Realtime monitoring/protection against spyware, trojans, rootkits, hijackers, keyloggers, and more! Ad-Aware offers threat alerts and automatic updates, but some important features are disabled in the free version. While rootkit detection is present, heuristics and real-time registry protection are not.

Adobe Reader software is the global standard for electronic document sharing. Use Adobe Reader to view, search, digitally sign, verify, print, and collaborate on Adobe PDF files.

This free edition is both easy to install and easy to use, offers protection against viruses/spyware/adware/trojans, protects realtime against poisoned web pages while you're surfing, and is compatible with Windows 7, Windows Vista and Windows XP.

IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative graphic viewer for Windows. It lets you open and edit images as well as multiple media formats. You can cut and crop images, apply batch conversions, add, sharpen, or blur effects, create panoramas, and change color modes easily. The program continues to add support for an array of file formats and has plug-in support for most image, video, and sound formats, including MP3, AVI, audio CD, and WMA. The interface is not fancy, but is easy enough for most users to figure out.

Java is used in a wide variety of computing platforms from mobile phones to enterprise servers and supercomputers. Java is nearly ubiquitous in today's enterprise computing applications and, while less common on desktop computers, Java applets are often used to provide improved functionality while browsing the World Wide Web.

Can't afford Microsoft Office? Have an old version of Office, but can't afford upgrades anymore? Download OpenOffice instead and you could save yourself hundreds of dollars. The suite has six full-blown applications: the Writer word processor, Calc spreadsheet, Impress presentations program, Base database program, Math equation editor, and Draw graphics program. OpenOffice works with a variety of formats, including docs created in MS Office 2007 and Office 2008 for the Mac. You can even export files to PDF. And, best of all, it's free - forever!

VNC is remote control software which allows you to view and fully interact with one computer (the "VNC server") using a simple program (the "VNC viewer") on another computer on your home network, or anywhere across the Internet. The two computers don't even have to be the same type (Windows, Mac, or Linux).

Goofy name, but it's a tool I'd be hard pressed to live without. It was originally designed to automatically fill in all those blanks found in online forms (name, address, city, state, phone, etc, etc) and that's how it got its goofy name. But, they soon realized that it was the perfect tool to act as a password manager as well.
RoboForm will not only memorize and protect your passwords, but will also open a new browser (if you so chose), plug in the appropriate URL (Internet address) to get a login screen, then complete your ID and password (and anything else that may be needed) and hit ENTER! One click and you're logged in and ready to proceed.
RoboForm is free if you use 10 or fewer passwords, but I sprung for the Pro version and currently manage over 170 accounts. Try it - you'll like it.

Screen Capturer makes capturing screenshots a simple task. Just press the [PrtScr] key (remember the print screen key?) on your keyboard and Screen Capturer will ask you if you want the whole screen, just one window, or a user-defined area of your screen (it supports multiple monitors, too). Your screenshot is then saved to the clipboard, a file, or email. Besides capturing single screenshots, Screen Capturer also captures sequences of screenshots as animated demos - .wmv files - that you can email to others or upload to the Internnet. It's a great tool to create brief tutorials, or an excellent way to capture details for tech support when their application fails. Best of all, its totally free - no spam, no adware, spyware or malware, and no strings attached. Click the logo to learn more.