Have you been trying to do something, but you don’t have the right software … and you don’t have the money to buy that commercial piece of software that will let you do it?  Well, there’s probably an open-source or freeware application that will help you do what you need or want to do without having to shell out some serious bucks.   Here’s few links and information about a number of very good software programs, most of which are absolutely FREE.

NOTE:  I do not recommend placing AVG Anti-virus on any PC for two reasons:  (1) I’ve had to repair too many of my neighbors PCs that were seriously infested with vermin while AVG was actively installed and up-to-date on their systems, and (2) they actively promote that they will sell their customer identity information to others for a price.

• Windows Defender — Windows Defender is installed and active on PCs beginning with Windows 8.  It’s a free program that helps you stay productive by protecting your computer against pop-ups, slow performance and security threats caused by spyware and other potentially unwanted software. Free if you’re using a genuine copy of MS Windows operating systems,  Win 2000is no longer supported.  And if you’ve installed Microsoft Security Essentials, it’s incorporated as part of that product, so there’s no need to install this one. [Freeware]
• Malwarebytes’ Anti-Malware — If your PC should get infected by something really ugly, this program can be quite useful in helping to eradicate the pest. The free version is run on-demand by the PC user … but if you want it to run on it’s own, providing real-time protection, or scheduled scanning and updating operations, there’s a one-time fee of $24.95. When I’m troubleshooting and repairing a neighbor’s PCs to removed varmints that have plagued their registries, I automatically install this and recommend that they invest in buying it so it will actively run in the background to prevent accidental infection from websites with viruses hidden in their content.
• Malware Removal Tool — This tool is already installed on your PC and it’s updated monthly by Microsoft via Microsoft Update.  If you believe your PC might be infected with something ugly, hold down the windows key while typing an R.  That will bring up the ‘Run’ window.  Type MRT in the text field and then press the enter key.  The Malware Removal Tool window will open.  Click ‘next’ on the entry screen.  On the next screen, select the type of scan you’d like to run and then click next.  Warning:  An MRT scan takes a long while to run and if you have quite a bit of data on your PC, it take hours and hours to complete.  I suggest you start one of these scans just prior to turning into bed for the night and it should be complete by morning when you wake.
• Roboform — Make your life easier with this top-rated password manager that comes in three varieties, one that’s installed on your PC, one that syncs between your PC/tablet/laptop/cellphone and the cloud, or one that’s installed on a removable drive. In addition to saving just passwords, it allows you to save “safe notes,” generate complex passwords for each and every account (while only needing just one password to access the entire lot), and safe personal/credit form information needed to fill out web forms.  You set up your password that serves a key to encrypt all your saved login passwords.  Warning:  Don’t lose or forget your Roboform password, because SiberSystems does not keep a copy on file and cannot reset your password. Available for a nominal cost annually.
• Keepass — KeePass Professional is a free, open source password manager, which helps you to manage your passwords in a secure way. You can put all your passwords in one database, which is locked with one master key or a key file. So you only have to remember one single master password or select the key file to unlock the whole database. The databases are encrypted using the best and most secure encryption algorithms currently known.

