VLC

VLC is in my opinion the best media player going these days and for some good reasons. Its lightweight, supports pretty much every operating system, Allows you to stream your media, Its free and my favorite thing is there is no need to download and install codec packs to get all your different media formats to playback.

I really recommend that if your not using VLC that you dump Windows Media Player or whatever other media player your using and switch to VLC.

Download VLC: -LINK-

 

Instant Eyedropper

Well Instant Eyedropper isn’t really an application that everyone will find useful but if you do any sort of graphic design or photo editing type stuff then you will find it very useful.  Once installed you will get an icon in your system tray that will allow you to get a colour eyedropper to capture colours to your clipboard from anywhere on your screen or screens.  It’s the perfect low resource stealing solution to colour picking and its also free…

Download Instant Eyedropper: -LINK-

 

Winrar

Most people already know about winrar as it is one of the better file packer/unpackers. Its supports tons of different compression formats, its fast, not open source but there is a free version available with a popup, has context menus to make unpacking and packing quick and easy and there is a 32 and 64 bit version.

Download WinRar: -LINK-

 

 

TrueCrypt

True Crypt is open source encrypting software that allows you to make virtual drives to store you sensitive data.  To be honest I’m not sure where it stands as far as the best available encrypting software but Ive been using it daily for years and I find it to be easy to use and secure for my needs. If you have files that need to be secure then try it out.

Download True Crypt: -LINK-

 

 

Microsoft Security Essentials

Microsoft Secuirty Essentials is Microsofts free anti virus soulution.  Not really sure if its any better or worse then other virus scanners out there but it does intergrate into windows and does seem to catch at least the more common viruses and hey if Microsoft is giving away stuff for free you might as well take it to make up for the over priced operating systems right J

Download Microsoft Security Essentials: -LINK-

 

Oracle VM VirtualBox

Virtual Box allows you to run other operating systems ontop of your current operating system so theres no need to dual boot or you just want to try out that new linux distro you found.  You can install most Windows, Linux or Mac operating systems with varying successful results.  There are other virtual machines such as VMWare or microsofts virtual machine but I’ve grown fond of Virtualbox .

Download VirtualBox: -LINK-