I really tip my hat at the developers of freeware software. Gone are the days where freeware meant your either installing trojans on your machine or really buggy software (okay some of it still is).

Here are my favourite pieces of freeware:

FastStone Image Viewer
http://www.faststone.org/

I used Irfanview before I found this gem, it does everything - resizing, rotating, cropping and even RAW file processing.



Firefox
http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/

I just can't go back to IE after using this browser. Sure IE now has tabbed browsing buts its the extensions that make it such a powerful web browsing tool.

VLC Player
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

I try to keep my internet machine as light as possible when it comes to codecs/unecessary installs and this player supports a multitude of video formats without needing additional codecs.

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I'm always keen to find new freeware (currently looking for a decent freeware rar app) so if you have anything worthwhile why not post a link.

GOM Player
GOM is a FREE media player with popular audio & video codecs built-in.
No need to install codecs separately!
Try one of your broken AVI files or one of the files that is being downloaded with GOM.

GOM Player Features

Codec Finder
GOM Player includes many codecs (XviD, DivX, FLV1, AC3, OGG, MP4, H263 and more) so you won't need to install separate codecs for most videos. For those videos that require a separate codec, GOM Player will find one and direct you to a place where you can download open source version of the codec. That way, you won't get stuck with unnecessary codecs on your system.


Play Broken AVI Files (Patented)
AVI files can't be played if the index is broken, or the file isn't completely downloaded. This is because index is located at the end of the file. GOM Player's patented technology enables users to view files with broken index or that are still being downloaded.


Powerful Subtitle Support
GOM Player supports SMI, SRT, RT, SUB(with IDX) files for subtitle. You can specify margin, location, size, resolution, font and others. You can also enable shadow, view ASF files with subtitle, karaoke subtitle mode. You can even synchronize subtitle and video if there's any mismatch.


Convenient Playlist
GOM Player supports playlist formats such as M3U, PLS, ASX. You can include different media types on a playlist. Also, it also lets you edit playlists for different media types. It's easy to create and edit your own multimedia playlist with GOM Player.


Support Different Media Types
Along with different media format such as AVI, MPG, MPEG and DAT, GOM Player also supports streaming Windows media format (WMV, ASF, ASX). You can also watch DVD-quality videos with 5.1 channel audio output.


Screen Capture
Screen capture allows you to take a screenshot of your video directly from GOM Player. Using the Burst Capture feature, you can take continuous screenshots upto 999 shots.


Advanced Features
There are other endless number of advanced features. Customize brightness, contrast and saturation. Sharpen and add noise to your video. Try audio equalizer. Repeat a section of your video with our A-B Repeat feature. Fast forward/rewind a few seconds using left/right keys. There are even more for you to discover!


foobar2000
Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats.

Spark
Spark is a free jabber client with VOIP support (and Jingle soon), and integrates perfectly with the Wildfire jabber server, or any others really.

URL: http://www.igniterealtime.org/projects/spark/index.jsp

Hehe where'd you get GOM from Mithras?

Off Topic: I discovered it on another forum, which you seem to visit on a regular basis. Does it matter? 'tis worthy of being listed here.

I think Rusty was alluding to the fact that he made a post for GOM on V9 a while back. haha No, it doens't matter where you discovered it.

A good FREE Antivirus with updates for life:
AVG (http://free.grisoft.com)

A good spyware cleaner
Spybot (www.safer-networking.org)