• Belarc Advisor — Belarc Advisor builds a detailed profile of your installed software and hardware, missing Microsoft hotfixes, anti-virus status, CIS (Center for Internet Security) benchmarks, and displays the results in your Web browser. All of your PC profile information is kept private on your PC and is not sent to any web server. Save a copy of the report as .mht file [an htm file with all of it’s resources included (graphics, etc.) as part of the file] so you have an spotlight archive file of what was installed on your PC at that moment in time. The “Software Licenses” section includes serial numbers and install keys for some (but unfortunately not all) software installed on your PC … a really nice feature if you’ve lost your install key. [Freeware]
• CoreFTP LE — CoreFTP LE Client gives you a fast, easy, reliable way to update and maintain your website via FTP.  It also provides a secure method (via SSL, TLS, FTPS, HTTPS, or SFTP) to upload / download files to and from FTP servers.  Check out the list of features and you’ll find almost every feature you need, all in a free ftp program.   There are no popup ads, advertising or spyware and you’re never asked or reminded to register.  [Freeware]
• doPDF — doPDF installs itself as a virtual PDF printer driver in your ‘Printers and Faxes’ list. To convert to a document to PDF, all you have to do is select doPDF as your “printer.” Open a document (with Microsoft Word, WordPad, NotePad or any other software), choose Print and select doPDF. It will ask you where to save the PDF file and when finished, the PDF file will be automatically opened in your default PDF viewer. This one doesn’t advertise itself on every copy it prints. Plus it can be used in both home and commercial situations.[Freeware]
• EASEUS Disk Copy — EASEUS Disk Copy is a potent freeware application that will allow you to create a sector by sector disk/partition clone, regardless of your operating system, file systems and partition scheme. The sector to sector method assures you a copy 100% identical to original. EASEUS Disk Copy can be used for copy, cloning, or upgrading your original small hard drive to a new larger drive. [Freeware]
• EASEUS Partition Master — The Home Edition allows you to extend a partition (especially for system drive), manage disk space easily, and resolve low disk space problems under Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 (Only for 32 bit). Free for home users. [Freeware]
• EASEUS ToDo Backup — Supporting Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Windows 7 and Windows Server 2000/2003/2008, is a FREE backup application that can be used for system backup and restore, hard disk or partition backup and restore, and disk cloning to protect your system and disk. It can back up your entire PC, including the operating system plus your data, applications, settings and everything! [Freeware]
• Eraser — Eraser is an advanced security tool for Windows which allows you to completely remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it several times with carefully selected patterns. Eraser is currently supported under Windows XP (with Service Pack 3), Windows Server 2003 (with Service Pack 2), Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008, Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. It not only gives you seven different options for ‘erasing’ the contents of the recycle bin, it even lets you create a task for ‘erasing’ the unused space on your hard drive during your next restart. Eraser is free software and its source code is released under GNU General Public License. [Freeware]
• Glary Utilities — Glary Utilities bundles some of the most useful Windows-related tools in one free download. It scans and cleans your PC, cleaning temporary files, removing junk files, fixing broken shortcuts, and resolving a wide range of issues, both major and minor, that most Windows users will have no trouble recognizing. You can configure its One-Click Maintenance option to run just those processes you want with a single click, making regular maintenance just too easy for excuses. You can run any of its many tools individually, too
• IOBit Driver Booster — Tired of all those nefarious sites that wrap you in circles as you try to find an updated driver?  Driver Booster is a one-click driver updater that helps you maintain hardware devices by updating and installing outdated, missing, and faulty drivers for common users. Driver Booster supports more than 200,000 drivers which covered over 3000 driver factory brands; even rare drivers can be accurately discovered. It can also diagnose PC hardware and device status and then finding the right driver version for users’ PC device to fix the missing and faulty drivers.
• IOBit Smart Defrag — Smart Defrag helps defragment hard drive more efficiently and optimizes disk performance. It is a free, light, and stable disk defragment tool that provides efficient defragmentation to hard drives for faster file loading and outstanding disk performance. The newly added SSD Defrag will significantly improve the access speed of SSDs and expand its useful life. With Game Defrag, users can also manually add games to the Smart Defrag to be defragged separately from the complete storage drive defrag, for top gaming performance. Smart Defrag can work automatically in the background on PC, keeping hard disk running at its top speed.
• IOBit Uninstaller — IObit Uninstaller 5 is a free and effective system utility that delivers the easiest and fastest way to uninstall programs, browser toolbar & plug-ins and injected programs. With strengthened Powerful Scan and Forced Uninstall, it can easily and completely remove stubborn applications and their useless leftovers which might occupy extra disk space. What’s more, it can monitor malicious browser plug-ins and injected programs in real time to ensure users getting a faster browsing speed and a more secure online environment. To fully support Win 10, IObit Uninstaller 5 can uninstall Windows 10 apps, even the default apps. New tools like Cleanup Residual, Windows tools, Startup manager, and Process monitor have been added to help easily optimize system performance.
• Partition Wizard — Partition Wizard Home Edition is a free partition manager which allows you to perform operations like: resizing, copying and deleting partitions; formatting, converting, exploring and hiding partitions; changing drive letters; setting the active partition; and performing partition recovery. Supports Windows 2000/XP/Vista/Win7 (32-bit & 64-bit) operating systems.
