The Most Popular Freeware for Windows 
Know some essential freeware downloads for Windows? List them here!
Resources
Geeks most loved browser. Powerful extensions and performance will make you drool on your keyboard.
Virtual CD/DVD drive which supports all popular copyprotections.
Navigate and search through satellite images around the world.
Fast, free PDF viewer. Good alternative to Adobe Acrobat.
The lightweight and efficient BitTorrent client
Mediaplayer that plays everything except realmedia files.
IrfanView is a very fast, small, compact graphics viewer
CCleaner is a freeware system optimization and privacy tool. It removes unused files from your system - allowing Windows to run faster and freeing up valuable hard disk space. It also cleans traces of your online activities such as your Internet history. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less that a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware
Find and enjoy the pictures on your computer in seconds.
Ad-Aware Personal provides advanced protection from known data-mining, aggressive advertising, Trojans, dialers, malware, browser hijackers, and tracking components.
The best and simplest open source audio editor out there.
Fast FTP client for Windows with SFTP/SSH and SSL/TLS, has a queue manager, can transfer files with multiple simultaneous connections, has bandwidth controls, caching, auto-transfer, retry/resume, auto-reconnect options and more.
Ever wondered which program has a particular file or directory open?
VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms
This multimedia DirectShow player looks like the old Windows Media Player 6.4, but has a lot more features like switching audio streams in an MP4 file.
Unlocker helps delete locked files with error messages like:
This monitoring tool lets you see all file system activity in real-time.
Gaim is a multi-protocol instant messaging (IM) client for Linux, BSD, MacOS X, and Windows. It is compatible with AIM and ICQ (Oscar protocol), MSN Messenger, Yahoo!, IRC, Jabber, Gadu-Gadu, SILC, GroupWise Messenger, and Zephyr networks.
7-Zip is a file archiver with high compression ratio.
VMware Player lets you evaluate new or pre-release software contained in virtual machines, without any installation or configuration hassles. You can also share existing virtual machines with colleagues or friends—just use VMware Player to run any virtual machine.
Free firewall, very good, works like anything you would pay for.
Eraser is a secure data removal tool, which allows you to remove sensitive data from your hard drive by overwriting it with carefully selected patterns.
Notepad++ is a free source code editor which supports several programming languages running under the MS Windows environment.
This project, based on Scintilla edit component (a very powerful editor component) are written in C++ with pure win32 api and STL (that ensures the higher execution speed and smaller size of the program), is under the GPL Licence.
See what programs are configured to startup automatically when your system boots and you login. Autoruns also shows you the full list of Registry and file locations where applications can configure auto-start settings.
Have you ever wanted to remove some Windows components like Media Player, Internet Explorer, Outlook Express, MSN Explorer, Messenger...
Wink allows you to record desktop action or application windows and create smooth, animated Flash demonstrations from the result, which can be saved in SWF format or as standalone EXE file with integrated playback.
SpywareBlaster prevents you computer from becoming infested with spyware by blacklisting known bad ActiveX components. This is very similar to Spybot Search & Destroy's Immunize feature, however, they use a different blacklist.
"PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application."
View the files in any folder or drive in your computer as a grid of filesize-proportional boxes.
Great windows integration with lots of support.. Supports ZIP, 7-ZIP, A, ACE, ARC, ARJ, BH, BZ2, CAB, CPIO, DEB, GCA, GZ, IMP, JAR, LHA (LZH), LIB, RAR, RPM, SQX, TAR, TGZ, TBZ, TAZ, YZ1 and ZOO archives.
XnView is a utility for viewing and converting graphic files
freeCommander is an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager. * Dual-panel technology * Optional tree view for each panel * Built in file viewer * Built in archive handling * Easy access to system folders, control panel, desktop and start menu * Create and verify MD5 checksums * File splitting * File properties and context menu * Calculation of folder size * Folder comparison / synchronization * Modification of file date and attributes * Folder / program favorites * File searching * File filters for display * DOS command line * Multiple language support
A general homepage hijackers detector and remover.
The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of codecs and related tools. Codec is short for Compressor-decompressor. Codecs are needed for encoding and decoding (playing) audio and video.
