I have only two things on my laptop at the moment that cost me anything, beside the initial cost of the laptop; those two things are Norton 360 (which my girlfriend insisted on) and Microsoft Office Ultimate which I managed to get for £33.87 (£38.95 with tax though).

However on my last laptop and ,in the main, on this laptop I have a lot of free software. A year of experimenting with online freebies has allowed me to decided on the best free software that I know of. Here is my list of recommendations to you.

1. Firefox (with Foxmarks Bookmark Synchronizer, Googlepedia, McAfee SiteAdvisor, PicLens, Stumble Upon & Tiny Menu add-ons) ~ The best web browser in my opinion. Other options are Internet Explorer, of course, though upgrade to 7 if you haven't already and get the IE7 Pro add-on; Opera is another option, and of course there is Songbird which is listed below and is still in beta.
2. Windows Live (Mail, Writer, Messenger, PhotoGallery) ~ Pretty and useful applications from the windows live team, the four listed are the ones I use.
3. OpenOffice ~ A full spec office suite. Good if you don't have Microsoft Office.
4. RocketDock ~ Gives a Mac style dock to your PC.

Also look at:

Last.fm (radio); Google Earth; Songbird; Spybot; CCCP

Bye for now, L.B.

I just found this, and it amused me. So I thought I'd post it. Click the image to buy it and/or visit the site.