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Check out the new beta of AntiVir 7: http://www.free-av.com/antivirclassic/av7beta.html
Much improved all around, including sceduled updates built in.

Hmm, Version 7.0 Beta with a redesigned interface... I'll have to get that when I reinstall Windows on my new hard drive next weekend.

Tell me about it. No more ability to scan in Safe Mode, no ability to run at all if the IE security settings are jacked up, and if mshtml is exploited, then Symantec's products are screwed.

Whose brilliant idea was it to make an HTML GUI for a *security* product using libraries from the system that are easily compromised by unrelated events (IE security levels)?

Right around the time they started with that was when I stopped recommending their products and started recommending AntiVir.

What about their support policy on the website http://www.free-av.com/:

4. Unfortunately, we are unwillling to respond to your questions per email personally!

Who cares? Who even uses this crap? If you don't have an active virus-shield style app scanning all the time you're just asking to get infected these days. I can't count the number of times that AntiVir Personal Edition virus shield (free for individual home use) has saved me from a virus or trojan while browsing. If I had to rely on a web-based scanner I'd be infected FIRST before I knew about it later.

The free ones that work the best are AVG, AntiVir (Classic, Premium isn't free) and Avast!. I currently use AVG but the new version of AntiVir is supposed to work better and have a smaller footprint.

Free-AV caught and blocked this. IE6 survived unharmed.

Anti-virus, yes. I see how you should pay yearly for continual virus definitions and things like that. It's constantly being changed and upgraded, and that takes work. But on the other side of that, your anti-virus shouldn't just stop working alltogether if you don't pay for the nth year.

I use AntiVir (PersonalEdition Classic - http://www.free-av.com/ and it doesn't cost me a thing.
While it's not may not quite match the most expensive software, it beats paying a yearly fee.

Sure, they're based in Germany, but they make another free virus scanner. And who can't love a scanned called Luke Filewalker?

http://www.free-av.com/

And AntiVir

You can always switch to other free AV scanners. I switched to AntiVir http://www.free-av.com/ when McAfee slowed down my computer too much. It does the job for me...

http://www.free-av.com/

Great little app.

$

A-Squared, MS Anti Spyware, and AVG nailed that combo for me, but it was frustrating as hell.

What monopoly? Does MS have a monopoly on the AV market? Funny, I use Free-AV They're not owned by Microsoft. I know that there are many, many, many other AV products out there put out by companies that are NOT MS. What monopoly are you talking about, exactly, and how does it pertain to this discussion?

OK, so we have a bunch of ignorant users who either don't know or don't care about this problem. I've always wondered if there was a good use for an Internet chain letter, and I think I've finally found one. Just send the following message to your favorite ignorant user. Maybe if this spreads, people will be so afraid that they'll actually clean their systems. Or at least we'll get to watch them squirm.

Subj: WARNING!!! Get rid of viruses or go to jail!!!

Please read this message! It is extremely important! It might even keep you out of jail!!!

You've probably heard about all the computer viruses that have been spreading like wildfire in the past few years. What you probably haven't heard is what they've been doing to the computers they infect. They've been turning these computers into "zombie computers" that can be controlled over the Internet to send spam, to attack other computers and Web sites, and to spread "phishing scams" to trick people into turning over credit card and bank account information to criminals. These infected computers are grouped into "botnets" and rented out to do the dirty work of whoever is willing to pay, often spammers, extortionists, and other criminal gangs located here and overseas in places like Russia, China, and Eastern Europe. AND YOUR COMPUTER COULD BE A ZOMBIE WITHOUT YOU EVEN KNOWING IT! RIGHT NOW, EVEN AS YOU READ THIS, YOUR COMPUTER COULD BE CHURNING OUT SPAM OR PERFORMING MANY OTHER CRIMINAL ACTIVITIES!!!

This isn't just a minor problem. In fact, it's gotten so bad that THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT WILL SOON START PROSECUTING PEOPLE WITH INFECTED COMPUTERS!

In a recent Senate committee hearing, Dept. of Homeland Security secretary Tom Ridge said, "The attacks these infected computers can launch has become a matter of national security. We've tried and tried to educate people to run antivirus software to keep their computers free of these viruses, but it appears they aren't listening. I hate the idea of having to start prosecuting ordinary Americans for this, but we don't have many options left."

Ridge went on to say that DHS wants to give people time to get these viruses off their computers, so they plan to wait until Tuesday, September 6, 2005 before they start filing charges.

