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Security
Ad-Aware SE - Powerful spyware removal tool. Completely free and better than most paid programs.
Spybot - Search and Destroy - Powerful spyware removal tool. Completely free and better than most paid programs.
Zone Alarm - Good software firewall for basic users and experts alike.
AVG Anti-virus Free Edition - Great antivirus program that is comparable to or better than any retail antivirus software out there.
Avast Antivirus - Another good freeware antivirus program
CWShredder - Tool for removing the widespread "Cool Web Search" spyware, which is often difficult to remove without this.
HijackThis - Powerful tool for manually fixing spyware-related problems and viral infections; generally meant to be used by or with help from an experienced user or expert.
Hitman Pro - Another spyware removal program
Diagnostic, Benchmarking, Overclocking and Stress-testing
CPU-Z - Small, yet in-depth program that tells all of the details of your processor, RAM, and motherboard.
Memtest86+ - Extremely effective program for testing the stability of memory; this is a must-have for checking memory overclocks and for bad sticks.
SequoiaView - Useful tool that provides a graphic display of your hard drive's used space; very good for removing things to free up space if you can't figure out what's using it.
3DMark and PCMark - Synthetic Benchmarking programs that give you what are essentially meaningless numbers that are supposed to indicate the performance of your computer. This is kind of silly in that regard, but the programs are useful for stress-testing.
SiSoft SANDRA - Extremely useful tool that provides a huge array of diagnostic and benchmarking functions, as well as some stress-testing ones. If your motherboard didn't come with a general monitoring program, than this may be very useful to you.
ATI Tool - Incredible tool for overclocking Radeon graphics cards as well as testing for artifacts on most graphics cards.
Rivatuner - Program that offers greatly improved overclocking and tweaking for GeForce video cards over the options in the nVidia Forceware control panel.
Speedfan - Program for monitoring fan speeds and temperatures as well as regulating fan speed where possible.
FRAPS - Awesome little utility for benchmarking and video capture of in-game footage.
General Applications
Mozilla Firefox - Incredible open-source browser that has tons of features as well as vastly improved security over Internet Explorer.
Mozilla Thunderbird - Good open-source email client with some improvements over Outlook, especially in terms of security.
GAIM - Excellent, open-source instant messaging client that supports a number of networks, including AOL, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC servers.
Trillian - Great freeware instant messaging client that supports as much as GAIM and more.
OpenOffice - Incredible open-source word processing sweet that offers all the functionality of Microsoft Office and more, but at no price.
Disk-related Applications
PC Inspector File Recovery - File recovery utility with very good functionality and user interface.
Disk Investigator - Another good file recover utility.
ISOBuster Useful tool for recovering information off of optical media.
Active@Kill Disk - Utility that allows you to remove data from hard drives and make it impossible to recover without professional tools and knowledge.
http://dban.sourceforge.net/ - Another utility for erasing disks.
Miscellaneous Maintenance Utilities
Driver Cleaner - Great utility for cleaning out remaining parts of removed drivers.
RegCleaner Utility that gives you a great deal of control of certain parts of the registry and provides an automated scan to remove or correct bad registry entries.
Feel free to post suggestions as long as it's spyware-free freware or extremely-functional shareware. This is all I'm adding for now, but I know of many other useful freeware programs and I'm sure there are some I don't know about or just don't use. Post your suggestion with link and I'll be happy to add it. I'll also get around to making it look prettier when I feel up to it.
Ad-Aware SE - Powerful spyware removal tool. Completely free and better than most paid programs.
Spybot - Search and Destroy - Powerful spyware removal tool. Completely free and better than most paid programs.
Zone Alarm - Good software firewall for basic users and experts alike.
AVG Anti-virus Free Edition - Great antivirus program that is comparable to or better than any retail antivirus software out there.
Avast Antivirus - Another good freeware antivirus program
CWShredder - Tool for removing the widespread "Cool Web Search" spyware, which is often difficult to remove without this.
HijackThis - Powerful tool for manually fixing spyware-related problems and viral infections; generally meant to be used by or with help from an experienced user or expert.
Hitman Pro - Another spyware removal program
Diagnostic, Benchmarking, Overclocking and Stress-testing
CPU-Z - Small, yet in-depth program that tells all of the details of your processor, RAM, and motherboard.
Memtest86+ - Extremely effective program for testing the stability of memory; this is a must-have for checking memory overclocks and for bad sticks.
SequoiaView - Useful tool that provides a graphic display of your hard drive's used space; very good for removing things to free up space if you can't figure out what's using it.
3DMark and PCMark - Synthetic Benchmarking programs that give you what are essentially meaningless numbers that are supposed to indicate the performance of your computer. This is kind of silly in that regard, but the programs are useful for stress-testing.
SiSoft SANDRA - Extremely useful tool that provides a huge array of diagnostic and benchmarking functions, as well as some stress-testing ones. If your motherboard didn't come with a general monitoring program, than this may be very useful to you.
ATI Tool - Incredible tool for overclocking Radeon graphics cards as well as testing for artifacts on most graphics cards.
Rivatuner - Program that offers greatly improved overclocking and tweaking for GeForce video cards over the options in the nVidia Forceware control panel.
Speedfan - Program for monitoring fan speeds and temperatures as well as regulating fan speed where possible.
FRAPS - Awesome little utility for benchmarking and video capture of in-game footage.
General Applications
Mozilla Firefox - Incredible open-source browser that has tons of features as well as vastly improved security over Internet Explorer.
Mozilla Thunderbird - Good open-source email client with some improvements over Outlook, especially in terms of security.
GAIM - Excellent, open-source instant messaging client that supports a number of networks, including AOL, ICQ, MSN, Yahoo, and IRC servers.
Trillian - Great freeware instant messaging client that supports as much as GAIM and more.
OpenOffice - Incredible open-source word processing sweet that offers all the functionality of Microsoft Office and more, but at no price.
Disk-related Applications
PC Inspector File Recovery - File recovery utility with very good functionality and user interface.
Disk Investigator - Another good file recover utility.
ISOBuster Useful tool for recovering information off of optical media.
Active@Kill Disk - Utility that allows you to remove data from hard drives and make it impossible to recover without professional tools and knowledge.
http://dban.sourceforge.net/ - Another utility for erasing disks.
Miscellaneous Maintenance Utilities
Driver Cleaner - Great utility for cleaning out remaining parts of removed drivers.
RegCleaner Utility that gives you a great deal of control of certain parts of the registry and provides an automated scan to remove or correct bad registry entries.
Feel free to post suggestions as long as it's spyware-free freware or extremely-functional shareware. This is all I'm adding for now, but I know of many other useful freeware programs and I'm sure there are some I don't know about or just don't use. Post your suggestion with link and I'll be happy to add it. I'll also get around to making it look prettier when I feel up to it.
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