Useful Windows 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.
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. Avoid the security and bug problems Microsoft's browsers exhibit over and over again.
Thunderbird - Email program. Small memory footprint, nicer looking than the others, more secure than windows mail/outlook/etc. 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.

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.
Wavpack - Lossless free open source audio compression standard. Better than flac, faster, and free. Support is widespread, though not as much as Flac. Good for backing up audio project materials (typically a 50% decrease in filesize without losing any quality).
Winamp Classic - Ahh, Winamp. 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.

Media Player Classic HC - A great, lightweight, media player.
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).

Recuva - Free file/data recovery software for windows.
CCleaner Portable - The famous 'crapcleaner', but without the added toolbar or dodgy persistent system tray icon.

See my top ten list here.