So, you have until TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, 2005 (the day after Labor Day) to clean your computer of viruses. Otherwise, YOU COULD BE PROSECUTED!!!

BUT DON'T PANIC! Cleaning your computer is easy, and you don't even have to shell out any money to do it. Several antivirus companies have stepped up to the plate to help people meet this important deadline by offering free antivirus software.

AVG Free Edition
http://free.grisoft.com/

avast!
http://www.avast.com/eng/down_home.html

AntiVir Personal Edition Classic
http://www.free-av.com/

Even Microsoft has put up a site with links to free antivirus software from several companies.

http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/protect/w indows2000/antivirus.mspx

If you don't have time to download and install antivirus software right now, several antivirus companies have even put up sites to do a quick scan and clean any viruses they find. THEY DON'T REPLACE ANTIVIRUS SOFTWARE, but they will let you quickly clean your computer until you can get software installed.

Trend Micro
http://housecall.trendmicro.com/

Symantec
http://security.symantec.com/sscv6/default.asp?pro ductid=symhome&langid=ie&venid=sym

McAfee
http://us.mcafe

Totally have to agree here. Older versions of McAfee and Norton/Symantec Antivirus weren't bad, and I used to recommend them. Current versions of both now depend on the MSIE engine, and as you pointed out, can be instantly disabled by a corrupt IE engine, or even just changed security settings.

I am the author of a small antivirus tool for Windows, and I saw first-hand how one of the viruses/worms I deal with turned up the security level on IE in all zones - making the user unable to run McAfee or Norton because they didn't have permission to use ActiveX on their own local machine.

These two programs have a reputation that was once deserved, but now is based purely on the past. I recommend AntiVir antivirus - http://free-av.com/ - now, because it's fast, free for personal use, updated at least once every 48 hours, and has a small footprint on the system - all things that McAfee and Norton fail at.

-Jay

I don't know if this is a hoax. Even if it isn't, I silently wish for someone to up and do this.

Most viruses just run in the background, sucking up processes so that the computer runs slow, making most users hit the monitor and complain about whatever ISP they use (regardless if they are currently connected or not,) while not always actually calling them for help.

If it wasn't for programs like Norton, McAfee, or AVG, most average users probably wouldn't have a clue if they did get a virus.

With something like this working 'in your face', they'll at least go 'wtf', and maybe listen this time when you tell them not to open attachments they weren't expecting.

Better yet, don't ask for money. Just punish the saps. As a kid, both spankings and time-outs helped deter me from doing bad things or disobeying (more the spankings than the time-outs.) Let's put this into the adult realm: Have a virus that, when run, sends itself to everyone in the address book. When that's done, it brings up a message telling the user what an idiot s/he is, and that the computer is now locked for the next month. Effectively, they get a 'time-out' for doing something bad/stupid, and will probably (hopefully) think twice before opening an unknown attachment next time.

Um... I don't condone doing this, though!

Why not make ad-aware downloadable from the page?

Why not also offer up some free anti-virus like clam-win (GPL) or AntiVir (Beer):

http://www.clamwin.com/
http://www.free-av.com/index.htm

With update files (cron wget, anyone?) you should be able to get the bulk of the problems without having to leave your desk.

The free Symantec tools can be useful if you know what it is.

Basically now, I install AntiVir http://www.free-av.com/ and Adaware http://www.lavasoft.com/ , and together they can do a pretty great job of cleaning the computer. Toss on Firefox and say "Use this, not IE" and they have been in pretty good shape!

In any case, lots of people here have the skill to help them out, share it! I'm sure most already do!

I like to use AntiVir when fixing windows boxes.
The personal edition is free (http://www.free-av.com/)

