Useful Windows XP/Vista/other freeware list

Last update: 8/03/13

General:

LibreOffice - a Full-bodied total replacement for all of the Microsoft Office apps. Reads and writes all Microsoft file formats including Excel's .xls and Word's .docs. Now at version 2.0, if you aren't already using it, it's time to give microsoft the kick in the pants it needs.
Context - Notepad replacement and/or programmer text editor - as good as anything else out there, includes features such as syntax highlighting and many other things - very nice, simple.
xplorer2 - Excellent freeware (lite version) dual-pane Windows Explorer replacement - highly recommended. Simpler than anything else out there- that I've tried.

Firefox - The little browser that could - a more secure replacement for Internet Explorer. Tabbed browsing kicks ass - and you avoid the security and bug problems IE exhibits over and over and over again. Switch!
Recommended Firefox Addons are Flashblock, adblock plus & imagepref.
Thunderbird - Total replacement for Outlook Express or Windows Mail. Smaller memory footprint, nicer looking than the others, more secure than windows mail. Great heuristic junkmail filtering.
Free download manager - if you do heavy downloading, this free app is for you - supports multi-source downloads and resuming, scheduling, a whole bunch of other crap.
Filezilla - Open-source ftp client - does a better job than anything else I've tried as yet-

Lame MP3 encoder - better quality than -anything else- out there.
Wavosaur - Best freeware straight audio editor around. Not quite as good as something like Goldwave, but close.
Audacity - Full-bodied open-source audio editor/multitracker. I don't use it personally but on a budget it's a good choice.
Infrarecorder - Awesome freeware cd burning program - replacement for nero or CDWriterXP.
Apollo - The best quality MP3 player in existence (as of this listening). Decodes to 24-bit where available and audibly better quality than Winamp or MAD-based players (with or without 24-bit). Makes a significant difference to aural experience. A tad buggy sometimes.
Wavpack - Lossless free open source audio compression standard. Better than flac, faster, and free. Winamp plugins exist, support is widespread. Good for backing up audio project materials (typically a 50% decrease in filesize without losing any quality).
Winamp Classic - Ahh, Winamp. Brilliant back in v2 - crap once v3 hit. I hear v5 is quite good, but v2 is fine by me. This is an excellent, and light, replacement for Windows Media player (for playing music anyway). Use Milkdrop!

Artweaver - Great photoshop/mspaint replacement. Better than anything else out there in the freeware world.
MWSnap - Screen snapshot-grabber.

VLC Media Player - The one, the only - plays everything.
VirtualDub - Linear video decompressor/recompressor/editor. Faster, slicker and of greater visual quality and control than most payware when it comes to raw processing of digital video footage (note: does not replace something like premiere in terms of non-linear editing).

Mpeg2Schnitt - Lossless MPEG2/AC3/MP2/WAV video cutter - useful for reauthoring DVD's you've made, without having to re-edit the original footage.
ImagoMPEG-Muxer - Multiplex .m2v + .m2a/.ac3 to .mpg/.vob. Took me ages to find a decent tool to do this.
Muxman free - DVD muxing tool - does everything. Cheers mpucoder!

For more freeware system tools, see the windows speedup guide.

See my top ten list here.