Your favorite Freeware/Open source software

• Browsers: Opera and Firefox
• Operating systems: Ubuntu, Ophcrack and gOS.
• Utilities: Open office, google docs, skype, winamp, Windows live messenger, filezilla, tightVNC, VLC Media

I decided to just cover applications. Here is a small list.

Foxit reader to view pdfs - mac, windows and linux

Filezilla to upload/download files to/from a server - win/mac/linux

**OpenOffice.org**, a free office suite - win/linux/mac

KdenLive a powerful video editor - win/mac/linux

Format Factory, convert any file to any format and rip dvds - win

UltraVNC to connect to any computer and controll it - win

Gimp a powerful image editor - mac/win/linux

Panda Cloud AV, a lightweight, cloud based virus protection solution - windows

Eclipse an extensible Java ide to develop java applications - mac/win/linux

Blender a powerful 3D modelling tool - mac, win, linux

Wine a tool designed to allow you to run windows .exe applications inside a linux environment - Linux

Virtual box, install your favourite operating system inside a virtual machine - mac/win/linux

WinToFlash boot your ageing copy of Windows XP home or pro from a flash drive - win

Unetbootin boot your favourite linux distribution from a flash drive - win/linux

Google Earth, view the world in 3D and on your computer - win/mac/linux

7-Zip open any type of zipped file including iso files - win/linux

Rainbar get those cool desktop gadgets from vista in windows XP - win

CPU-Z - Find out all the information from your CPU - win

Bluefish an environment for creating web pages. win/linux

Virtual Box. (answer content must be at least 50 characters)

I have a long list for Windows, since I've been such a avid user for so long.

Browsers: Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox
Games: None
Utilities: TeraCopy, Microsoft Security Essentials, Revo Uninstaller, 7-Zip, TrueCrypt (optional), CCleaner, Recuva, and Defraggler.

Normally when I install Windows, these are the steps I take:

1. Boot in and setup my profile. Immediately install what is needed to connect to the internet (if anything), then connect and download all updates for Windows.
2. Reboot and launch IE8. Browse to Ninite and start picking out the utilities I want to install:
3. I usually install the following: Chrome, Firefox, Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo, iTunes (for my phone), VLC, Picasa, OpenOffice (Alt. Microsoft Office Step 3) Foxit Reader, CutePDF, Microsoft Security Essentials, Malwarebytes, Flash, Flash (IE), Java, Microsoft .NET 3.5, Silverlight, uTorrent, Evernote, CCleaner, Defraggler, TeraCopy, Recuva, TrueCrypt (Optional), Revo Uninstaller, and 7-Zip.
4. I then reboot the machine after that long install process, and install Microsoft Office and whatever else Ninite was unable to install for me in their silent install.
5. The computer is now up to you to finish doing the small steps, but this will supply you with all the utilities and organization-ware you need. I also then install browser plug-ins (LastPass, Xmarks, and Evernote, plus Adblock Plus, or equivalents).

This is the best way, and only way, I configure machines for person use, and for other people that ask me. Hope it helps!

I have many favorite free and open applications, but the ones I name are the most frequent ones i tend to use. In fact, I can't see my self living, or computing, without them.

• Adium, the best IM client period. I've used everything from iChat to Pidgin to eBuddy to even official IM clients, nothing has come close to Adium. It's free, it's open sourced, it has customizations, and thousands of add-ons and plugins. it supports every IM network I can think up, it also supports other social networking services including IRC and Twitter (through a plugin).

• Safari+Webkit Nightly builds. Since the downfall of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer for the Mac, Safari has become my browser of choice. It was buggy and crash-prone through the first 2 versions, it didn't support many extended features outside the realm of the normal standards, but today Safari is a whole new beast. Powered by Apple's Webkit, which has become one of the major platforms of the web, Safari has become arguably one of the fastest browser on the web and contains the highest performance javascript engine. Safari + Webkit Nightly builds is also always in the lead when it comes to supporting new standards, it has for the past 2 years had better support of HTML5 and CSS3 than any other browser on the market.. with Chrome (also webkit powered) right behind it. Lastly, Webkit's developer tools, now built-in, are the best I've ever seen or used. I've used tools on Firefox, Opera, and Internet Explorer. Nothing comes close to Webkit's debug and Inspector tools.

• Apple's Xcode Tools. Xcode and the developer tools, shipped with Mac OS X and downloaded-able from Apple's developer site, have had a long long life. Interface Builder and Project Builder were one of the very first Object Oriented and visual based IDEs for rapid software development and deployment making their appearance with NeXTStep in 1988. Since then they have been refined over and over, eventually Project Builder was redone and rebranded as Xcode in 2003 while Interface Builder stayed as a peer application until recently with Xcode 4 ( in which the visual interface builder was integrated into Xcode ). I've used many developer tools, from HyperCard to Visual Basic and REALBasic / CrossBasic to Visual Studio to the Qt and Gtk IDEs.. I've never come across an IDE I've liked more than Xcode. It takes a bit of time to understand it, but once you do Objective-C and the whole process of development is so simple and fast. Of course the best part of it, is that it's 100% free and is built on many open sourced projects like GCC and LLVM.

My Favourites

Browser: Firefox

Browser Plug-ins: Firebug, Web Developer Toolbar, Pixel Perfect, Xmarks, Ad Block Plus

Desktop Applications: Notepad++, VLC Media Player, RealVNC Free Edition, File Zilla, Imgburn

Web Applications: Google Docs, GMail

General Utilities: OPHCrack, Memtest, CCleaner, Defraggler, Speccy, CPU-Z, CoreTemp, ComboFix, MalwareBytes

Firefox? ...................

=)

Has to be Audacity! It is the best sound editing software around. Great for making ring tones!

• Operating System - Why Ubuntu, of course!
• Browser - Gotta be Firefox. Could also be Chromium.
• Instant Messaging - I'm gonna have to say Miranda IM. It's open source, right?
• PDF Reader - Gotta be Sumatra. Very lightweight.
• Media Player - VLC... It's there.
• Office - OpenOffice.
• Sound editing - Audacity!

There's just too much to list.