Three free PC tools you might consider downloading
Or the cheapskate’s guide to the PC without cracked software, if you’d rather see it that way.
Not counting web browsers, mate – that’ll be for another time. And probably a list containing just one item, but still…
Textpad
Textpad is by far the best text editor out there, in my opinion. Lots of libraries and stuff to cram it with if your weapon of choice (that is, programming language) isn’t available out of the box. You can buy it as well, but you don’t have to. But please do. (Yeah, a bit of a stretch on this list, sorry ’bout that.)
Openoffice.org
Microsoft Office is still the best one out there, but Openoffice gets the job done for your everyday needs. Basically, you get an office suite for free, compatible (somewhat, Word documents works great) with the Microsoft choice. Hard to argue with that if you’re price sensitive.
The Gimp
They say that a overwhelming majority of all the images online has passed Photoshop at least once. That doesn’t reflect on sales, however – which I find very easy to believe since Photoshop is pretty expensive and therefore something mainly for professionals. The Gimp is a free competitor that might seem a bit hard to get into at first, but actually does a decent job. Worth to take a look at if your conscience doesn’t allow you to have your cracked version of Photoshop on the computer any more. Which it shouldn’t.