Links to Free Stuff

General Programs

	Mozilla Firefox (Internet Browser) It's a great alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer. It has a few problems here and there, and you might need to update your Macromedia Flash Player, but it's tabbed browsing, built-in search, and extensions are great.
	WinRAR (Archive Compression/Decompression) This program kicks WinZip's butt in almost every way. It opens almost every type of archive imaginable, even .iso CD & DVD images. It's extremely fast at compressing, and shows you how well it's compressing as it compresses! Sometimes, to copy a lot of small files, it's honestly faster than copying to use WinRAR to compress them an extract them. It's also small, and I've never had it crash or break once. This program is a must-have.
	Spybot Search & Destroy (Spyware Removal & Protection) It's a useful tool for removing, and preventing spyware and adware. Many programs will remove existing problems, but this one gives you options to block requests from bad sites piggybacking on ads or images on other sites. It even once blocked me from getting one of those MSN Messenger viruses from clicking on a bad link sent to me. Best of all, it provides detailed descriptions for most of the things it identifies, so that you can make an educated decision on whether you want to delete it or not.
	Lavasoft Ad-Aware (Adware Removal) Also a good Adware remover. It seems to be a bit better funded than Spybot, and a bit more thorough with searches, but without the blocking capabilities (unless you pay for the full version), and missing some features of Spybot. Still quite good, so I have both, just in case.
	ZoneAlarm (Firewall) A fairly easy-to-use firewall. As with any good firewall, it's very annoying at first, because it blocks everything, but quickly most of the programs that you use get worked into its list. It sometimes seems to have problems on wireless connections (even encrypted ones) when you "Internet Zone Security" level is set to high, but other than that, it works great. It saved me from many a virus on the university residence network.
	PrimoPDF (Print to PDF) I had looked for a long time to find a program like this. It will act like a printer, except that what it prints to is a PDF file, meaning that you can convert anything you can print into a PDF file! It's quite easy to use, and has come in handy for me a few times in the few months that I've had it.
	Skype (Internet Phone) After finding out the long distance rates in BC the hard way, Skype was just what I needed. I now phone anywhere (in Canada/US) for free, for as long as I need, and I only needed to buy a cheap headset. It really rocks.

Programming Programs

	RadASM (Assembly Language Editor) It's the best assembly language editor out there for any assembly language. It's even configurable enough that it's been reconfigured for other languages (though it's not the best for those languages). It has many add-ons available, or you can make your own add-ons.
	BloodshedSoftware Dev-C++ (C++ Editor) It's not as comprehensive as Microsoft VisualStudio, but it's overall an okay C/C++ editor.
	Eclipse (Java Editor) It's probably the most famous Java editor. It can get pretty slow after a while on some computers, but it has lots of plugins.
	JCreator (Java Editor) Another good Java editor, but designed to be much "lighter" than Eclipse. It has far fewer features than Eclipse, and almost no plugins that I know of, but that's what they're aiming for. It runs much faster than Eclipse and uses less RAM.

Entertainment

	Pure Pwnage This guy really pwns noobs. Now an international hit internet TV series, this show about a pro gamer is made by just a few people from Toronto. A lock of the main guy's hair sold for about $5,000 Canadian on ebay, no joke.
	Star Trek: Hidden Frontier Possibly the best fan film series of anything, ever. These fans are dedicated and do awesome work. The first season wasn't great, but every season just gets better and better. You'll need QuickTime to view the videos.