freeware

Freezip

The zip utility for those who don't want to spend their lives figuring out how to use Winzip. A small, fast zip/unzip utility that is elegantly simple; if you can use Windows, you can use this. Don't like it? Uninstall and it will leave no trace on your computer...not even spies.

A great program, crafted by someone who cares about what he's doing.

Grisoft Anti-virus

Half the people I know use this one and swear by it. Still completely free for personal use.

E-trust

Well, the bad news is that it isn't free anymore. The good news is that you get world-class protection for next to nothing. I got stuck on this one back when Computer Associates seemed to think that personal AV programs should be free for personal use. Oh, well, $20 the first year, $10 a year after that isn't going to break me and I have never had a virus disable my computer while using E-trust EZ.

IrfanView

A very fast 32 bit graphic viewer for Windows 98, NT & 2K. Features thumbnails, preview, drag and drop support, scan (TWAIN) support, batch conversion, color depth change, capture, cut and crop, resize, effects like sharpen & blur, change to greyscale, more stuff than I'm going to type. Only one .exe file, no .dll's. Terrific program & Free. ZDNet made it an Editor's Pick and Tucows gave it 5 bossies.

Ad-aware

I don't know where you've been if you haven't heard of this one. The best spy catcher around. No way would I be without it. It really proved itself when Alexa managed to sneak 92 new keys into my registry a couple of years ago. Not being particularly fond of spyware tracking me and sending info about me to people I don't want to have it, I ran Ad-aware, found them and sent them packing. A great program.

Click Tray Calendar

ClickTray is a small program that waits in your system tray until you want it, has an alarm function, an amazingly large note capacity (up in the gigabytes), a to-do list, a repeat function and lots more handy features. A neat add-on.

PopupPopper

I love this thing. I love hearing the *POP* of a champagne cork being pulled when it eradicates those infernal popup windows. My favorite option, though being able to allow or disallow any or all of the windows on a site isn't bad either.

Cacheman

I have no clue how this works but it definitely improved the performance of my computer. Technical types can refine the settings to "race" more than likely, but even someone who hasn't a clue can use the preset functions and see impressive results.

Cleaner

Okay, this isn't a biggie, but if you are sick of those carat marks >>> that come by the cartload in forwarded emails, this is the program that will get rid of them pronto. Just copy to Cleaner and push the button. Windows only.