Most people don’t realize that whatever software they want to buy, there’s probably a free equivelant to it available on the web. What better way to save money than to get it free!  Keep in mind that some of these programs do not produce files in the industry standard, basically that means for example, the industry standard document is the Microsoft word file, a free wordprocessing program will probably not produce a file in that format, so you might not be able to share it.  Also, pay attention to what operating system is required, if you’re running Vista you probably can’t use most of these.

With that being said, here is a compilation of the best, free PC software available out there.  Some of these I haven’t looked at in years, so if it looks fishy, it probably is and don’t install it.  As always, protect your PC by having anti-virus and anti-spyware software installed.  Also, a backup wouldn’t hurt too.

3D Graphics:
3Delight Free – http://www.3delight.com/index.htm
Anim8or – http://www.anim8or.com/
Blender – http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax – http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Houdini (Free Edition) – http://www.sidefx.com/apprentice/index.html
Maya Personal Learning Ed. – http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services…_maya _ple.shtml
Now3D – http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.h tm
OpenFX – http://www.openfx.org
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP – http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/
Terragen – http://www.planetside.co.uk/terragen/
Toxic – http://www.toxicengine.org/
Wings 3D – http://www.wings3d.com/
Inkscape – http://www.inkscape.org/
Art of Illusion – http://www.artofillusion.org/
[Fractal Flame Generator] Chaoscope http://www.btinternet.com/~ndesprez/
[Fractal Flame Generator] Apophysis http://www.apophysis.org/index.html

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

Anti Spyware:
Ad-aware – http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Bazooka – http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html
Hijackthis – http://www.spywareinfo.com/~merijn/downloads.html
Microsoft AntiSpyware – http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/s…re/de fault.mspx
SpyBot Search & Destroy – http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster – http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htm l
SpywareGuard – http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html
WinPatrol – http://www.winpatrol.com/

Audio Players:
1by1 – http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Billy – http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy
CoolPlayer – http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/
DeliPlayer. http://www.deliplayer.com/
Foobar 2000 – http://www.foobar2000.org/
iTunes – http://www.apple.com/itunes/
Jet Audio Basic – http://www.jetaudio.com/
Musik – http://musik.berlios.de/
musikCube – http://www.musikcube.com/
QCD Player – http://www.quinnware.com/
Sonique – http://sonique.lycos.com/
Winamp – http://www.winamp.com/
XMPlay – http://www.un4seen.com/xmplay.html
Zinf – http://www.zinf.org/

Audio Tools:
Audacity – http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Apollo – http://koti.welho.com/hylinen/apollo/
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/
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
SBaGen — http://uazu.net/sbagen/
TagScanner – http://xdev.narod.ru/tagscan_e.htm
Trak Axe – http://www.trakax.com/software/pc/
The GodFather – http://users.otenet.gr/~jtcliper/tgf/
TigoTago – http://www.tigotago.com/

CD/DVD Burning:
Burn4Free – http://www.burn4free.com/
Burnatonce – http://www.burnatonce.com/
CDBurnerXP – http://www.cdburnerxp.se/
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
ExtractNow – http://www.extractnow.com/ (can read Macintosh .SIT files with an extra DLL download)
FilZip – http://www.filzip.com/
Info-Zip – http://www.info-zip.org/
IZArc – http://www.florida.plus.com/izarc/
QuickZip – http://www.quickzip.org/
TUGZip – http://www.tugzip.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
JK Defrag – http://www.kessels.com/JkDefrag/

Desktop Enhancements:
AveDesk – http://www.aqua-soft.org/board/showthread.php?t=17 372
CursorXP – http://www.stardock.com/products/cursorxp/download .html
Desktop Sidebar – http://www.desktopsidebar.com/
Dextop Window Manager – http://www.dexpot.de/
Glass2k – http://www.chime.tv/products/glass2k.shtml
Kapsules – http://kapsules.shellscape.org/
MobyDock – http://www.mobydock.com/
Panorama – http://www.ivory.org/panorama.html
Rainlendar – http://www.ipi.fi/~rainy/index.php?pn=proj…ject= rainlendar
Samurize – http://www.samurize.com/
SlickRun – http://www.bayden.com/SlickRun/
TaskSwitchXP Pro – http://www.ntwind.com/taskswitchxp/
tclock2 – http://home.inreach.com/2tone/tclock2/tclock2.htm
Weather Watcher – http://www.singerscreations.com/
WinRoll – http://www.palma.com.au/winroll/

