Note:If you enjoy this list of software you might find these FREE online applications & tools helpful. No need to install or download anything, they work in your browser.

Free software can save you hundreds and possibly thousands of dollars. The software listed below is completely free, doesn’t have malware or adware, is completely legal, and I use each of them personally. Most of them are Open Source. If you aren’t familiar with what Open Source is please read The Free Software Definition.

This list includes the most popular software within their categories. You’ll find a software solution for all of your daily needs. If you have any suggestions or ways to improve the list please leave a comment.

Operating System

Ubuntu – Designed as a Linux alternative to Windows or Mac operating systems. A free operating system makes really cheap PC’s possible. Ubuntu is getting better all the time and its getting easier for the average user to install. One thing you’ll notice is that Ubuntu is FAST. Starting up your computer is fast, download times online are faster, and programs open quickly. If you know someone (read: parent) with a slow computer that always gets viruses and has a frustratingly slow computer install ubuntu. If you have an old computer/laptop install a copy and start getting used to it. You’ll be happy you did.

If you are thinking about upgrading to Windows 7 or getting a new computer Ubuntu is a great alternative. Ubuntu is designed for everyday use. The biggest downside is that it can’t run most of the big games for Windows. Smaller applications can be run inside a Windows emulator. Ubuntu comes pre-loaded with a bundle of free Windows alternatives. Ubuntu is gaining momentum and becoming more popular each day. If you use Ubuntu and like it please share what you know with your friends and family.

Anti Virus

AVG Anti-Virus – the most popular free solution available at no cost to home users and provides the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers.

• Easy to use, low system resources
• Automatic update functionality
• Real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run
• AVG’s Virus Vault for the safe handling of infected files

Note: Avast also offers top rated anti virus protection

Personal Firewall

Comodo – The Award-Winning Free Firewall Software

• Complete protection from Hackers, Spyware and Identity theft
• Secures against internal and external threats
• Host Intrusion Prevention System stops malware ever being installed
• Delivers total end-point security for Personal Computers and Networks

Web Browser

FireFox – I’m an avid fan of Firefox for many reasons. Between the design, usability, and lack of features Explorer had me unsatisfied. Explorer has tried to update their browser but it looks like a thinly veiled ripoff of Firefox. In addition, the new Explorer froze up more often. Works with Windows, Linux, OS X

Most people that start using FireFox can’t live without it. The tabbed browsing and the customizations are very hard to beat. These other features are icing on the cake:
*Improved Tabbed Browsing
*Spell Checking
*Session Restore
*Web Feeds (RSS)
*Pop-up Blocker
*Phishing Protection
*Protection from Spyware

FireFox also has over 1,000 add-ons to choose from. You are sure to find something to make FireFox your own.

Email

Mozilla Thunderbird – It’s now even easier to organize, secure and customize your mail.

Office Software

OpenOffice – Compatible with all other major office suites, the product is free to download, use, and distribute. Includes a robust word processor (Word), spreadsheet (Excel) , presentation (PowerPoint), and database (Access).

Photo Organizer

Google’s Picasa – The easy way to share and manage your photos.

Picasa is a free software download from Google that helps you:

* Locate and organize all the photos on your computer.
* Edit and add effects to your photos with a few simple clicks.
* Share your photos with others through email, prints, and on the web: it’s fast, easy and free.

Take your photos further with Picasa from Google.

Direct link: Picasa for Linux

Music Player & Organizer

A big thanks to Brian for leaving a lot of great suggestions in his comment. He’s right, iTunes can make me crazy sometimes. I guess I have a soft spot for it because it helped me get into podcasting. But one of his suggestions is a downright winner (sorry iTunes).

SongBird – Not only does Songbird have everything you’d want in an audio program it also comes with a full library of add-ons. Customize your player ’til your hearts content.

Drawing & Photography

Gimp – This software is a free photo editing software that is a decent replacement for Photoshop.  It’s good for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It works on many operating systems, in many languages.

If you’re used to Photoshop Gimp takes some getting used to. I still use it regularly because there is such a strong community providing great help and resources.  Look for some tutorials online (there are tons of them).

Screen Capture/Recording

CamStudio replaces expensive Camtasia recording software.

