Best Windows Freeware

[Mikes2nd]

Ill start it off...

Great painting program...

Paint.NET - Free Software for Digital Photo Editing (http://www.getpaint.net/)

[YoshiBishi]

Anti-Spyware

Malwarebytes (http://www.malwarebytes.org/)

[Zaroth]

CCleaner - System/Registry Cleaner - up to 35 pass file deletion/free space wipe

Download CCleaner 3.05.1409 - FileHippo.com (http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/)

Defraggler - System Defrag

Download Defraggler 2.03.282 - FileHippo.com (http://filehippo.com/download_defraggler/)

Recuva - Deleted file recovery

Download Recuva 1.40.525 - FileHippo.com (http://filehippo.com/download_recuva/)

Speccy - System information/status

http://filehippo.com/download_speccy/

Pretty much everything Piriform makes is free and amazing. I use these four pretty regularly.

[ictponder]

EAC Exact Audio Copy (http://www.exactaudiocopy.de/en/index.php/resources/download/) for making superb copies of your CD media.

LAME Encoder (http://sourceforge.net/projects/lame/files/lame/) used in conjunction with EAC to encode the media.

Duplicate Image Finder (http://www.duplicate-finder.com/download-photo.html) detects duplicate images in a directory allowing you purge numerous unneeded images.

http://revolushii.ro/image/1114_the-pirate-bay-logo_png6a9ab0412524e03e865a5fee201719d9/the-pirate-bay-logo.png for educational purposes only.

[Goallie11]

CCleaner - System/Registry Cleaner - up to 35 pass file deletion/free space wipe

Download CCleaner 3.05.1409 - FileHippo.com (http://filehippo.com/download_ccleaner/)

Great program!

[Mikes2nd]

lets not forget bittorrent :)

BitTorrent (http://www.bittorrent.com/)

neowin arcade?
Arcade Classic Arcade Pack 5.0 - Neowin Forums (http://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/471360-arcade-classic-arcade-pack-50/)

foxit... I hate anything adobe...
watch it foxit has started installing stuff, make sure you opt out
Foxit Software - Fast, High Quality PDF Software (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/)

virtual DJ
http://download.cnet.com/Virtual-DJ/3000-18502_4-10212112.html

[Alan92RTTT]

media monkey - MediaMonkey » Free Media Jukebox, Music Manager, CD Ripper & Converter (http://www.mediamonkey.com/)

[GTOJOE]

Combofix (http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/download/anti-virus/combofix) [1st thing I use with virus removal]

Malwarebytes linked above ^^

Also one of the best free antiviruses at the moment is the Microsoft Security Essentials (http://www.microsoft.com/en-au/security_essentials/default.aspx) [yes shock horror it's a MS product] It's light weight and not resources hungry. AVG Free has gone down hill and is like 120mb download. MS sec ess is ~10mb and will update with Windows update or on it's own.

[Nytron]

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/) - The only video player you'll ever need, it plays any format you can throw at it without the need for codec packs
mkv2vob (http://www.mkv2vob.com/) - makes .mkv files playable on the PS3
Microsoft Security Essentials (http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/) - I personally don't use virus protection, but most windows users need it and this is the best one w/o being a resource hog
OpenOffice.org (www.openoffice.org) - Microsoft Office alternative, works with .docx
Firefox (www.getfirefox.com) - Completely crushed IE when it came out, and still does. extensions ftw
Google Chrome (http://www.google.com/chrome) - Amazing browser, minimalism ftw
Media Player Classic (http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/) - Lightweight alternative to vlc, does not play as many formats but is less resource intense. Good for older hardware or if you're trying to play super high def content.
7-zip (http://7-zip.org) - like winzip or winrar, but better
ImgBurn (http://www.imgburn.com/) - lightweight cd/dvd/hd-dvd/blu-ray burning software
uTorrent (http://www.utorrent.com/) - The best torrent client by far
TightVNC (http://www.tightvnc.com/) - Remote control software, you can see the desktop of a remote machine and control it

edit: almost forgot, skifree (http://ski.ihoc.net/)

[GTOJOE]

CCCP Codec Pack (http://www.cccp-project.net/) Excellent codec pack that also includes Media Player Classic as linked above.

[Vince86]

Core Temp (http://www.alcpu.com/CoreTemp/) Accurate CPU core monitoring software.

SpeedFan (http://www.almico.com/sfdownload.php) Another decent temp monitoring software. However this one when compared to others would lag behind a second or two on temps but this one has a couple extra features like board temps, gpu temps and HDD temps.

VMware Workstation (http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6067253/VMware_Workstation_7.1.3-324285___serials_%28scuba-doo%29) If you have downloaded utorrent or bittorrent then this is something you can check out if your a fan of the pirate bay. I use this daily as this allows you to virtually load different operating systems and save them to a virtual partition. I have loaded windows 95-7 and linux operating systems on here. It allows you to get the feel and use it on your windows system without actually changing any of your hardware. We use this at the school I attend for Networking Administration. This one is not considered freeware I dont think unless you get it from this link ;-) but an alternative would Virtual Box which is free but for some reason not working for me atm.

Ubuntu 10.10 (http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/get-ubuntu/download) Last but not least of the many great freeware programs out there is Ubuntu. Linux desktop operating system. very clean and can even run on a boot up disk to allow you to try it out without installing. Or if you downloaded VMware above you can load this as a virtual machine. I think most will like it (even if it doesn't fall under "Windows") whats so good about this? ITS A TOTALLY FREE OPERATING SYSTEM. no garbage windows authentication keys!

[Zaroth]

VMware Workstation (http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/6067253/VMware_Workstation_7.1.3-324285___serials_%28scuba-doo%29) If you have downloaded utorrent or bittorrent then this is something you can check out if your a fan of the pirate bay. I use this daily as this allows you to virtually load different operating systems and save them to a virtual partition. I have loaded windows 95-7 and linux operating systems on here. It allows you to get the feel and use it on your windows system without actually changing any of your hardware. We use this at the school I attend for Networking Administration. This one is not considered freeware I dont think unless you get it from this link ;-) but an alternative would Virtual Box which is free but for some reason not working for me atm.

VMware Player: Run Windows 7, Chrome OS - Free Download for a Virtual PC (http://www.vmware.com/products/player/)
VMware Player is freeware from VMware and it does anything a casual user would need it for.