Thunderbird is, in my opinion, the best email client software available. It's free, it's open source, and it has add-ons for just about any customization you could want. It has a slew of options, and because it's open source, it's ad free. That means no leaving little advertisements on every email you send out. Thunderbird is compatible with all the lastest protocol technology.

  Mozilla Firefox is already one of the most internet browsers available. It is powerful, up-to-date, and it's popularity has ensured it's support across the globe. Because Firefox is open source, it's free, and it has numerous addons available for it. I recommend it as it appears to be compatible with more websites than Internet Explorer 8 is natively. Even our website is best viewed using Firefox. Plus if you're concerned about carrying over your favorites and settings from I.E., Firefox has import options to incorporate them!

  FileZilla is a free, open source FTP client. If you need to transfer files between you and a server, for such purposes as editing a webpage, or backing up data, there is no better File Transfer Protocol software than this. It has all the options you need, and an easy to use graphic interface. Be sure to take a look at their website for the latest version.

  Skype is a full featured VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) application. You can use it for IM, Video conferencing, and even making and recieving phone calls to and from anywhere in the world, and at a very low price. Many features like video conferencing are free, and even their phone service for the U.S. only costs $2.95/month (persuming you also paid the once annual cost of $30 for a phone number). With this service you get unlimited calling to the U.S. and Canada, and it includes Call Forwarding, Voicemail, Caller ID, and Multicall features at no additional charge. If your sick of paying qwest to much money for basic phone service, Skype may be something for you to look into.

  uTorrent is based on the industries first client software called BitTorrent. It's a small, but powerful application that can handle anything needed revolving torrent files.

  Ventrilo is free software that will connect you using the VOIP protocol on a vent server to anyone else who is connected to the same vent server. Both their client software, and server software is free to download. So you can set up your own vent server for you and your friends/family.

  Open Office is an excellent and free office suite. It's the #1 alternative to Microsoft Office, and just last year was downloaded over 100 million times from the creators homepage (link below). It has all the main capabilities of Microsoft Office such as; word processor, spreadsheets, presentations, etc, plus it can do things that MS Office can't such as create and copyright PDF documents. It's also compatible with MS Office so that you can both open and save documents in formats that can be opened/edited with either office suite.

  Adobe Acrobat Reader is the most widely used free PDF reader. It doesn't allow you to create or edit PDF documents, but it's interface for reading them is very easy to use. Check their website for the lastest version.

  Ubuntu is my free Linux operating system of choice. There are many versions but this one has seemed to stand head and shoulders above the rest. If it's something you'd like to try out you can download it, burn the .ISO file to CD, and boot your computer entirely off the CD before you install anything. This allows you to take a trial run, and look around the basics of Ubuntu before installing it. With the popularity of Linux growing, alot of major manufacturers are now releasing their computers with this operating system installed. And why not? It's free, and includes many applications that Microsoft makes you pay extra for. They are always developing newer versions, so make sure to check out their website for the lastest version, and to make sure you download the one to best suit your needs.

  If your sick of Windows Media Player giving your codec errors, and you want to be able to play your DVD's/Blu-Ray's in your computer (for free), this is the software for you. It's a full media suite that can play pretty much any type of video or sound file. Be sure to check out their website for the lastest version.

  AVG Antivirus is one of the most widely known antivirus programs. It is very popular, and powerful. Plus of course, it's free :). It's been around for some time, and it's latest version 9 has been dowload over 200 million times on download.com. Due to it's vast collection of virus definitions, and access to continual updated ones this is a must to anyone concerned about getting a virus. It has active resident scanning, and email protection as well. The one downside is their later versions are a bit more controlling than I'd like as a tech, but that's only by default, so far I've been able to turn the controlling aspects off. These are aspects I don't like, but others may find useful.

  Malwarebytes is the strongest anti-malware software available today. It's algorithms in detecting malware programs is strong enough to weed out all malicious malware programs on your computer, and sophisticated enough to know the difference between what's malware, and what may simply be a regular program. It's free to use, install, scan, and remove malware to the fullest extent it's capable of. They do however charge if you wish to turn on some extended options such as real-time protection etc.

