One of the great things about the internet is that for almost every high-priced piece of commercial software, there is a free alternative available. In fact, some of the free offerings beat the pants off the commercial, particularly at the price! Here are some of my "can't do without" favourites:
Irfanview - an image editor (think Photoshop lite), that also doubles as a photo organiser. Has amazing capabilities for such a small footprint. Can also play many video files (eg, the movies you take on your digital camera).
Audacity - a sound editor I use all the time. You can also stretch or condense sounds (including songs) without changing pitch, move songs up or down a key, and much more.
OpenOffice.org - equivalent to Microsoft Office. Has all the bells and whistles, without the awful "ribbon" introduced by Office 2007 (and which I loathe). Has modules equivalent to Excel, PowerPoint and Access, as well as a drawing module, but the PowerPoint module is not well implemented and probably is better avoided.
EditPad Lite - a general-purpose text editor (a replacement for the Windows Notepad, but can do much more), small and compact with lots of functions.
Copernic Destop Search - I have posted separately on this.
VLC Media Player - can play all those videos and movies that Windows Media Player won't touch. Don't be fooled by its utterly basic interface.
CDex - a CD ripper (ie, copies music tracks from your CDs to your computer).
PdfEdit995 - Can create pdf files from any programme that has a print function. Can also convert pdf documents to Word format files, and much more.
Feel free to share your top favourites.
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