As requested in another thread, here's a list of some of my fave legitimately free software. Most of these are open-source and are available for both Windows and Linux.
INTERNET- Firefox - web browser
- Thunderbird - e-mail client
- Pidgin - multi-protocol Instant Messaging client
- butt - "Broadcast Using This Tool - streams the output of your sound card to a stream server. Can also record that stream as it goes out and save a copy on your hard drive. Very handy tool!
OFFICE SUITE- LibreOffice - office suite that supports most MS Office file formats.
UTILITIES- GIMP - Image editor
- Blender - free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems.
- TightVNC - a free remote control software package. With TightVNC, you can see the desktop of a remote machine and control it with your local mouse and keyboard, just like you would do it sitting in the front of that computer.
- PortableApps - allows you to run software directly from a USB flash drive, (or other portable drive) and carry your favorite computer programs along with all of your bookmarks, settings, email and more with you. Use them on any Windows computer. All without leaving any personal data behind. I use this a LOT when traveling. It works significantly better if you have a USB2 port/device rather than USB1.
- pendriveapps.com - same functionality as PortableApps. Pro: more applications listed. Con: it's just a collection of software, and doesn't have the base menu application like PortableApps.
MULTI-MEDIA- VLC - a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs, and various streaming protocols.
It can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network.
It doesn't need any external codec or program to work.
GAMES I've played all of these except Warsow, Nexuiz and Tremulous.
LIVE CD's A "Live CD" is one that you can boot from and run the software contained on it regardless of what OS is installed on your computer. There are MANY Live CD's out there, most are variations of Linux, tweaked for specific purposes. These two are my favorite, though I haven't used the newest version of Knoppix very much at all.
- Knoppix - a popular Linux system.
- SystemRescueCD - many utilities for system recovery, hard drive formatting, etc.
FIREFOX EXTENTIONS- Adblock Plus - Ever been annoyed by all those ads and banners on the internet that often take longer to download than everything else on the page? Install Adblock Plus now and get rid of them.
- Flashblock - blocks ALL Flash content from loading. It then leaves placeholders on the webpage that allow you to click to download and then view the Flash content.
- Better Gmail - Add useful extra features to Gmail, like hierarchical labels, macros, file attachment icons, and more.
- MediaPlayerConnectivity - Allows you to launch embeded video of website in an external application with a simple click.
- Nuke Anything Enhanced - Allows hiding of almost anything via context menu 'Remove Object'.
- PDF Download - Use PDF Download to do whatever you like with PDF files on the Web. Regain control of them and eliminate browser problems, view PDFs directly in Firefox as HTML, and use the all-new Web-to-PDF toolbar to save and share Web pages as high-quality PDF files.
- Wikipedia Lookup Extension - Looks up up the selected word in the Wikipedia encyclopedia in the language specified in your user preferences.
Several folks expressed interest in CAD software, so I'll check around to see if I can find anything. But, I don't have any need for that sort of thing so I might not be the best judge of the usefulness of whatever I find.
There is a LOT of legitimately free software out there, you just need to do some googling to find it. :-)