimateZIP - http://www.ultimatezip.com/
UPX - http://upx.sourceforge.net/
Zip&Go - http://www.handybits.com/zipngo.htm
Zipgenius - http://www.zipgenius.it/

Defrag Software:
DIRMS & Buzzsaw - http://www.dirms.com/
OpenVMS - http://www.execsoft.com/freeware/freeware.asp

Desktop Enhancements:
CursorXP - http://www.stardock.com/products/cursorxp/download.html
MobyDock - http://www.mobydock.com/
tclock2 - http://home.inreach.com/2tone/tclock2/tclock2.htm

Download managers:
Fresh Download - http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdown.html
LeechGet - http://www.leechget.net/en/
Net Transport - http://lycos26486.l78.lycos.com.cn/default.htm
Star Downloader - http://www.stardownloader.com/downloads.php
wackget - http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/
wget - http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/

Encryption and data security:
Axcrypt - http://axcrypt.sourceforge.net/
Blowfish Advanced CS- http://web.bsn.ch/lasse/bfacs.htm
Eraser - http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/default.php
File Shredder - http://www.sys-shield.com/fileshredder.htm
GnuPG - http://www.gnupg.org/
PGP Freeware - http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html
WindowsCleaner - http://www.winnowsoft.com/internet-eraser.htm

File Managers:
2xExplorer - http://netez.com/2xExplorer/
A43 - http://www.shawneelink.net/~bgmiller/
Gyula's Navigator - http://www.wanari.com/
JExplorer - http://home.megapass.co.kr/~woosjung/
MeeSoft Commander - http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/

File repair and recovery:
PC Inspector File Recovery - http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm

Firewalls:
Kerio (Kerio Personal Firewall is FREE for home and personal use) - http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html
Outpost Firewall (version 1 is free) - http://www.agnitum.com/download/outpost1.html
Sygate (FREE for personal use) - http://smb.sygate.com/products/spf_standard.htm
Zonealarm Basic firewall - http://www.zonelabs.com/store/conte...reeDownload.jsp

FTP Clients:
Filezilla! - http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla
SmartFTP - http://www.smartftp.com/

FTP Servers:
FileZilla - http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
GuildFTPD - http://www.totalshareware.com/asp/d...pplication=8334
Quick 'n Easy FTP Server - http://www.pablovandermeer.nl/ftp_server.html
SlimFTPd - http://www.whitsoftdev.com/slimftpd
WarFTPD - http://www.jgaa.com/

HTML Editors:
1st page 2000 - http://www.evrsoft.com/download.shtml
AceHTML - http://freeware.acehtml.com/download.html
Aracnophilia - http://www.arachnoid.com/arachnophilia/
HTML-Kit - http://www.chami.com/html-kit/
Selida - http://www.amaryllis.8m.com/
Trellian webPAGE - http://webpage.vendercom.com/
TSW WebCoder - http://www.tsware.net/

Image viewers:
Ahaview - http://www.aha-soft.com/ahaview/ahaviewfree.exe
Irfanview - http://www.irfanview.com/
SlowView - http://www.slowview.at/
XNView - http://www.xnview.com/

The freeware list continues....

Instant Messenger:
Gaim - http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
Miranda IM - http://www.miranda-im.org/
Rhymbox - http://www.rhymbox.com/
PSI - http://psi.affinix.com/
Trillian Basic - http://trillian.cc/downloads

Internet Explorer Front-Ends:
Avantbrowser - http://www.avantbrowser.com/
MyIE2 - http://www.myie2.com/
SlimBrowser - http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/sbrowser.htm

Mail programs:
i.Scribe - http://www.memecode.com/
Mahogany Mail - http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/
Pegasus Mail - http://www.pmail.com/
Thunderbird - http://www.mozilla.org/projects/thunderbird/

Anti-spam programs:
K9 - http://www.keir.net/k9.html
MailWasher- http://www.mailwasher.net/
POPFile - http://popfile.sourceforge.net/
SpamBayes - http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/

Network Tools:
CMDTime NTP Utility - http://www.softshape.com/download/
Ethereal Protocol Analyzer - http://www.ethereal.com/
NMap - http://www.insecure.org/nmap/
Ntop - http://www.ntop.org
PingPlotter - http://www.pingplotter.com
PuTTY - http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty
RAS Graph & Stats - http://forum.flashfxp.com/showthrea...=&threadid=2400
RealVNC - http://www.realvnc.com/
TightVNC - http://www.tightvnc.org/
UltraVNC - http://ultravnc.sourceforge.net/
WinSCP - http://www.winscp.com/

Office Suite:
602PC Suite free edition - http://www.software602.com/products/pcs/download.html
AbiWord - http://www.abiword.com/
Open Office - http://www.openoffice.org/

Partition Managers:
Partition Resizer - http://zeleps.com/
Ranish Partition Manager - http://www.ranish.com/part/
TestDisk - http://www.cgsecurity.org/index.html?testdisk.html

PDF Utilities:
Free PDF - http://www.webxd.com/zipguy/frpdfdl.htm
Ghostscript/GSView - http://www.ghostscript.com/
PDF 995 - http://www.pdf995.com/
PDFCreator - http://sourceforge.net/projects/pdfcreator/