RKill is a very small, yet very powerful program. If your computer has been taken over by some form of malware then this is where you want to start. RKill is designed to scan your computer's active memory and kill any active processes of malware running on your computer. This is only the first step, it does not clean malware off of your hard drive. If you go no further, than at next reboot your computer will be right back where you started. It's best to run another form of malware fighting software such as malwarebytes, which we do have here for download. RKill simply enables you to temporarly have control once again over your computer long enough to run another program that can fight the malware infection.

Clamwin antivirus is what I use as it's free, and of all the ones I tested it was the most unobtrusive. It has a very simple and easy to use graphical interface. It used very little system resources which allow your other programs to run smoother. The downside is that it currently has no resident scanning, meaning no active scans. So if you want to know if you have a virus, you need to manually scan your computer, or specific files to find out.

  Avast is given 5 out of 5 stars by Cnet.com and 4.5 out of 5 stars by user ratings on the same site. It's no surprize however, as this is an antivirus that is said to have the highest virus definition database available. With it's compatibility with all major Windows Operating systems including Windows 7, and an easy to use graphical interface it's recommended for anyone to install. Plus it has resident protection, and protection for peer 2 peer connections (bitTorrent etc).

  Avira Antivirus is another great antivirus. Rated 5 out of 5 stars by Cnet.com this antivirus goes the extra mile to protect against other malicious attacks such as dialers and phishing. This program is in the top 3 for the most virus defintions, which gives it a good rating as far as virus detection. It's interface is simple, and easy to use.

Zone Alarm is a free firewall program that is the most widely used in the world. That's no surprize as it offers the strongest protection not only against intruders, but also from harmful programs on your computer from transmitting information from your computer to the internet without your permission. All of this and it's free.

  Gimp is an excellent, open source alternative to Adobe's $1,000 Photoshop software. It has most of the same features, and even some that Photoshop doesn't have. They also make a portable version.

  Xampp is the full featured, open source, web developers server software. It has all the needed elements to host your own website, FTP service, Mail service, and Database service on your own computer. It's great if you need to create/edit your own webpage on your home computer before uploading it to a remote server. They even have a portable version. If you plan on using Xampp, keep in mind that it comes fully functional, and because of that, the makers of Xampp recommend that you don't use their software for hosting purposes, only for personal use. We recommend visiting their website to learn more.

  phpBB is the industries leading bulletin board/forum software. It's free, and it's very easy to use. It has alot of options, and installation is simple in that it walks you through step-by-step. It does require a 3rd party database handling software. Xampp, which we have listed on this site is an excellent candidate for that.

  Joomla is simply the best CSS web development software. Accompanied with Xampp it could have you hosting your own websites in a short matter of time.

  7-Zip is a full featured compression program for making, and extracing various forms of compressed files such as .zip, .tar, .bz2, and .7z. When compressing files 7zip generally can compress files down more than the default windows program, or even other programs such as Winzip.

  InfraRecorder is an excellent CD/DVD burning suite. It's free, and it's quite powerful, and easy to use. If you don't already have a burning program, or even if you do for that matter, I would recommend downloading and giving this one a try.

  This software will test various storage devices such has your hard drive, flash drive, etc... Using various types of tests it will tell you both your read and write speeds. This information is nice to make sure your computer is running up to the specs it's suppose too. It's also a nice tool to have if your a speed enthusiast like myself.

  This is the best tool when it comes to examining what's on your motherboard and all the statistics revolving it. If your simply curious, or you wish to overclock, this tool is a must to ensure your computer is running up to snuff. Alot of the information this program retieves would take hours, or may even be impossible to find out if you've lost the documentation to your RAM, motherboard, or CPU.

  TCPView allows you to view all the behind-the-scenes connections your computer is making with the outside world. Any program running in the background, or any outside intruder trying to get in. TCPView lets you see all of them. It monitors which program are trying to access other zones such as the internet, what type of connection they are making, which IP address they are connecting too, and even which port they are using. Its an excellent tool when one is worried about security.

  The name is weird, but the program is sound. It's an excellent utility to record anything put through your sound card. This means any sound your sound card can play, (games, youtube, microphone, etc..) you can record. Plus it has an array of options for you to change, alter, and enhance those sounds. It has a nice graphic interface, and it can save in various file types such as wav or mp3.