Freeware is Free software: free to use it, free of payment, free of any nagging. It is very well possible to build up your application collection for almost any task, without having to pay loads of money for buggy stuff. Often, this free software is as good as commercial software, and sometimes even better. Here's my link list to get you started on getting a full system without spending money. Just click on the program's title to go to the site.

First a couple of useful sites providing collections of  free software:
TUDOGS                     http://www.tudogs.com/home.php
Freeware World Team  http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld/links.php

Useful, free Windows software:
SECURITY:
Sygate Personal Firewall Standard  , protect your PC from intruders.
Ad-Aware SE Personal Edition  , track and delete malafide spying software
AVG Anti-Virus Free  ,  protect your PC against viruses

ADMINISTRATIVE:
Open Office  , an office suite, comparable to MS-Office (texteditor, spreadsheet, database, presentation...)
Printkey  , who said the 'Print Screen' touch didn't work under Windows ?? This is a superb handy utility.
Go2PDF  , want to make your documents accessible to anyone, the Adobe .pdf style?
Unit Converter  , convert  any measure to any other and see how many foot it takes a meter.

UTILITIES:
ICEOWS  , you got a compressed file (.zip, .rar, .lha...) ?? Use this one for compression and de-compression.

GRAPHICS:
IrfanView  , a fast picture viewer with awesome options for editing etc...
Picasa  , undig all graphical images on your PC and put them in an editable library to quickly overview and handle them.
JPG Picture Resizer  , just what it says: resize one or more pictures the easy and perfect way.
Paint.Net  , Photshop and Paint Shop are too expensive? Then use this jewel.
Virtual Magnifying Glass  , take a close, even very close look the handy way.

INTERNET:
Mozilla , the free and better browser, mailer, webpage editor  (Firefox, Thunderbird, NVU)
Splitz  , a handy image splitter, including the needed html-code for web publishing.

Useful, free MacIntosh software:
Dashboard addons
Mozilla  , the free and better browser, mailer, webpage editor  (Firefox, Thunderbird, NVU)
Open Office  , an office suite, comparable to MS-Office (texteditor, spreadsheet, database, presentation...)