• Revo Uninstaller — Revo Uninstaller helps you to uninstall and remove unwanted programs installed on your computer even if you have problems uninstalling and cannot uninstall them from “Windows Add or Remove Programs” control panel applet. This piece of freeware is definitely worth installing! With its advanced and fast algorithm, Revo Uninstaller analyzes an application’s data before uninstall and scans after you uninstall an application. After the program’s regular uninstaller runs, you can remove additional unnecessary files, folders and registry keys that are usually left over on your computer. [Freeware]
• Roboform2Go— RoboForm2Go gives you the freedom and flexibility to carry all your passwords, contacts, and bookmarks, on a USB key for use on any computer – anywhere in the world. RoboForm2Go saves you time by facilitating automated logins to online accounts, and completing online registration and checkout forms with one click! Full price = $39.95, but watch for a special. The free version is fully functional, but it restricts the number passwords you can track.
  • Plug your USB flash drive with RoboForm2Go into any PC and log into any website, or fill any form, all with one click!
  • Remove your RoboForm2Go USB flash drive and no information will be left on the host PC.
• Unchecky — Tired of unchecking unrelated offers while installing software? Have you ever felt, while installing software, that the installer tries to push additional unwanted programs at all cost? Ever missed a checkbox, and spent hours afterwards removing adware? Ever opened your browser after an installation, only to find out that you have a new homepage, a new search engine, or even a new browser?  Unchecky works to keep potentially unwanted programs out of your computer.

• Ashampoo Burning Studio — This application is as good as Roxio in many cases. Multi-disc file backup and restore on CDs, DVDs and Blu-ray discs; create compressed backup archives with powerful password protection; split archives automatically across multiple CDs, DVDs or Blu-ray discs; restore archive contents to their original locations; integrated Audio CD ripper store your audio tracks as WMA or WAV files; new option for setting the number of copies you want to burn (available for all disc formats); discs can now be verified immediately without being ejected first (if the drive supports this feature); numerous other small improvements that make the program easier to use and more effective; burn files and folders on data CDs/DVDs/Blu-ray discs; burn Audio CDs from WAV, MP3, FLAC, WMA and Ogg Vorbis files; burn MP3-CDs from your MP3 files; burn Video DVD, Video CD (VCD) or Super Video CD (S-VCD); create and burn CD/DVD/Blu-ray disc images; burn speed and other options can all be set automatically. Please note, there is a free version as well as a paid version.
• Audacity — Audacity® is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds. It is available for Mac OS X, Microsoft Windows, GNU/Linux, and other operating systems. [Open Source Freeware]
• CDex — CDCDex can extract the data directly (digital) from an Audio CD, which is generally called a CD Ripper or a CDDA utility. The resulting audio file can be a plain WAV file (useful for making compilation audio CDs) or the ripped audio data can be compressed using an audio encoder. In addition, WAV files on the hard drive can be converted to a Compressed Audio File (and visa versa). CDex also supports many audio file tag formats like the ID3V1 and ID3V2 tags, which can be automatically inserted as part of the ripping process. [Open Source Freeware]
• Drop Box— Do you sometimes work on files from work at home? Do you need to back up some critical files? Do you need to share some files with another contact, friend or family member? Dropbox is the easiest way to store, backup, sync, and, share files online. Best of all, not only is DropBox free, but you get 2GB of server space for free.
• Freemake Video — This freeware application allows you to convert video files from one format to any of a large number of other formats (AVI, MP4, WMV, MKV, FLV, SWF, 3GP, DVD, MPEG, MP3, iPod, iPhone, PSP, Android).  It allows you to convert your DVD movies to files that can be stored and played on your PC, and it has a helper application for your browser that can download/convert video from sites like YouTube.
• FoxIt Reader — Foxit Reader is a free PDF document viewer, with incredible small size, breezing-fast launch speed and rich feature set. Foxit Reader supports Windows 2000/XP/2003/Vista/7. (Loads much faster that Adobe’s PDF Reader.)
• Inkscape — Need a vector drawing program? Inkscape is an Open Source vector graphics editor, with capabilities similar to Illustrator, CorelDraw, or Xara X. (Download the “windows installer”)
• LiberKey-Portable — Using Liberkey, you can install over 200 open source portable applications and utilities on your portable USB device which can be plugged in any computer and launched from the USB Key without having to install them on the PC you’re using. It’s free … and it works great. Click the link and check out all the applications and utilities (I set one up using the ultimate compilation … and then installed a few more apps that weren’t automatically included in that compilation).
