If you own a PC, chances are high that you've already reached deeply into your pockets and parted with sizeable sums of cash for applications that can be downloaded for free.
Think of any application you're ever likely to need and chances are that there's a free version available online. After hours spent slaving over a hot keyboard, I've tracked down a treasure trove of online freebies for your computing pleasure.
DIGITAL PHOTOS
Picassa
Available free from picasa.google.com, there's not much Picassa can't do. Able to manage huge photo libraries, tagging and finding photos you forgot you ever had is almost effortless. Getting rid of red-eye and do other photo corrections: Total cost nada. Creating online albums and making slideshows, sticker price, Free. Doing digital photography with Picassa: Priceless - even if its free.
The Gimp
If your image editing needs are a little more extreme, get the Gimp it's way cheaper. Whilst you could plunk down several hundred bucks for a commercial photo editing app, try dropping into gimp.org and downloading the industrial strength open source photo editing app.
VLC
There are a million different digital video formats and until the advent of VLC, playing these needed multiple video player applications and a cluster of different video codecs. Not with VLC media player, which plays a multitude of audio and video formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, ...) as well as DVDs, VCDs and a multitude of other streaming formats.
PRODUCTIVITY
Open Office
Shrink wrapped office software needn't cost a bomb. Open Office does the full office monty including word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics and databases. These are no lightweight apps either, with the word processor able spell check, do complicated layouts and read Microsoft Word files, there's a lot to like about Open Office, especially its ultra low (free) price. Get your very own copy of Open Office here.
Thunderbird & Lightning
As sweet as scoring a free full function Office software suite may be, being truly productive requires access to an industrial grade email app. Thank goodness for Thunderbird. Rock solid and Fully customisable, Thunderbird allows you to organise mail, RSS feeds and newsgroup folders whilst allowing messages to be tagged so you can stay on top of a bulging email in-box. Mozilla's best feature however is its zero dollar price tag.