Favorite Software

These are, in my opinion, the most important pieces of (free) software out there. I would not want to work on a computer without these programs on them.
Irfan View	This is a freeware graphics viewer. It can open a huge number of types of graphics, and can save into most of them. It can be useful, say, if you have a GIF, and you want to edit it, but MS Paint only opens BMP's. This software can also capture images from TWAIN sources, and has some nice picture-tweaking abilities. I strongly advise that you get this.
Trillian	This is the software I use for instant messenging. It allows you to connect with AIM, ICQ, Y!, MSN, and IRC. Also, you can connect with more than one account at each client (like, I have two AIM accounts). It even can do multi-person AIM chat and Blowfish encrypted messeges. I suggest you use it.
Turbo Navigator	This is an alternative to Windows Explorer. The primary benefit is that it has two panes, instead of one. The main disadvantage is that it takes forever to delete stuff; I advise that you use Windows Explorer to do that. Otherwise, I say, use this software. Note: It appears that the developer of this software has stopped working on it and has taken down his main site. The link now takes to you another site from which you can download this software.
Spybot Search & Destroy	This software scans your hard drive for "spyware." Spyware is software which tracks your every movement and reports this information back to its maker. Often, you accidently install spyware along with other software, such as Gator or KaZaA. You should download this software and remove the spyware from your system.
Ad Aware	This is another spyware-scanning utility. In my opinion, Spybot is better, but it can't hurt to use both.
LeechFTP	A nice piece of FTP software. It's too bad that it will no longer be updated, but I will use it as my primary FTP software from now on. One of its nicest features is that it can FTP two (or more) things at once. Because of this feature, I will use this software exclusively.