• MediaMonkey — MediaMonkey-Free allows you to manage a music library from 100 to 50,000+ audio files and playlists located on your hard drive, CDs, or a network. Organize, browse, or search music by Genre, Artist, Year, Rating, etc., and never waste your time trying to find mp3s you know you have. It supports MP3, AAC (M4A), OGG, WMA, FLAC, MPC, WAV, CDA, M3U, PLS, etc. [Free Version]
• MP3 Tagger — MP3 (MPEG Layer 3) is a music-file format which can contain an ID3 tag. The ID3 tag has several cells you can set. These are the Songtitle, Artist, Album, Year, Genre, Comment and several more such as Composer, Original artist, Copyright, URL, Encoder type, etc. Media Tagger lets you modify any number of files at a time in an easy way. You may synchronize ID3v1 with ID3v2, name the file according to the tag or vice versa or format the letter capitalization in the file???s name. You can also create a WinAMP playlist (m3u, pls), create a file listing for Excel (csv) or Notepad (txt) or generate it as a HTML page, all this with just one click. [Freeware]
• Open Office— OpenOffice is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages (e.g. MS-Office, Wordperfect). It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.
  • Draw gives you the tools to communicate with graphics and diagrams. Manipulate objects, rotate in two or three dimensions; use sophisticated rendering to create photo-realistic images. Smart connectors make short work of flowcharts, organisation charts, network diagrams, etc. Styles – a common OpenOffice.org feature – help you control your work easily and precisely in Draw.
  • Writer has everything you would expect from a modern, fully equipped word processor or desktop publisher: powerful features like AutoCorrect, AutoComplete, AutoFormat, Styles and Formatting, Text Frames and Linking, Tables of Contents, Indexing, Bibliographical References, Illustrations, Tables, and other objects.
  • Calc is the spreadsheet you’ve always wanted. Newcomers find it intuitive and easy to learn; professional data miners and number crunchers will appreciate the comprehensive range of powerful features including Advanced DataPilot technology, Natural language formulas, an Intelligent Sum Button, a comprehensive range of advanced spreadsheet functions, Styles and Formatting, and a Scenario Manager for “what ifs”.
  • Impress is a truly outstanding tool for creating effective multimedia presentations. Your presentations will stand out with 2D and 3D clip art, fontworks, special effects, animation, and high-impact drawing tools. A multi-pane view puts all the tools at your fingertips, and you can ‘park’ your most commonly used drawing tools around your screen ready for single-click access. Share your work in many ways: not only pdf, but also html and Flash.
  • Base enables you to manipulate database data seamlessly within OpenOffice.org 3. Create and modify tables, forms, queries, and reports, either using your own database or Base’s own built-in HSQL database engine. Base offers a choice of using Wizards, Design Views, or SQL Views for beginners, intermediate, and advanced users.
• LibreOffice — LibreOffice is based on OpenOffice, but appears to have a more actively devoted update team. Like OpenOffice, it’s a free power-packed Open Source personal productivity suite for Windows, Macintosh and Linux, that gives you six feature-rich applications for all your document production and data processing needs: Writer, Calc, Impress, Draw, Math and Base. The software application, Support and documentation is free.
• Open Project — OpenProj is a free, open source desktop alternative to Microsoft Project.
• Paint.Net — Paint.NET is free image and photo editing software for computers that run Windows. It features an intuitive and innovative user interface with support for layers, unlimited undo, special effects, and a wide variety of useful and powerful tools. [Open Source]
• Wink — Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.

• TinyChat —  Within but a few clicks of a mouse, you and up to 11 of your coworkers can fire up a huge, Brady Bunch-style video chat interface complete with an accompanying text chat. Pony up $20 a month and you’ll even get the chance to share your screen, amongst other features.
• Prezi — Prezi allows you to create slideshows in a super-easy way. You can slap in transitions, insert images, group and layer your various bits of information, and generally create this moving, almost cinematic kind of a display that’s quite a bit removed from the standard slide-after-slide Powerpoint route. Once you’re done, watch your presentation via the Web (or share it, or embed it in a blog, etc.).
• Google Docs — Create and share your online documents, presentations and spreadsheets (sign up for free). Integrates with Google Mail, Google Calendar and Blogger.