Go Free, Go OpenSource

It's amazing how much free and opensource stuff are there on the web. I shall confess that it's also amazing how many of these products are of superior quality. I'll just make a list of the best free products I use, and I'll keep updating the list. Any suggestions are appreciated

1. Inkscape: This is a great vector graphics software. It does anything a serious amator user like me needs. I have no clue of professionals.


2. Paint.Net: A great image editing software. You can call it a free, lightweight photoshop. A bunch of free plugins are also around.


3. Free Download Manager (FDM): the name says it all!


4. Firefox and Thunderbird: The great, fast, secure, free and extensible browser and mail clients from mozilla.


5. Cathy: A fast and lightweight file cataloguer, It catalogs your dvd in 5 seconds (included is the time needed to insert the dvd and let it spin up!!!!) and searches your catalogs in fraction of a second. Give it a try!


6. KMPlayer: ever needed a "play everything", "have all features", be light, be performant, "don't bug my OS" media player? Now you have one for free :D


7. CDBurner XP: Don't get lost in the name: it burns DVD too, and works on Vista as well! Great tool.


8. IsoBuster: Almost anything you need about CD/DVD images are free in this app. Although there are some "Pro" functionality, they are mostly needed only by the pro!


9. Daemon Tools Lite: mount CD/DVD images as virtual drives, Great, lightweight, fast tool. It reads most major image formats.


10. Audacity: Just need to edit your sound files, add some effects, cut some parts, reduce the noise? You don't need to buy sound forge.


11. VirtualDUB: The equivalent to audacity, but about video files! great tool.


12. SUPER: Convert media files from any format, to any format, in any quality. You'll have many settings to fine-tune the result.


13. Notepad++: Better be named: Notepad*=1e12; //if you know c++.
    Translation for non programmers: "give it a try, it may be useful to you, as well"
    
14. Sql Server 2008 Exoress: Developers, as well as small businesses, can enjoy all functionalities of the database server MS Sql server for free. The limitations are compatible with almost any development senario and, some small business needs.
    
15. Visual Studio Express Editions: If you used hate Microsoft .Net, just because the IDEs where not free, you can now start loving one of the best tools for application development. If you're in a college or university, you can even use the pro version with the DreamSpark program.