Freeware / opensource software

If you've never tried free software or software that is maintained by an online community, you might be missing some impressive and very functional tools. Freeware / opensource software tends to be free of unnecessary 'features'. They just do what they are designed to do. Surprisingly, they are typically very multilingual and include some of the most innovative and impressive solutions out there.

Ubuntu

Easy to run, quick to install beautiful to look at (with the right features), Ubuntu is a great Linux distribution. It's free, easy to use, automatically figures most things out for itself, and you get the added warm & fuzzies from using software that is maintained and developed by a loosley knit community of programmers!

Dropbox.com (cross-platform)

A free website that allows you to store files online. You install a small program on your computer and it acts like just another folder, except that files placed inside are stored online. It's a great tool for synchronizing between computers, or backing up valuable files. 

Cute PDF creator (Windows)

A PDF file (Portable Document Format) is a good way to send out documents in a permanent, compressed format. You won't be able to change anything after the PDF is created, but if you like to use special fonts or lots of meticulously arranged pictures, then this is the way to go. Cute PDF Writer installs itself as a printer, so to make a PDF out of a document (Word document for example), choose it as you would a printer. As it says on the website, remember to install the 'converter' (Ghostscript) first before the CutePDF writer. 

Panda cloud antivirus (Windows)

Unobtrusive, effective, free and light on the CPU. What more could you ask for?