My list:

INSTANT MESSENGERS:
Trillian from Cerulean Studios

INTERNET BROWSERS:
Firefox from Mozilla
(Good old IE isn't bad)

FIREWALL:
Personal Firewall from Zonealarm

SECURITY:
Antivirus from Norton(preferably 2006)
Spyware Nuker XT

REGISTRY:
Registry Cleaner

There are more yet to come(and that's a good thing lol)

lol_hacker101

This - above all else is the single best, most important free A/V there is for antivirus protection outside of KAV (paid) or NOD32 (paid). Far better than Bit Defender 8 Free, Avast, and AVG for detection rates.

I use AVG, Zone alarm, Spybot S&D all at my favourite price, free.

I also use a great free graphics program thats nearly as powerful as Photoshop, especially if you add the free plugins, its also easier to use, my nine year old daughter loves it. You will need the .NET package installed though (free).
http://getpaint.net/

PDF's, make free ones using Primo PDF from
www.primopdf.com

And of course don't forget the free MS Office compatible at
http://www.openoffice.org

Dave

I would say BitComet. It's free, fun and fantastic.

Finale Notepad together with Noteworthy Player is a perfect match if you want to create sheet music. Here is how I do it. Download a midi file from the internet and play it using Noteworthy Player. All scores will be shown just like that. Use the Notepad to rearrange it as you want. And again, they're free.

Dear Friends,

Check this software out :- Service Desktop Pro
http://www.servicedesktop.com

Google's PICASA
Wonderful free program mirrors all your pics (even shows Photoshop stuff as yet un flattened) ... wonderful for emailing pics...and finding where you put things. Can't recommend it enough for people with lots of visual stuff. Does NOT interfere with any of your current arrangements. Simply copies stuff into an easy to view situation. Just TRY IT! Julia

thanks

A few years ago I'd always thought that anything that was free was rubbish until I found sites like these!

Solve all video display problems :lol: :lol:
www.xpcodecpack.com

Virtual CD/DVD Rom Emulator
www.daemon-tools.cc

Torrent file retrieval :lol: :lol:
http://azureus.sourceforge.net/

Run your own ftp server :lol: :lol:
www.CerberusFTP.com

DSL Modem Tool :lol: :lol:
http://www.mhilfe.de/

Desktop Keeper (just in case it gets messed up - you can restore in a single click)Not free but worth it.
http://www.greatis.com/utilities/desktopkeeper/

if you want to mount disc images theres a microsoft tool for it - good for ounting images that VPC wont do e.g dual layer dvds - also useful for things e.g where MS give you a trial of Visual Studio in .IMG

thanks for the stuff. they are useful..more power!!!