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer
and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in
SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly
Streaming Flash videos (SWFs)

Here are just a few ways you can use this software:

• You can use it to create demonstration videos for any software program
• Or how about creating a set of videos answering your most
  frequently asked questions?
• You can create video tutorials for school or college class
• You can use it to record a recurring problem with your computer
  so you can show technical support people
• You can use it to create video-based information products you can sell
• You can even use it to record new tricks and techniques you discover
  on your favourite software program, before you forget them

Screen Capture (for quickies)

Jing – If you need to make a quick screencast of your computer desktop Jing is your best buddy.  It’s drop dead easy and gives you either a flash file or it uploads it automatically and provides you a link to send someone.  The biggest limitation is that it only lets you do 5 minutes (but who wants to watch a screencast longer than 5 minutes anyway).  I’ve been using this for a year or more and turn to it often.

CD & DVD Burning

CDBurnerXP – a free application to burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs. It also includes the feature to burn and create ISOs, as well as a multilanguage interface. Everyone, even companies, can use it for free. It does not include adware or similar malicious components.

Media Player

VideoLAN – VLC media player – Thanks to Steele in the comments for suggesting this one. When I can’t get a different media player to run my movie files VLC always does.  VLC supports a huge amount of video and audio formats. The interface is simple and clean. I know this will be a program I use for a very long time. Thanks again Steele!

From VLC’s website:
* It is a free cross-platform media player
* It supports a large number of multimedia formats, without the need for additional codecs
* It can also be used as a streaming server, with extended features (video on demand, on the fly transcoding, …)

Audio Recording

Audacity – a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:

* Record live audio.
* Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
* Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, and WAV sound files.
* Cut, copy, splice, and mix sounds together.
* Change the speed or pitch of a recording.
* And more!

3D Modeling

Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems.

Features include:

• Revolutionary non-overlapping and non-blocking UI delivers unsurpassed workflow
• A range of 3D object types including polygon meshes, NURBS surfaces, bezier and B-spline curves, metaballs, vector fonts (TrueType, PostScript, OpenType)
• Fast skeleton creation mode
• Automated walkcycles along paths
• Diffuse shaders such as Lambert, Minnaert, Toon, Oren-Nayar, Lambert
• Realtime 3D/Game Creation
• View all the features

Video Editing

Avidemux – a free video editor designed for simple cutting, filtering and encoding tasks. It supports many file types, including AVI, DVD compatible MPEG files, MP4 and ASF, using a variety of codecs. Tasks can be automated using projects, job queue and powerful scripting capabilities.

File Compression/Zip

7-zip

• Supported formats:
  Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR
  Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
• For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
• Self-extracting capability for 7z format
• Integration with Windows Shell
• Powerful File Manager
• Powerful command line version

FTP Software

FileZilla – a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.

• Easy to use
• Supports FTP, FTP over SSL/TLS (FTPS) and SSH File Transfer Protocol (SFTP)
• Cross-platform. Runs on Windows, Linux, *BSD, OSX and more
• Supports resume and transfer of large files >4GB
• Powerful Site Manager and transfer queue
• Drag & drop support
• Configurable Speed limits
• Filename filters
• Network configuration wizard

HTML Editor

Aptana – an industry leading web development environment that combines powerful authoring tools for HTML, CSS, and JavaScript, along with thousands of additional plugins created by the community

Looking for an alternative to Dreamweaver, NVU, or Bluefish? Aptana Studio is uses the powerful eclipse engine for professional grade coding. And its completely free. I wasn’t willing to fork out $400 for Dreamweaver and started looking for something better. I had used NVU (can you say ugly code?) and Bluefish but neither could handle everything I wanted to do. Aptana is designed for the hard core developer and it will likely make you a better coder by using it. The built-in FTP site management is very nice and there are probably hundreds of other goodies I don’t even know about.

NotePad++ is a powerful application that replaces your regular notepad.  The real benefit comes from it editing component and is a real help for programmers.  Most average users won’t truely appreciate its capabilities and most programmers already have it.  But to keep this list of ‘ultimate’ software complete I had to add it.

IM Chat

IM all your friends in one place! This little power house is compatible with everything. All your chat accounts will work here. It supports: AIM, Bonjour, Gadu-Gadu, Google Talk, Groupwise, ICQ, IRC, MSN, MySpaceIM, QQ, SILC, SIMPLE, Sametime, XMPP, Yahoo!, Zephyr.

Note: Try the ‘Off the Record’ plugin for added security. Everyone you chat with needs to have the OTR plugin installed too. For offices and regular conversations this added bit of privacy is nice.