http://www.free-av.com/
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

On the other hand, the question is about windows. Here's the best freeware list I've found, taken off of the neowin.net forums. These are not guaranteed Clean, but most of them are. Also, you might want to check tinyapps.org, which specializes in SMALL apps (usually not enough space for ad/spyware).
Category 3D Graphics: ----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/CharacterCountF ilterForAValidList----
3Delight Free - http://www.3delight.com/index.htm
Anim8or - http://www.anim8or.com/
Aqsis - http://www.aqsis.com/
Blender - http://www.blender3d.org/
gmax - http://www.discreet.com/products/gmax/
Houdini (Free Edition) - http://www.sidefx.com/apprentice/index.html
Maya Personal Learning Ed. - http://www.alias.com/eng/products-services...ple/i ndex.shtml
Now3D - http://digilander.libero.it/giulios/Eng/homepage.h tm
OpenFX - http://www.openfx.org
SOFTIMAGE|XSI EXP - http://www.softimage.com/products/exp/v3/
Toxic - http://www.toxicengine.org/
Wings 3D - http://www.wings3d.com/
Category Anti-Virus:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Char acterCountFilterForAValidList----
AntiVir - http://www.free-av.com/
Avast - http://www.avast.com/i_idt_1018.html
AVG - http://www.grisoft.com/
ClamWin - http://www.clamwin.com/
Category Anti Spyware:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
Ad-aware - http://www.lavasoft.de/software/adaware/
Bazooka - http://www.kephyr.com/spywarescanner/index.html
Diet K - http://www.dietk.com/
SpyBot Search & Destroy - http://spybot.safer-networking.de/
SpywareBlaster - http://www.javacoolsoftware.com/spywareblaster.htm l
SpywareGuard - http://www.wilderssecurity.net/spywareguard.html
Category IRC Clients:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
BersIRC - http://www.bersirc.com/
BitchX - http://bitchx.org/download.php
HydraIRC - http://www.hydrairc.com/
TinyIRC - http://www.tinyirc.net/
XChat - http://www.silverex.org/news/
Category Audio Players:----JunkCharactersToDefeatLameness/Charact erCountFilterForAValidList----
1by1 - http://www.rz.uni-frankfurt.de/~pesch
Billy - http://www.sheepfriends.com/?page=billy
CoolPlayer - http://coolplayer.sourceforge.net/
DeliPlayer. http://www.deliplayer.com/
Foobar 2

And don't forget Anti Vir.

Has anyone forgotten the all important drone??

Is microsoft attacking the spammers because the spammers are using their drones?

If in agreement:

Download: http://www.tucows.com/preview/213160.html Sygate Personal Firewall, http://www.lavasoftusa.com/software/adaware/ Adaware free, http://www.mozilla.org/ Mozilla Firefox.

Goto IE
Set a fake proxy server in Tools -> Options -> Connections -> Lan settings
So you never use IE again, even accidentally, or with kids messing around.

Just put in fake as the address and 8080 (or whatever) as the port, simple.

Install Adaware, Run adaware but don't commence searching, kill explorer.exe from the task manager, keep taskmanager open and now commence searching with Adaware.

Goto the Applications tab and click on New Task, enter into the box *Shudder* "explorer.exe".

Install Sygate's free firewall, Sygate Personal Firewall, Most secure there is out there, no bloated crap that Norton pushes.

Install Firefox and Thunderbird.

None of this software asks you for ANYTHING...

Don't forget to eventually BUY a subscription virus tool though.

In the alternative that you're a cheap ass you can use http://www.free-av.com/.

It isn't perfect software but virus protection is a must, no matter what you do or how weak it is.

There, and not one penny spent, nearly complete protection.

The main reason why I'm doing this is because one person whom does this means one thousand less potential spam emails out there..my own little spam attack..

Come on guy's!! Mod me up!

Err, Wash, rinse and repeat =)

Oh, don't forget to friggen BUY a subscription virus tool.

In the alternative that you're a cheap ass you can use http://www.free-av.com/.

It isn't perfect software but it keeps the tight-asses from infecting you with common viruses.

There, and not one penny spent, nearly complete protection.

I have seen are samba shares because people don't put antivirus on *nix servers.

Any suggestions for a home user with Samba on Linux and a very small budget.
As a simple but not as safe method. I use the W32 client antivirus software to scan the network shares. Better then nothing.
On that note, the free version AntiVir for W32 does NOT scan anything on network drives at all. A good free solution for home users without network shares though.

I tote Antivir XP (no I don't work for them ;) around on my miniscule 64mb thumbdrive (Freebie from Micro$loth :)

http://www.free-av.com/

its free, its pretty small and its databases are updated fairly regularly.

I run AntiVir http://www.free-av.com/ .

antivir seems to work ok,
and is updated afaik.
Spyware removal software is obligatory on windwos as well.

but if you're running a win98 without firewalling/serious tweaking.. ..you're probably owned or at least at risk. though in all fairness they're probably some other spammers who just happen to use your mail add as the sender.

go with FREE solutions, they exist.

http://www.free-av.com/ free virus scanning

http://www.free-firewall.org/ some free firewalling

I love this little program. It makes cleaning up a PC fast and easy. None of this 2+ hours to clean it up. Just remove the stuff that you don't need (Must have some experience with PC's to know what is good and bad). It even can remove the software that hooks into IE.

