Ahhh, freeware.
http://www.osalt.com/
- A lovely site that list a lot of popular softare, but then has recommendations of open source alternatives.
Zone Alarm Firewall
- A great program that I use myself. Probably one of the best firewalls out there, and it is free!
http://www.comodo.com/
- a great security site. Quite a few free programs including anti-virus, malware, firewall and more. Worth a try for being a free security suite, huh?
http://www.free-av.com/
- a program that is running on my laptop right now. Probably the best free anti-virus program I've tried(even better than AVG, another free anti-virus program).
http://www.utorrent.com/
- probably the best torrent program out there. Definitely worth a download.
http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/
- my favorite email client. Just wish all my inboxes supported it...
http://www.openoffice.org/
- who could go without this. a solution to microsoft's $150 software. Compatible with MS Office as well.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooop
- OxygenOffice. yes, this is based off of OpenOffice, but it is a profressional version basically. Gives you more features(if u need them).
http://damnsmalllinux.org/
http://www.sabayonlinux.org/
- of course there are hundreds of Linux distributions out there. But DSL is great b/c it is 50 Mb, which is the smallest fully featured GUI Operating System available. Very nice to have on a CD for a quick boot into linux.
- and of course my favorite, Sabayon. Basically, I think if you are coming from Windows with no Linux experience, go with this. They have a professional edition that has quite a few apps that can help you(like wine). But it also has the best driver support that I've seen(first distro i've used on my laptop to work with wireless and no needed configuration). The Ubuntu series is wonderful and Open SUSE and Mandriva are some you should look at as well.
And if we can drift a bit from 'software', I'll just list some games that I think everyone should at least try.
Nexuiz
- a quake arena type game(Open Source)
Frets on Fire
- Guitar Hero clone for PC. Can rip songs from the Guitar Hero game CDs. Also supports the creation of songs. Basically, it's Guitar Hero with all the songs from all GH games plus some more custom ones.(Open Source)
Ultrastar Deluxe
- This is a singstar clone for PC. Doesn't rip game CDs, but there is a vast array of songs available. Pretty fun to play. Supports up to 6 players(great for parties).(Open Source).
Just give those a nice google search and you will have no trouble playing those. And the best thing is they work on Linux as well. Amazing, the power of open source.
Hope that list is nice enough for you. There are still thousands of freeware apps out there(taskbar shuffle, Wyzo, Mp3Tag, CCleaner, Spybot, SpeedFan, Yahoo Widgets, Google Desktop, Paint.NET, Gimp, Gimpshop, Icon Art, Blender, DAZ Studio, Seamonkey, InfraRecorder, Limewire, Firefox, IE, WMP, iTunes, Winamp, AIM, Windows Live Messenger). I could go on, but no need to rant.
Just pull up google and search 'free software list'. You will get a nice search results page. Plus there is a list on Wikipedia that is very useful.