Photo manipulation and image design:
ColorPic - http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/
Pixia - http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/
Sodiodi - http://www.sodipodi.com/
The Gimp - http://www.gimp.org/
Tuxpaint - http://www.newbreedsoftware.com/tuxpaint

Programming:
ActivePerl - http://www.activestate.com/Products/ActivePerl
Dev C++ - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Dev Pascal - http://www.bloodshed.net/
Eclipse - http://www.eclipse.org/
Freepascal - http://www.freepascal.org/
jEdit - http://www.jedit.org/
PHP Hypertext Parser - http://www.php.net/
Python - http://www.python.org/
Ruby - http://www.dm4lab.to/~usa/ruby/index_en.html
SharpDevelop - http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/

Pop-up Blockers:
Google Toolbar - http://www.google.com/
NoAds - http://www.southbaypc.com/NoAds/
PopUp Stopper - http://www.panicware.com/product_psfree.html
Privoxy - http://www.privoxy.org/
Proxomitron - http://www.proxomitron.info/


System Information and monitoring:
AIDA32 - http://www.aida32.hu/
CPU-Z - http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Gkrellm - http://bill.nalens.com/
Motherboard monitor - http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311
WCPUID - http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA00...c/download.html

Video codes :
DivX Codec - http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=topta...from_/index.php
FFDSHOW - http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow
Kazaa Lite Codec Pack - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Nimo Codec Pack - http://www.divx-digest.com/software/nimo_pack.html
Quicktime Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/
Real Player Alternative - http://www.k-litecodecpack.com/

Video players :
BsPlayer - http://www.bsplayer.org/
Cygwin MPlayer - http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/
MaximusDVD - http://www.maximusdvd.com/
Media Player Classic - http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=82303
VideoLan - http://www.videolan.org/

Video tools:
DVD Shrink - http://www.dvdshrink.org/
DScaler - http://deinterlace.sourceforge.net/
FlasKMPEG - http://www.flaskmpeg.net
GSpot - http://www.headbands.com/gspot/
VirtualDub - http://www.virtualdub.org/
VirtualDubMod - http://sourceforge.net/project/show...?group_id=65889
xviD - http://www.roeder.goe.net/~koepi/xvid.shtml
Zwei-Stein Video Editor - http://www.thugsatbay.com/software/index.html

Web browsers:
Firefox - http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/
Internet Explorer - http://www.Mcft.com/ie
K-Meleon - http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
Mozilla - http://www.mozilla.org/
Netscape - http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.jsp

Web servers:
Abyss - http://abyss.sourceforge.net/
Aprelium Abyss - http://www.aprelium.com/
Apache - http://httpd.apache.org/
CIS WebServer - http://webserver.cisindia.net
Sambar - http://www.sambar.com/
Savant - http://savant.sourceforge.net/
TinyWeb - http://www.ritlabs.com/tinyweb/index.html

Webcam Software:
booruWebCam - http://www.booru.net/
Pryme - http://www.hilo.dk/pryme/

Checksum Utilities:
fsum - http://www.slavasoft.com/fsum/
hksfv - http://www.big-o-software.com/products/hksfv/
md5sum - http://www.etree.org/md5com.html
md5summer - http://www.md5summer.org/

General Utilities And Other Applications:
AnalogX - http://www.analogx.com/
AppRocket - http://www.candylabs.com/approcket/
Celestia - http://www.shatters.net/celestia
Cygwin - http://www.cygwin.com
Dirkey - http://www.protonfx.com/dirkey/
EditPad Lite - http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html
Inno Setup - http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
Memtest-86 - http://www.memtest86.com
MWSnap - http://www.mirekw.com/winfreeware/mwsnap.html
NetTime - http://nettime.sourceforge.net
Nullsoft Installer - http://www.nullsoft.com/free/nsis
Peerguardian - http://xs.tech.nu/
QuickSFV - http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Mouse/4668/
png2ico - http://winterdrache.de/freeware/png2ico
Stickies - http://finiteloop.org/~btaylor/software/stickies/
Sysinternals - http://www.sysinternals.com/
TClockEx - http://www.rcis.co.za/dale/tclockex/index.htm
Vim - http://vim.sourceforge.net

Topic stickied. Great job!

^ Thanx Catweazle

Ditto - way to go Cancer10. Can I have all the setups on CD please!

Beware that more than a few "free" programs install spyware on your machine as a way of getting income from you anyway.
Not sure which of the above do so, but beware and always very carefully monitor the license and other documentation for such software (and be prepared for a hard time removing them if you get tricked anyway).

Especially download managers and mediaplayers are often inflicted with this, though no category is completely safe.

Definitely before installing any freeware program google 'programname spyware'

A bit of a read through the search results should soon tell you if that program is known to carry intruders with it.

The web browser Opera is now free: http://www.opera.com

REGSEEKER -- The BEST registry cleaner out there (First time i used it,it removed about 800 keys)

DISK CLEANER -- Simply the BEST app to remove temp files,etc........Quick,easy,etc............

RESTORATION -- Restore deleted files,clear deleted sectors totally (Simply the best) (Restoration.zip)