I like HiJack this http://www.spychecker.com/program/hijackthis.html/

I run Win98SE on two older computers. Here's what I suggest:

1. Hardware firewall. Forget zone alarm and the rest. Just buy a little Linksys or Dlink high speed router/firewall. There cheap.

2. Virus software. I use Free-AV http://www.free-av.com/

3. Setup FireFox http://www.mozilla.org/firefox/ and
Thunderbird http://www.mozilla.org/products/thunderbird/

Don't worry about much.

And when I need to I use HiJackThis to remove the odd piece of spyware that is installed.

I noticed a lot of spyware comes from Kazaa and other P2P networks. If your just web browsing the previous precautions should be enough. P2P is a completely different story!

Because when they did that with web browsers, they got slapped with antitrust lawsuits?

Nobody is going to be "required" to purchase Microsoft's AntiVirus product. Nortan AntiVirus will continue to exist and it's what many people will continue to remain comfortable using. Microsoft's poor track record of dozens upon dozens of critical vulnerabilities in their OS and other software isn't going to make them the first company people think to go to for an antivirus solution... especially while Symantec has been making a name for itself as a legitimate security/antivirus company for years. Meanwhile, free antivirus software exists out there (for home users at least), including

On top of that, since Microsoft is not bundling the AV software as a part of the OS, so it's not going to be free. It's hard to compete against free, and there are a free ways that home users have to protect themselves against malicious code (Grisoft AVG, AntiVir Personal Edition, as well as free online options, like Panda ActiveScan and Trend Micro's Housecall).

So Microsoft has to compete against both an established anti-virus/system utility software company which many people are already using, as well as several viable free alternatives. No doubt Microsoft will have some success, but while these alternatives exist (and I suspect at least some of them will continue to exist for a long while), I don't quite see how you can call it extortion.

free-av is your friend not the prettiest of UI's, but it does its job for free

Well, considering Windows Update can be done automatically (I think it's the default in XP now... I'm not sure... I run W2K), it's going to be much less of an issue. I know my W2K machines generally get patched the day the patch is released. Quite honestly, it's a non-issue for my company. The machines patch themsleves, and I don't even worry about security. On top of that, I run a free virus program that updates itself when it starts up. Only problem with that is that our machines are never rebooted, so the only time our machines get virus updates are when the power goes out.

That being said, 99% of all viruses can be preventued by that automatic Windows Update, and employees not running stupid shit on my boxes. I run a small company, and my employees actually ask me before they open any email attachment (I hire good people).

are all y'all nuts? Reinstalling the OS once a month or even once a year? Holy shit! My current box is 4 years old and I've never reinstalled the OS and hope I never have to.

Once a month I consider rather excessive, but for a Windows box, reinstalling at least once a year greatly reduces the kruft. After a clean install, you can feel the improved responsiveness.

Anyway, my list of the first ten (+1 x2):

0) Turn off half of the default Windows crap (services, the recycle bin, CD autostart, etc), and perform assorted registry tweaks to stop Windows from acting like a crippled DOS-box-with-GUI (ala Win95) with only 64MB of RAM (such as LargeSystemCache, NtfsDisableLastAccessUpdate, CompletionChar, and DisablePagingExecutive).
1) PageDefrag, which keeps your registry and pagefile in a single contiguous file (though you should always have your min and max pagefile the same, so that doesn't get fragmented in the first place).
2) AntiVir. No sane person goes without an AV program, and IMO, this counts as the best of the free ones (for that matter, I consider it better than Norton as well - Slightly more awkward autoupdates, but it doesn't hog system resources). Best of all, as a non-USian program, it doesn't deliberately ignore "official" virii such as the FBI's Magic Lantern.
3) AdAware. We all know what it does.
4) SpyBot. Ditto, and it catches some things that AdAware doesn't (and vice-versa).
5) Mozilla, of course.
6) Winamp. I still prefer the v2.x series, but, gotta have at least one of them.
7) TeraTerm Pro and TeraTerm SSH. Technically two installs, but only a moron would use unencrypted telnet these days.
8) Calypso, a really nice (and free-as-in-beer) email program. Want the latest, greatest features in your email program, making it all but indistinguishable from a full-featured web browser and media player? Don't use this. Want a safe medium for text communication, with fairly powerful regexp filtering? You'll consider Calypso a godsend.
9) The GIMP. 'nuff said.
10) Finally, a compiler (or three... The next dozen installs after this one would include various other dev tools). Currently I still prefer Borland C 5.02, sadly not free. Although advancing technoology has already made it basically obsolete, it has what I consider the most straightforward IDE of any development suite out there.
0, part 2) Repeat step 0, since by this point Windows will have tried to undo half of my changes from the first time.