Download managers:
Free Download Manager – http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
Fresh Download – http://www.freshdevices.com/freshdown.html
Star Downloader – http://www.stardownloader.com/downloads.php
wackget – http://millweed.com/projects/wackget/
wget – http://xoomer.virgilio.it/hherold/
WellGet – http://www.wellget.com/

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
KeePass – http://keepass.sourceforge.net/
GnuPG – http://www.gnupg.org/
PGP Freeware – http://www.pgp.com/products/freeware.html
TrueCrypt – http://www.truecrypt.org/
WindowsCleaner – http://www.winnowsoft.com/internet-eraser.htm

File Managers:
2xExplorer – http://netez.com/2xExplorer/
A43 – http://www.shawneelink.net/~bgmiller/
ExplorerXP – http://www.explorerxp.com
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:
Jetico Personal Firewall – http://www.jetico.com/index.htm#/jpfirewall.htm
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/content/comp…reeDo wnload.jsp
Comodo – http://www.comodo.com/

FTP Clients:
CoreFTP – http://www.coreftp.com/
Filezilla – http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla
miFiles – http://www.simdata.com.au/mifiles.html
SmartFTP – http://www.smartftp.com/

FTP Servers:
FileZilla – http://filezilla.sourceforge.net/
Golden FTP Server – http://www.goldenftpserver.com
GuildFTPD – http://www.totalshareware.com/asp/detail_v…pplic ation=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/
NVU – http://www.nvu.com/index.html
Selida – http://www.amaryllis.8m.com/
Trellian webPAGE – http://webpage.vendercom.com/
TSW WebCoder – http://www.tsware.net/
Xaamp – http://www.apachefriends.org/

Image viewers:
Ahaview – http://www.aha-soft.com/ahaview/ahaviewfree.exe
FastStone Image Viewer – http://www.faststone.org/FSViewerDetail.htm
Irfanview – http://www.irfanview.com/
Picasa – http://www.picasa.com/content/download.php
SlowView – http://www.slowview.at/
XNView – http://www.xnview.com/

Instant Messenger:
Gaim – http://gaim.sourceforge.net/
IM2: http://www.im2.com
Miranda IM – http://www.miranda-im.org/
Pandion – http://www.pandion.be/
PSI – http://psi.affinix.com/
SIM – http://sim-icq.sourceforge.net/
Trillian Basic – http://trillian.cc/downloads
Ventrilo- http://www.ventrilo.com/http://www.ventrilo.com/[/url]

Internet Explorer Front-Ends:
Avantbrowser – http://www.avantbrowser.com/
Maxthon – http://www.maxthon.com/
SlimBrowser – http://www.flashpeak.com/sbrowser/sbrowser.htm

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.silverex.org/news/

Mail programs:
Foxmail – http://fox.foxmail.com.cn/english/
i.Scribe – http://www.memecode.com/
Mahogany Mail – http://mahogany.sourceforge.net/
Pegasus Mail – http://www.pmail.com/
PopTray – http://www.poptray.org/
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/
hamachi – http://www.hamachi.cc/
NetMeter – http://readerror.gmxhome.de/
NetProfiles – http://netprofiles.danielmilner.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/showthread.php?s=&thread id=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.h tml
AbiWord – http://www.abiword.com/
OpenOffice.org – 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:
Foxit PDF Reader – http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/rd_intro.php
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/
PrimoPDF – http://www.primopdf.com/

Photo manipulation and image design:
ColorPic – http://www.iconico.com/colorpic/
Delineate – http://delineate.sourceforge.net/
Paint .NET – http://www.eecs.wsu.edu/paint.net/
Pixia – http://www.ab.wakwak.com/~knight/
Pixie – http://www.nattyware.com/pixie.html
PhotoFiltre – http://www.photofiltre.com/
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
Bazaar Version Control – http://bazaar-vcs.org/
Crimson Editor – http://www.crimsoneditor.com/
Context – http://www.context.cx/
Dev C++ – http://www.bloodshed.net/
Dev Pascal – http://www.bloodshed.net/
Digital Mars C++ – http://www.digitalmars.com/download/freecompiler.h tml
Eclipse – http://www.eclipse.org/
ExamDiff – http://www.prestosoft.com/ps.asp?page=edp_examdiff
Freepascal – http://www.freepascal.org/
JCreator LE – http://www.jcreator.com/download.htm
jEdit – http://www.jedit.org/
Metapad – http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/
Notepad++ – http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm
Notepad2 – http://www.flos-freeware.ch/
Pelles C – http://www.smorgasbordet.com/pellesc/index.htm
PHP Hypertext Parser – http://www.php.net/
PSPad – http://www.pspad.com/
Python – http://www.python.org/
Ruby – http://www.dm4lab.to/~usa/ruby/index_en.html
SharpDevelop – http://www.icsharpcode.net/opensource/sd/
WinMerge – http://winmerge.org/

