THIS IS A WORK IN PROGRESS
Let me state right off that this article will not deal with things Apple. I've been a consultant for over 25 years and in all that time I have never worked at a company doing real work with Apple computers. I certainly don't have anything against Apples and for people that are technology challenged I think they are the right choice. On the flip side I am not going to try and defend Microsoft for their perverse way of doing business or their bloated error ridden code but it's the only real game in town if you need to do business.
A note on Linux; I have tried 8 different flavors of Linux (as of 09/2009) on server, desktop and laptop computers and none of them worked with all the features most users would need. It might be usable some day, but not yet (it's getting closer).
COMPUTER INFO
PC World (submitted by Ned Burford) - http://www.pcworld.com/ - Free utilities and information. You need to register to download utilities but it's worth it.
Tom's Hardware Site: http://www.tomshardware.com/us/ for serious geek info on hardware.
FREE SOFTWARE: STUFF TO GET YOU STARTED
Microsoft Security Essentials - LINK - I know; suprised huh? This is actually a very solid security software package from Microsoft. It's very basic but combined with the latest Microsoft firewall it does a fairly good job especially considering the cost (FREE).
Avast Antivirus - LINK - I've used this for over 2 years now and have had zero problems (or viruses).
Threatfire - LINK - Great addon to your base antivirus; whatever that is.
Ad-Aware Spyware Remover - LINK - The personal free version doesn't have real time monitoring but if that's important you can always buy it.
Firefox Internet Browser (must have) - LINK - Could be the best browser available today (9/2009). The huge quantity of add-ons make this a must have. I usually run this browser and Internet Explorer 8 at the same time to do different things.
Google Chrome Internet Browser - LINK - This browser still has a few issues around compatability but this thing is freaking fast.
Open Office - LINK - A decent 'open-source' substitute for Microsoft Office. Doesn't have all the features of MS Office but most of the time you won't miss them. It still doesn't achive 100% compatability.
Foxit PDF Reader (must have) - LINK - This is a fantastic replacement for Adobe Reader. It's so much faster than Adobe Reader that you will never go back. This software only reads PDF files it does not write/create PDFs.
7 Zip Compression Utility - LINK - A much better compression utility than WinZip. Handles more compression formats and packs them tighter.
File Zilla FTP Utility - LINK - For those of you that need to do ftp or sftp this is the one you need to get. The majority of average users will never need to use FTP (File Transfer Protocol).
Belarc Advisor (must have) - LINK - This software will list EVERYTHING that's going on inside your PC.
GIMP (Photoshop® Clone) - LINK - If you can't spring for the hefty price of Photoshop® but want to do some serious photo editing then you need to download this 'open-source' software. Like Photoshop® the learning curve is very steep but you can get very good results out of it.
Paint.Net (must have) - LINK - Paint.NET is a free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. An active and growing online community provides friendly help, tutorials, and plugins. This has become my favorite image editor. It's not easy but it is easier than Photoshop®.
Google Picasa - LINK - Photo editor and organizer. If you need to do light-weight editing of photos this is an excellent tool. Great for sepia and creating of black and white photos. NOTE: Do NOT download/install the Google Pack for Windows.
IEspell - LINK - Spell check for Internet Explorer. This is pretty darn neat for those of us that skipped 6 grade.
ie7pro (must have) - LINK - IE7Pro is a must have add-on for Internet Explorer 7, which includes a lot of features and tweaks to make your IE friendlier, more useful, secure and customizable. IE7Pro includes Tabbed Browsing Management, Spell Check, Inline Search, Super Drag Drop, Crash Recovery, Proxy Switcher, Mouse Gesture, Tab History Browser, Web Accelerator, User Agent Switcher, Web page Capturer, AD Blocker, Flash Block, Greasemonkey like User Scripts platform, User Plug-ins and many more power packed features. You can customize not just Internet Explorer, but even your favorite website according to your need and taste using IE7Pro.
Snippy - LINK - If you are writing documentation that needs screen shots you must get this utility. It doesn't do all the things that SnagIt does but it is brain-dead easy to use and the application (file) is tiny.
Notepad++ - LINK - Another good replacement for Windows Note Pad. It's just a matter of choice.
TrueCrypt (must have) - LINK - Free open-source disk encryption software for Windows Vista/XP, Mac and Linux. If you have Windows 7 then you need to use the built-in Bit Locker instead.
Thunderbird - LINK - The best cross platform email program available.
NOT FREE: BUT WORTH THE PRICE
Replay Music - http://www.applian.com/replay-music/index.php - Records anything that's played on your sound card and converts it into almost any format you could need.
SafeEyes - http://www.safeeyes.com/ - The best parental filter for your kid's web surfing experience. Complete control over a wide range of settings. Control web access by total time or multiple time periods. Filter adult sites and centrally log IM conversations for up to 5 PCs. The only down side is it's somewhat hard to manage.