The best five free applications for Windows that I would recommend, are:

GIMP has all the functionality most of us will ever need for image processing and probably more. If you're used to Photoshop and prefer familiar surroundings, you can download Gimpshop.

If you need a complete office suite, OpenOffice is easily your best choice, with fully-featured replacements for Microsoft Word (Writer), Excel (Calc), and PowerPoint (Impress). A database application (Base) and component for mathematical equations (Math) are also part of the package.

However, if you only need a word processor and mostly need to use it for simple word processing, Abiword is a better choice. A much smaller download and a more light-weight application in every sense. Can be especially recommended if you have a computer that is not very powerful, which may struggle with the OpenOffice suite.

Opera is the power tool of web browsers. It's lean and mean, a small download packed with functionality, no fiddling with extensions required. And there are clients for e-mail, newsfeeds, newsgroups and IRC chat built in. One of the best features is the ability to pick up where you left off - when you close Opera, your session is saved, and the same tabs come up next time you start.

All of the above-mentioned programs are completely safe. However, there's a whole lot of crud out there, and when you're running Windows, you need to be especially careful. Ad-Aware SE Personal is a free program that helps you find and remove malicious software and files on your computer.

Learn more about this author, Lec Trice.
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