Okay. Ego-post of the day done.

AdAware, Spybot, F-prot, AVG and Antivir.

Seems like there's no software to catch them all, each have a sublist of what can be infested.

The good news is that all of them are easy to keep up to date and FREE.

Most people are confident that their lovely anti-virus
telling them "no virus found" is enough.

But most of the time, you can have 4 out of 5 Anti-virus up to date saying everything is fine
and the 5th one still finds some crapt on your lovely Windows.

Fixed link

AntiVir might be a good, free choice.

I has served me well. Catches a lot of the spyware that my favorite pr0n sites try to push me, too.

well when people get a Norton Antivirus (with 60-day subscription) with their new pc, they're bound to assume it will still do its job after those 60 days.

which is why I tell EVERYONE that norton and all pay-for viris scanners are utter crap and hand them a copy of antivir and or install it for them right there.

Yes, you have to manually update it (yes it will nag you to death if you dont after 2 months)

but it is a free Antivirus scanner that is one of the best available and has FREE definiton file updates.

mcaffee and Norton are being pretty darn evil by making home users PAY for dat file updates. the real money is in corperate and they know it.

I just wish that more ISP's would shut down internet connections of infected people.. give notice that in 5 days their internet account will be deactivated and cut off if they do not fix the problem.

> those users aren't able to download good, free virus scanners like Grisoft's AVG.

Do you really like AVG? Free it is, but I really dislike its interface and think it looks exactly like a really cheap program.

I like AntiVir better; also free, and has a good interface, and doesn't look like it's so...free.

But yeah, it is a bummer that the users have to go to a lot of trouble without net access, because the easiest solution is to just install a copy of Anti-Vir or AVG.

It'd be cool if they'd give infected customers access to only one (preferably mnemonic) IP, and NO DNS servers, so the support call would go like this:

Caller: My Internet Explorer doesn't work. And my computer is slow too. Why?
Tech: Do you have anti-virus software running?
Caller: No/I don't know.
Tech: Open Internet Explorer and type this address in the little box where you usually type www.yahoo.com: 12.12.12.12
Caller: It says here to download these four programs and then I will have my access restored.
Tech: That's right. Bye.
----
Page on HTTP server at 12.12.12.12:
----
You have been infected with:
VARIOUS VIRUSES AND SPAMBOTS
!

You need to download and run these programs to clean and protect your computer:

Link 1: FREE VIRUS SCANNER (AVG/AntiVir/whatever)

Link 2: (detect based on user-agent:)
Either: Little app that enables XP's firewall
Or: free firewall software

Link 3: FREE COMPUTER SPEED-UP TOOL (translation: spyware remover)
Ad-aware personal with the latest definitions

Link 4: Little custom app that verifies all these apps are installed and running, that a complete virus scan has cleaned all viruses and does a challenge-response authentication on 12.12.12.12 on some nonstandard port, signaling ISP to automatically re-instate customer. Pops up note to restart their computer to re-gain access.

I have been using AntiVirus Personal Edition happily for the last 2 years. It's not free as in speech, but for personal/privat use it's free as in beer :-)

http://www.free-av.com/

Well, just found out they do have an English version...

Nice idea, but it's not hard to see that unless it's watertight it would be easy for this system to be abused by crackers/spammers/malcontents.
The sad fact is that viruses would be ineffective if everyone used a virus checker. For home users there are free options available, and for corporate users the licensing cost is reasonable (esp. compared to the cost of being hit by an attack). The problem is people who are clueless or careless enough not to run with a decent firewall and a virus checker. That is what needs to be combatted.

... from a German company called AntiVir ...

Actually, the German company is called H+B EDV Datentechnik GmbH. The AntiVir software, however, is really quite good. You can download the windows version for free; there are usually updates every few days. As with lots of German companies, they do both German and English versions.

There is also a Linux version, and it's also free for personal use, but you have to sign up first. I did (they don't spam my email address at all either) and the software is very good. On SuSE, you can have YaST integrate it with Postfix at the click of a button! I think the default setting is to reply to virus emails to inform the sender, which a lot of people don't like, but reconfiguring Postfix isn't exactly rocket science.

