Useful Free PC Software

Please Keep The Information in Alphabetical Order.

If you're looking for an alternative to a particular programme, try here - http://alternativeto.net/

For portable versions of many applications:
http://www.portablefreeware.com/
http://portableapps.com/
http://www.pendriveapps.com/

Anti-Virus

• Avast Anti-Virus
• AVG Anti-Virus Anti-Virus
• Clam Antivirus Multiple platform AV ( Windows version)
• Comodo - Free Security Apps Free AntiVirus, Firewall and others.
• Free AV Anti-Virus (persistent urges to upgrade to paid for version)
• Microsoft Security Essentials - Provides real-time protection for your home PC that guards against viruses, spyware, and other malicious software.

Audio/Video

• AIMP2 Music Player with a lot of customizable functionality
• amaroK Music Player and advanced collection organiser with song tagging features
• Ardour Digital audio workstation, record, edit and mix multi-track audio
• Audacity Audio Editor
• AVI2WAV Save audio from .avi files
• AVS Player Media player that includes free DVD codecs
• Azureus BitTorrent
• BPM Analyser Writes BPM data to mp3 tags
• Burn Aware Excellent Free CD Burner (Windows)
• Burrrn Burn audio CDs from various audio files
• CDburnerXP Pro CD Burner
• CDex MP3 Ripper
• Combined Community Codec Pack Audio/Video Codecs for Windows
• dBpowerAMP Cd Ripper & Audio Converter
• DVD Shrink
• DVD43 DVD Region Decoder
• Foobar2000 Music Player and advanced collection organiser
• GB-PVR Personal Video Recorder
• iTune Agent Sync anything to iTunes (Phones/iPod/HDD/etc)
• iTunes Library Updater Updates and cleans iTunes quickly and easily
• Klite Codec Pack
• Last.fm Internet Radio for PC/Mac/iPhone/Android
• Media Player Classic
• Mobbler Last.fm & Scrobbler for Nokia phones
• MP3TagStudio MP3 Editing Tool
• mpTrim Trim mp3 files
• PS3 Media Server Media Server for PS3
• QTScrobbler Scrobbles iPod playcount (Last.fm)
• Ripitforme DVD Ripper and Shrinker
• Songbird Opensource musicplayer from Mozilla for Windows, Macintosh and Linux
• SUPER Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer: Decode and re-code any format a/v
• Tidymp3 mp3 tag remover
• Videolan Video Player (also known as VLC Player)
• VirtualDub Movie Editing
• wavtrim Trim wav files
• Winamp Music Player
• XBMC Media Center which supports a vast library of audio, video and image formats.
• YamiPod Yet Another iPod Manager (Copy to and from iPod to/from any PC)
• YouCOntrol iTunes iTunes Menu Bar Controller

Documenting

• Crimson Editor Freeware Text Editor
• Compatibility pack for Office 2007 files on Office 2003 & XPOffice add-on to be able to read Office 2007 files on older versions of Office.
• CutePDF PDF Creater
• Doxygen Create software documentation from source code (supports JavaDoc format, QT, and many more)
• Foxit Reader PDF Reader
• IBM Lotus Symphony Office suite
• MetaPad Notepad Alternative
• Notepad++ Ditto
• Open Office Alternative to MS Office
• OpenWorkbench Alternative to MS Project
• PDFSU Adobe Acrobat plugin culler
• PrimoPDF PDF Generator
• TextPad Text Editor (I don't think this is freeware- shareware maybe?)
• WinMerge Document Comparison and Merging Tool

File Transfer

• ABC BitTorrent Client
• AceFTP FTP
• FileZilla FTP Program
• HFS HTTP file server
• NetMeter Monitor/Limit internet data useage
• PuTTY Telnet/SSH Client
• qBittorent BitTorrent Client (recommended replacement for the controversial utorrent which is now blocked by many sites)
• WinSCP SFTP/SCP Client

Imaging & DeskTopPublishing

• FastStoneImage viewer/converter/resizer/editor
• GeoHTML Image Map Maker
• GIMP Image Editor similar to Photoshop
• Inkscape Vector Graphics Editor, reads & writes PDF
• IrfanView Image Viewer
• NeatImage Digital Image Noise Reducer
• Opanda exif Exif editor & viewer plus IE plugin
• Paint.net
• Picasa
• Scribus DTP Software that helps creating PDF and printed matters
• Shape Collage Automatic Photo Collage Maker
• VSO Image Resizer Resize on right click
• Web Album Generator Automatic Photo Album Generator

Instant Messaging

• Pidgin Multiple IM protocol client (MSN, ICQ, IRC, Yahoo/AIM, etc)
• Trillian Ditto

Internet Browsers, E-mail & Accessories

• Camino Internet Browser for Mac OS X
• Chrome Google chrome web browser (beta). Fast and now has extensons.
• eM Client :: An email client and more, similar to Outlook. Not strictly freeware but free for personal use.
• IESpell Spellcheck addond for IE
• Mozilla Firefox Internet Browser
• Mozilla Thunderbird E-mail client
• Mozilla Lightning Calendar add-on for Thunderbird
• Opera Internet Browser
• Spellbound Spell Checker for Firefox
• Xobni Outlook add-on that's indispensable once you've used it for a week.
• Xmarks Bookmark backup and synchroniser