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/

RSS Readers:
Ablion – http://www.fileheaven.com/Abilon/download/14059.ht m
RssBandit – http://www.rssbandit.org/
RSSOwl – http://www.rssowl.org/
RssReader – http://www.rssreader.com/
SharpReader – http://www.sharpreader.net/

System Information and monitoring:
Aida32 – http://majorgeeks.com/download181.html
CPU-Z – http://www.cpuid.com/cpuz.php
Everest – http://www.lavalys.com/products/overview.p…ang=e n&pageid=1
Gkrellm – http://bill.nalens.com/
Motherboard monitor – http://www.majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=311
SpeedFan – http://www.almico.com/speedfan.php
Sysmetrix – http://www.xymantix.com
WCPUID – http://hp.vector.co.jp/authors/VA002374/src/downlo ad.html

Video & Audio codecs :
AC3 Filter – http://ac3filter.net/
CoreAAC – http://www.free-codecs.com/downlo…filter.htm
Although CoreAVC is not free, it is cheap
CoreAVC – http://www.coreavc.com/
DivX Codec – http://www.divx.com/divx/?src=toptab_divx_from_/in dex.php
FFDSHOW – http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow
Haali Media Splitter – http://haali.cs.msu.ru/mkv/
Matroska Splitter – http://www.matroska.org/downloads/windows.html
MediaCoder – http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/
OGG Codecs – http://www.xiph.org/dshow/
XviD – http://www.xvid.org/

Video players :
BsPlayer – http://www.bsplayer.org/
Crystal Player – http://www.crystalplayer.com/index.php?page=downlo ads
Cygwin MPlayer – http://armory.nicewarrior.org/projects/cygmp/
DivX Player – http://www.divx.com/
MaximusDVD – http://www.maximusdvd.com/
Media Player Classic – http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group _id=82303
VideoLan – http://www.videolan.org/

Video tools:
The Film Machine – http://members.home.nl/thefilmmachine/
CamStudio – http://www.camstudio.org/
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/showfiles.php?group _id=65889
Trak Ax – http://www.trakax.com/software/pc/
Zwei-Stein Video Editor – http://www.thugsatbay.com/software/index.html
avidemux – http://fixounet.free.fr/avidemux/
Jahshaka Project – http://www.jahshaka.org

Web browsers:
Firefox – http://www.getfirefox.com
K-Meleon – http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/
Mozilla – http://www.mozilla.org/
Netscape – http://channels.netscape.com/ns/browsers/default.j sp
Opera – http://www.opera.com

Web servers:
Abyss – http://abyss.sourceforge.net/
Apache – http://httpd.apache.org/
Sambar – http://www.sambar.com/
Savant – http://savant.sourceforge.net/
SimpleServer:WWW – http://www.analogx.com/contents/download/network/s swww.htm
TinyWeb – http://www.ritlabs.com/tinyweb/index.html
THTTPD – http://www.acme.com/software/thttpd/

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
CCleaner – http://www.ccleaner.com
Cygwin – http://www.cygwin.com
Daemon Tools – http://www.daemon-tools.cc/dtcc/a…ements.php
Dirkey – http://www.protonfx.com/dirkey/
EditPad Lite – http://www.editpadpro.com/editpadlite.html
HTTrack – http://www.httrack.com/
Inno Setup – http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
KeyNote – http://www.tranglos.com/free/keynote.html
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/
QuickPar – http://www.quickpar.org.uk/
QuickSFV – http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Mouse/4668/
png2ico – http://winterdrache.de/freeware/png2ico
Restoration – http://www3.telus.net/mikebike/RESTORATION.html
Stickies – http://finiteloop.org/~btaylor/software/stickies/
Sysinternals – http://www.sysinternals.com/
Toolbox – http://www.sil.org/computing/toolbox/
TuneXP – http://www.driverheaven.net/dforce/showdoc.php?doc =txp_about
Turbo Pad – http://turbopad.sourceforge.net/
Vim – http://vim.sourceforge.net
Wink – http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ (presentation)

If you know of any other worthy free software out there let me know, i’ll post it up.  If any of these links are now dead, let me know as well.  As always, i’m not responsible for these programs or any damage they might cause to your system.  Use common sense, protective software, and of course, backup your system.

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