-- Steve

• CygWin. The Linux-like environment for Windows.
  Mozilla. Use this for mail, news, and browsing if you like.
  Firebird. for FAST browsing.
  WS FTP Light. A FREE, FTP client that works great.
  Filezilla. which is TRULY free and does sftp as well.
  PuTTY. a free SSH client for Windows.
  TTSSH. is a much less clunky ssh client than PuTTY.
  iXplorer. freeware secure FTP client
  VNC hello!? remote controll software.
  Tight VNClike the original, only FAST.
  GNU-EMacs for Windows. just trust me ;).
  Dev-C++a free C++ compiler for those who can't afford VS.
  NetHack. as someone here said, you MUST have NetHack installed on everything...
  Free-AV.free Anti-Virus software for Windows, (mandatory these days). or
  AVG Free edition. another free Anti-Virus software for Windows.
  Zonealarm. my favorite Personal Firewall,, really!. or
  Kerio. another firewall that some seem to like. or
  Sygate. yet another firewall. whatever floats your boat.
  Boingo. to see where the closest hotspot is, hehe.
  OpenOffice 1.1 the Microsoft Office KILLER :) {really!}
  Winamp 2.x for audio/video usage in Windows, stay away from the new one :).
  Mark's Adding Machine is much better than the Windows calculator.
  SpyBot Search & Destroy The best Ad-ware / Spyware removal tool we've found, "IE is unusable without".
  Ad-Aware another spy-ware app "alas poor Windoze."
  Trillian a favorite IM, since we're all chatters @ heart. or
  GAIM since trillian hogs resources, "bad piggy!".
  Gimp image creation/editing. Who needs Photoshop anyway?
  EnZip freeware Zip Utility, Stop nagging you WinZip!!
  Iview is a great little image viewer. or
  Irfanviewone of the best image viewer out there for Windows.
  Audacity is a great little sound editor.
  Virtual Dub. a great video editor.
  cDex gotta rip those cd's for the RIAA!
  MAME for games, period. Free. You can buy some ROMs, or *ahem* ask around. and finally
  XPantiSPY since XP is E-V-I-L.

And FINALLY, don't trust me! Trust the experts;

Go to the Pricelessware site maintained by the alt.comp.freeware Usenet group.
The

Really, it's hard to pinpoint withoug knowing what you're going to be using it for, however, for basic needs, I utilize the following (win32. I have a pair of RH boxes, but they are both servers without KDE/Gnome, so I don't use Linux desktops much):

Mozilla 1.4

(The whole suite) mail/browser with additional functionlity provided by a couple of plugins (EasySearch bar, Optimoz Mouse Gestures and the Calendar). Been playing with Firebird/Thunderbird, but thunderbird has a bit to go before it's up to the level ot the regular Mozilla mail client.

AntiVIR free Antivirus.
Updates every 2 weeks (or more if you're paranoid). Used AVG (Grisoft's product) for a while, but had issues with its W2k/XP compatibility. That was over a year ago, however.

EnZip Freeware Zip Utility

Explorer-like interface, with shell extensions and all. No nag screens!

FileZillaOpen-source FTP utility

Includes queuing and scheduling functions. Better than WsFTP lite.

Putty freeware SSH client

Nuf said!

iXplorer Freeware secure FTP client

Transfer files over SSH connections. Useful for transferring files to/from Linux hosts without opening up FTP.

WinAmp free Multimedia Player

With some plugins, can play almost any type of media file.

There's more, but I'm not going to list everything I use. Normally I'd just send you to my website, but I'm not going to /. my own site. It's just a little 486 box on a DSL connection!

Here is my top ten list (in no particular order) for Windows. I'll let everyone argue about the Linux tools.
CygWin the Linux-like environment for Windows.
Mozilla naturally.... Use this for mail, news, and browsing if you like.
WS FTP Light a FREE, FTP client that works great.
PuTTY a free SSH client for Windows.
VNC remote controll software, NOTE: the location is no longer on the ATT Labs UK site.
GNU-EMacs for Windows. I usually install it, but use Vi more.
Dev-C++ a free C++ compiler. I use VC++ 6.0, but this is free, and I think it's pretty good.
NetHack You MUST have NetHack installed on everything...
Free-AV free Anti-Virus software for Windows.
Boingo to see where the closest hotspot is. (free) you don't need the service.

I've found that Agnitum Outpost Firewall is good also: the free version is free for all, as in beer. It does the job nicely: the link is outpost, there are two: 1.0 is the freebie.
There are two free as in beer antiviruses too: the german antivir and grisoft avg.

If you are a home user you are a fool to pay for your windows Anti-virus....

AntiVir

get it for free for home/non-profit use and call it done.