Networking

• 3d Traceroute
• Kismet High-End wireless network detector, sniffer, and intrusion detection system
• LogMeIn Remote Computer Access
• NetStumbler WLAN Hotspot Detector
• Nmap Network Scanner
• Privoxy Web Filtering Proxy
• Proxomitron - Web-filtering proxy
• TeamViewer - Free, non-commercial remote access and support
• UltraVNC Feature-packed version of below
• VNC Remote Computer Access
• Wireless Key View View the wireless keys on a PC
• Wireshark Captures networks packets

Programming

• Java
• Python
• Pascal Free Delphi replacement
• Ruby
• Erlang
• .NET 2.0 SDK Microsoft .NET 2.0 SDK for Use with above
• Dev-C++ Windows Development Environment
• Doxygen Create software documentation from source code (supports JavaDoc format, QT, and many more)
• Microsoft Visual Studio Express C++ and VB
• SharpDevelop Very Good C# Development Tool
• TortoiseSVN (Subversion) Trust me, you'll thank me later

Security

• Axcrypt File encryption & secure deletion.
• Ethereal Network virus scanner, pop3 password cracker and all that good stuff
• Keepass Password Storage Program
• Kerio Firewall
• Sygate Firewall
• Truecrypt Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac OS X, and Linux
• XP Antispy
• ZoneAlarm Firewall
• NetWitness Investigator See what's really happening on your network
• K9 Parental Control Industry quality Parental Control Software From BlueCoat

Spyware

• Ad-aware Spyware Detector
• Hijack This & CWShredder Tools for removal of spyware
• Hitman Pro Anti-Spyware
• Malwarebytes Anti-Malware Good anti-spyware that finds things that many others don't.
• Spybot Anti-spyware
• Spyware Blaster
• Windows Defender

Web Design

• HTML Validator
• Microsoft Visual Studio Express C++ and VB
• nVU Dreamweaver style HTML editor
• PHP Designer (IDE)
• PSPad HTML and other languages code editor
• Web Album Generator Automatic Photo Album Generator

Virtualisation Software

• VMware VM Player- Free runs on XP/Vista etc (Runs on Windows and Linux Platforms)
• VMware Server - Free with paid for support options (Runs on Windows and Linux Platforms)
• VMware ESXi - Free with paid for support options (Runs on hardware, so hardware compatibility first)
• Microsoft Virtual Server 2005 RC2
• Oracle VirtualBox - Runs on Windows, OSX and Linux

Operating Systems

• Linux
• Ubuntu Ubuntu Linux

Miscellaneous

• AutoInsult Automatic Insult Generator
• BearTail Active log file viewer for Windows
• Bulk Rename Utility Great little programme to rename loads of files
• CCleaner Cache Cleaner
• Cobian Backup Backup Program
• Copernic PC Indexer and Searcher
• fat32format Format any sized HDD to fat32
• File Fort Schedule unattended backups to either hard drive or FTP
• File Unlocker Unlock those annoying locked files and folders in Windows so you can delete, move or rename them. (Alternate URL - http://cedrick.collomb.perso.sfr.fr/unlocker/ )
• Genie Timeline Free Backup uses shadow copy and version features
• Glasscubes Online collaboration, share files, workspaces, contacts
• Gadwin PrintscreenAdvanced Print Screen
• Internet Speed Test
• Internet Speed Test with local servers worldwide
• HxD file editor Hex editor that is able to cope with large files
• JR Directory Printer Lists files/folders
• Lupas Rename File renamer
• Mass File Renamer This is a utility i (Shocker-z) created for renaming files within a directory, it allows you to replace one word with another in all file names.
• MSIA MS Software Network Auditor
• ObjectDock Program Dock
• PartWord Quickly get selected characters from a password
• PC Wizard PC Benchmark Program
• Remove Empty Directories Err... Removes empty directories
• SimpleActivityLogger Log various system events to help track your computer's usage
• SpamBayes Spam Filter
• Stanza for PC Stanza eBook reader for PC, opened books can be exported to iPhone Stanza App.
• Synergy Control two or more local PCs with one mouse/keyboard
• Sysinternals Suite Sysinternals Suite
• Task Switch XP Alt-Tab Replacement
• WhoLockMe File locked in windows? Use this to find out which process is locking and and kill it
• WinRAR Multi-format archiving utility
• WinDirStat shows you what is using up disk space and where it is, often left over GBs of temp download data (esp if you use Mega).
• PortableApps Portable Apps on a USB Stick
• Recuva Free File Recovery

Work in Progress

Add more links here, or post in this thread if you don't know how to do a wiki, please post in the format

[url]Software|http://www.software.com[/url] short description

That way they can be added straight away.