A list of software I use and like, all have been verified to be adware and spyware free..Let me know if you’re looking for something that’s not on the list!
48 programs listed so far!

Spyware scanner – (programs to get rid of the nastys slowing down your computing fun)

Spybot Search and Destory – http://www.safer-networking.net/en/index.html

Lavasoft’s Adaware – http://www.lavasoft.com

—————————————————————————————————————————

Virus Scan – (stable, fast updates, scheduled scans and updates)

AVG free virus scan – http://free.grisoft.com

Comodo Virus scan – http://www.antivirus.comodo.com

AntiVir Virus scan – http://www.free-av.com (This one works on Windows Media Center)

—————————————————————————————————————————

Firewall – (full featured runs great and most importantly.. keeps the bad guys out)

Comodo Firewall Pro – http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com

—————————————————————————————————————————

Office Application – (A word processor, spreadsheet, presentation and database suite..what more could you need?)

LibreOffice – http://www.documentfoundation.org/

—————————————————————————————————————————

Browsers – (Mozilla’s solution to the Microsoft’s Internet Explorer problem)

Firefox, Seamonkey – www.mozilla.com
Google Chrome – http://www.google.com/chrome?hl=en&brand=CHMI

—————————————————————————————————————————

Email Client – (Comparable to Outlook or Outlook Express)

Thunderbird – http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/

—————————————————————————————————————————

Media Player – (plays audio, video, even DVDs! includes most codecs and has many cool features)

VLC media player – http://www.videolan.org (plays nearly any kind of media, great lightweight minimalistic interface)
Miro Media Player – http://www.getmiro.com (does mostly what VLC does, but has a channel function and podcast client)

—————————————————————————————————————————

Compress/Uncompress Utility – (A great alternative to Winzip, supports multiple formats..zip, rar, cab, tar, tgz..etc)

7-Zip -www.7-zip.org
Tugzip – www.tugzip.com

—————————————————————————————————————————

Instant Messenger – (Allows you to use multiple instant messenger accounts all in one program)

Pidgin – www.pidgin.im

—————————————————————————————————————————

Diagramming Software – (Comparable to Microsoft Visio, good to sketch floor plans, business/technical drawings)

Dia – http://www.gnome.org/projects/dia

LibreOffice – http://www.documentfoundation.org/

—————————————————————————————————————————

Voice over IP software – (With this software all you need are headphones and a microphone..after a short setup for the server-side you are talking with friends or family on-line for free…as long as you’re not a company)

Skype – http://www.skype.com

—————————————————————————————————————————

3D graphic creation – (Ok if you like computers and art this one is for you. This will give you the freedom to create anything from a simple still picture to 3 dimensional animation…this piece of software can get complex, but with a bit of reading from their extensive collection of documents and manuals, anyone can learn.)

Blender – www.blender.org

—————————————————————————————————————————

Image Manipulation – (View, Modify and create pictures)

The GIMP – http://www.gimp.org

—————————————————————————————————————————

PDF writer – (Create your own PDF files from your existing documents with this little fella. Picture this, You open your document, select print, choose CutePDF writer as your printer and shaaazam! you have your very own pdf file)

CutePDF – http://www.cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp (Make sure you download the free converter also!)

—————————————————————————————————————————

CD Ripping – (Copy music from a CD and save it on your hard drive in any of the following formats: MP3, WAV, OGG, FLAC)

aTunes – http://www.atunes.org/

—————————————————————————————————————————

CD/DVD Burn, copy and ISO creation – (Make a CD to CD copy, Create an image of a CD/DVD, Create a CD/DVD from an image)

ISOrecorder – http://isorecorder.alexfeinman.com/isorecorder.htm (Create ISO files from CDs, and burn ISOs to CD/DVD)
Infrarecorder – http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net (Burn CDs and DVDs)
DVDRip/DVDShrink – http://lifehacker.com/355281/dvd-rip-automates-one+click-dvd-ripping (Rip DVDs to your hard drive)

—————————————————————————————————————————

DVD Authoring – (Use this to create a DVD menu for your DVD movies)

DVDStyler – http://www.dvdstyler.de

—————————————————————————————————————————

DVD/Video Editing – (Crop or add effects from a DVD or video file)

Kdenlive – http://www.kdenlive.org

—————————————————————————————————————————

Virutal DVD/CDrom – (You have a CD/DVD image file?..instead of burning it to a cd, just mount it with this software and access it just like you would any other CD/DVD)

Virtual CloneDrive – http://www.slysoft.com

—————————————————————————————————————————

Virtualization Software – (If you want to run another operating system on your machine without wanting to reboot to use it, this software is a must. This will allow you to run Windows, Linux and/or Solaris in a virtual machine, two running environments)

VMware Player – http://www.vmware.com/products/player/overview.html
Virtual Box – http://www.virtualbox.org

—————————————————————————————————————————

LAN Remote Administration – (Use this to do remote computer administration, walk someone through a process or simply save your self the exercise)

TightVNC – http://www.tightvnc.com/download.html

—————————————————————————————————————————

WAN Remote Administration – (Use this to do remote computer administration, walk someone through a process or simply save your self the exercise)

Join.me – http://join.me
TeamViewer – http://www.teamviewer.com/index.aspx
NoMachine NX – http://www.nomachine.com/

—————————————————————————————————————————

Sound editor – (Import, record and edit sound/music files. Includes a zoom function and has multiple built-in effects.)

Audacity – http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/

—————————————————————————————————————————

Backup Software – (Keep your files safe with a good backup solution)

Bacula – www.bacula.org/
Cobian Backup – http://www.educ.umu.se/~cobian/cobianbackup.htm

—————————————————————————————————————————

Media Center – (Find a cool fun way to organize and access your video/picture/audio multimedia over a network)

MediaPortal – http://www.team-mediaportal.com/

—————————————————————————————————————————

Bit Torrent client – (download software via bit torrent, excellent alternative to http and ftp downloads)

Azureus Vuse – http://www.vuze.com (Bit Torrent, has very cool channel interface)
FrostWire – http://www.frostwire.com (Bit Torrent, P2P, light-weight)

—————————————————————————————————————————

SSH Utilities – (Manage your Linux and Unix machines from your Windows client, with ease!)

Putty – http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/download.html (Need console access?, this will do everything you need)
Winscp – http://winscp.net/eng/index.php (A great way to transfer your files via SSH)
Xming – http://sourceforge.net/projects/xming (X server for your Windows OS)
FileZilla – http://filezilla-project.org/ (transfer files via SSH, can transfer multiple files at once!)

—————————————————————————————————————————

Network protocol analyzer – (Listen directly on the wire, great for troubleshooting connectivity issues)

WireShark – http://www.wireshark.org

—————————————————————————————————————————

Network exploration, security testing – (Discover machines connected to a network and the services they offer..and much more!)

NMAP – http://nmap.org

—————————————————————————————————————————

Directory Statistics – (List the size of files and folders on the drives you select)

WinDirStat – http://windirstat.info

—————————————————————————————————————————

IP Network Scanner – (You provide the IP range, it shows you all hosts that respond to ping in the IP range specified)

Angry IP scanner – http://www.angryziber.com/w/Home

—————————————————————————————————————————

Compare File contents/File differences – (Have two files and need to know the differences between them? This will help you out)

Winmerge – http://winmerge.org

—————————————————————————————————————————

Here’s a list of websites that have a vast collection of free software for Windows, Linux and Solaris, as always let me know if you have any to add.

www.sourceforge.net
http://freecode.com/
www.sunfreeware.com
http://directory.fsf.org/ (Free Software Foundation)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_open_source_software_packages