10 Killer Free Programs You Should Be Using!

Mozilla Thunderbird (email client) - Still using that program Microsoft has neglected for the past 3 years, Outlook Express? Thunderbird's motto is "Reclaim Your Inbox", and this program does just that. Much more secure, easy searching and intelligent spam filters are just a fraction of the features Thunderbird touts. Also note, you can install add-ons much the same way you can in Firefox.
Picasa (photo organizer) - Google acquired Picasa in 2004 and has done nothing but improve what was already a very powerful photo organizer. The software will automatically find pictures on your computer and then you have full control do to any number of things. This includes moving and renaming, making albums, adding star rating and password protecting specific folders. Once you have your pictures organized, you can make simple edits to them, like cropping, fixing red-eye or adding captions. Now that you have your amazing picture collection sorted and cleaned up, you need to show them off right? Picasa is integrated with Gmail to allow you to share images easily between family and friends. This is only the beginning of the feature set that Google has flawlessly built into Picasa.
OpenOffice (office suite) - Who wants to spend $500 on something that they can get for free. OpenOffice is perfect for the casual user or the advanced user. It has pretty much everything Microsoft Office has plus more that it doesn't. It's also much more secure since it's supported by an entire community of open source developers.
iTunes (music manager) - Still the best software out there for managing your ever expanding music collection not to mention it's easy enough that a four year old could use it. A couple of the more powerful features are the Automatic Album Art (where iTunes will fetch album art for most CD's you import), tight integration with the iPod, Smart Playlists (let iTunes figure out what music belongs where) and Gapless Playback.
VLC (video playback) - If you're a video junkie or you just want to be able to play your content no matter what format it's in, VLC is for you. I have yet to find something that this player can't play. Not only that, but it seems to handle video much better than Windows Media Player or even Quicktime...best of all, no codecs to deal with!
Mozilla Firefox (web browser) - Dump that security plagued blue "e" we all know and despise as Internet Explorer. Firefox is much more secure and robust. Something it can't do that you want? Firefox supports add-ons that can make it do just about anything you could possibly want. Doesn't look like you want it to? Change the appearance with a different theme.
Skype (VOIP client) - If you haven't heard of VOIP, it's time. VOIP stands for Voice Over the Internet Protocol. Basically, that means you can make phone calls on your computer to anywhere in the world, for FREE. Skype also supports web cams so while you're talking to your family living somewhere across the globe, you can see them also. Skype offers two ways to call. PC to PC, which is absolutely free. Or you can pay $30/year and be able to make calls from your computer to regular phones.
SyncBack (file backup) - Everyone knows how important it is to backup...but no one seems to actually do it. Well now's the time to start and with SyncBack, it's incredibly easy to do. The best thing to do is buy an external harddrive to backup to, or backup to a separate computer. Syncback allows you to create what they call "profiles", or folders you want backed up, and then set a schedule that will do it for you automatically. Once you have it set up the way you want, you never have to look at it again:)
CCleaner (pc maintenance) - After about a year of use, Windows machines seem to slow down considerably. Part of this is due to everyday use like installing/uninstalling, browsing the web and just using Windows period. CCleaner comes in and removes unused files from you system, hopefully allowing it to run faster and increasing disk space. I say hopefully because I'm not a big believer in any type of "Speed Your System Up Now!" gimmicks, but I've used CCleaner for about a year now on all my machines and have been very pleased with what it offers. You can erase your browsing tracks, clean up temporary files and set your recycling bin to securely erase files. There is also a registry cleaner built in...but I suggest that only for the more advanced users.
Pidgin (chat client) - We all use Instant Messaging nowadays, the biggest problem is that everyone uses a different client. Enter, Pidgin (I promise the functionality is better than the name). This allows you to sign into just about any IM protocol being used today. That means that if you're on MSN Messenger and your friend is on Yahoo Messenger, you can still talk to you them. IRC chat is also supported.