Total Commander

Free to try, $34 to buy

I have used a licensed copy of Total Commander from the days when it was Windows Commander.  It has appearances of Norton Commander and does just about anything you can imagine.  It is the best file manager and FTP client I have ever used.  This last year brought with it Total Commander 7 which was a major update.  As usual Christian Ghisler never charges you for the upgrades.  Learn more and get a trial copy.

InfraRecorder

Free. Period. 

In previous posts, I shared my woes about Roxio crashing my system.  No worries and no cost.  InfraRecorder offers complete recording capabilities for both CD and DVD formats. You can even make ISO images (great for loading operating systems from a hard drive). Learn more and get your copy.

AVG Antivirus Protection

Free for personal use.

I had been a big fan of Norton’s AV product.  Then came NAV 2006 which swallowed huge chunks of computer resources adding minutes onto the boot time.  It had problems too.  NAV 2007 is bigger and slower.  I tried iolo Technologies AV product and ended up with a virus.  That did not work.  Some of my IT colleagues suggested AVG’s Antivirus and violla, you get it all: free, fast and secure. They also make a decent spy ware protection. Learn more and get your copy.

Startup Control Panel

Free for personal use.

This is a control panel applet that efficiently lets you see and control what programs start with Windows. While it does not catch all programs that are set to run (e.g., iolo’s System Mechanic hides reporting programs from this and other startup monitors) it does catch most of them.  Learn more and get your copy.