Programs
Recommended programs
These are all free. I am a Windows user (..reluctantly..) so that’s what most of these are for, though some have cross-platform support. (Mac, Linux)
Mozilla Firefox web browser
Extensions:
Adblock Um, blocks ads.
BugMeNot Get a BugMeNot password without having to go to the BugMeNot site.
del.icio.us Adds links to your toolbar to aid in adding things to del.icio.us.
FasterFox Includes a page load timer, a prefetch option (which I keep turned off) and just basically makes a page load speedier.
ForecastFox Displays weather forecast for your zip code in your toolbar.
Greasemonkey Powerful tool that lets you change the way a web page looks in your own browser.
Print Preview What it says.
Session Saver If Firefox should crash, reload it and you’ll come back to the same website(s).
View Cookies What it says.
Ad-aware Scans your system for spyware and lets you remove it. Audacity Records and edits audio files.
Belarc Advisor Sums up your system status as an HTML file, including Windows hotfixes.
Google Earth Google Maps for your desktop; includes a function to bookmark places.
Keynote You can put all of your notes in one place instead of in many files because it keeps them in a tree-like structure.
Media Player Classic Plays DVDs and many different kinds of media formats.
Oubliette Helps you safely keep track of your passwords. It can also generate random passwords for you.
Picasa Photo manipulator.
RegCleaner Cleans your registry.
Spybot Search and Destroy Scans your system for spyware and lets you remove it.
Spyware Blaster Prevents spyware from being installed in the first place.
Torrent Storm Download torrents. (::ahem:: only for legal downloads, please…)
TweakUI A Powertoy for Windows that allows you to change things easily that you’d have to dig for otherwise.
VLC Media player Plays DVDs and many different kinds of media formats.
Winamp (I prefer older versions, myself.) Plays Mp3s and other audio files. It is also skinnable.
Xpy Cleans up WinXP vulnerabilities.
Programs I would not recommend to my worst enemy
(and are therefore not linked) include:
America Online
Internet Explorer
iTunes
RealPlayer
Windows Media Player