The TCP Optimizer is a free, easy Windows program that provides an intuitive interface for tuning and optimizing your Internet connection. There is no installation required, just download and run.
Sandboxie changes the rules such that write operations do not make it back to your hard disk.
(ignore the nag screen-it is free and clean)
Dependency Walker is a free utility that scans any 32-bit or 64-bit Windows module (exe, dll, ocx, sys, etc.) and builds a hierarchical tree diagram of all dependent modules. For each module found, it lists all the functions that are exported by that module, and which of those functions are actually being called by other modules. Another view displays the minimum set of required files, along with detailed information about each file including a full path to the file, base address, version numbers, machine type, debug information, and more.
Excellent free AV. Protects internet mail, instant messaging, network shield, Outlook/Exchange, P2P shield, standard shield and web shield.
Bring life to your desktop with fun, stylish,and useful
AbiWord is a free word processing program similar to Microsoft® Word. It is suitable for a wide variety of word processing tasks.
DBAN will automatically and completely delete the contents of any hard disk that it can detect, which makes it an appropriate utility for bulk or emergency data destruction.
This monitoring tool lets you see all Registry activity in real-time
World Wind lets you zoom from satellite altitude into any place on Earth. Leveraging Landsat satellite imagery and Shuttle Radar Topography Mission data, World Wind lets you experience Earth terrain in visually rich 3D, just as if you were really there.
Basic Firewall Protection Standard packet and application filtering safeguard your computer from unwanted communications. Connections Monitoring Lets you see network activity in real time, to help define inappropriate connections and close them right away. Surfing Protection Maintains your privacy on the Internet, keeps browser protected from Internet dangers.
RegSeeker includes a powerful registry cleaner and can display various informations like your startup entries, several histories (even index.dat files), installed applications and much more ! With RegSeeker you can search for any item inside your registry, export/delete the results, open them in the registry. RegSeeker also includes a tweaks panel to optimize your OS ! Now RegSeeker includes a file tool to search for duplicate files, bad shortcuts and more !
SlickRun is a floating command line that lets you define short aliases for any program or website.
FLV Player is a standalone application to play Flash .flv files with. This utility can come in handy when viewing many FLV files, as it doens't require the Flash IDE. The installer comes with optional .flv association, so double clicking an .flv file opens and plays the file in the player.
A completely standalone wiki implementation written entirely in a single html page. Uses JavaScript for dynamic page capabilities and allows saving with backups as well as RSS feeds.
Trillian is a multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows
The free space simulation that lets you explore our universe in three dimensions
Standard desktop search, does files, emails, history/favorites, will index on the fly. Nice features include the able to index network drives, can set schedule on how often files/emails/favorites/history are to be re-indexed, as well as a index clear/re-index feature and the ability to change where the index is stored on the hard drive.
Pandora Desktop Player allows you to listen to the Pandora jukebox in your system tray ad free
Aqua Dock is a task bar and a Windows program launcher that does it with Apple’s style.
PDFCreator is a free tool to create PDFs easily from nearly any application. With the PDFCreator Printer driver you turn any program into a PDF-machine
EasyCleaner is a small program which searches the Windows registry for entries that are pointing nowhere. EasyCleaner also lets you delete all kinds of unnecessary files such as temps and backups. You can search for duplicate files and you can view some interesting info about your disk space usage! You are also able to manage startup programs, invalid shortcuts and add/remove software list.
FlyakiteOSX is a transformation pack. It will transform the look of an ordinary Windows XP+ system to resemble the look of Mac OS X. The installer simply automates the process of replacing critical system files, setting registry tweaks, and installing extras such as cursors, sounds, visual styles, etc.
BricoPack Vista Inspirat is a free pack which modifies Windows XP system files in order to change its appearance and make it look like Windows Vista (the next operating system made by Microsoft).
Free private digital diary for your daily records
Search for temporary and garbage files and delete them to free up space. Very thorough.
Removes parts of drivers that are left after uninstalling the old drivers.
SimpleOCR is a fully-featured, free OCR application.
Video compression sofware for REAL MEDIA format.
Registry Optimization for Windows NT/2000/2003/XP