clint's free software picks :::

Active Virus Shield (Windows)
Totally free Anti-virus based on the excellent Kaspersky software. The only bad thing I can say about this program is that it has AOL's name on it.

Crap Cleaner (Windows)
If you are a Windows users this awesome crap cleaning app will change your life.

Bit Torrent (Linux/Windows/Mac)
Unique P2P program. Download the client and go to thepiratebay.org.

Media Player Classic (Windows)
If your tired of the bloated MS media player, crappy DivX.com player, or the unusable Quicktime player then checkout Media Player Classic. It's free, extremely fast, plays everything, and it's a self-contained exe. Just click and run!

K-Lite Codec Pack (Windows)
Includes Media Player classic and every codec you can think of. If you are having trouble playing a video file then download this.

FireFox (Linux/Windows/Mac)
A very fast and stable browser that definitely competes with IE's page-load times. Supports browser extensions and comes with a Google toolbar.

Filezilla (Windows)
An opensource FTP client for Windows. Fast, friendly, and completely free.

Mp3tag (Windows)
This app will rename your mp3's and update their ID3 tags based on FreeDB lookups.

Exact Audio Copy (Windows)
Probably the best MP3 encoding program for Windows. Rip everything in vbr-extreme and your MP3's will sound excellent.

Spybot (Windows)
Spybot is probably the best anti-spyware program currently available. It will automatically update/scan/remove spyware from your PC. If you don't know, spyware is all that crap that IE and Kazaa install on your machine, e.g. Gator, Precision Time, etc.

IZarc (Windows)
Are you still using XP's built-in zip program or an unregistered version of WinZip? IZArc is a completely free archive program that does everything WinZip and WinRAR do and more.

Xming X Server (Windows)
Xming is a nice X server for Windows. If you don't know why you would would need an X server then don't worry about it.

DVD Shrink (Windows)
DVD Shrink is probably my favorite program of 2004. DVD Shrink "backs-up" your DVD's. It copies your movie, removes the silly encryption, compresses it if needed (DVD-9 to DVD-5), and burns it onto a DVD-R. What a great backup program! TIP: To maintain a good backup policy, you should leave your DVD backups at your friend's house and vice-versa.

CentOS (Linux)
CentOS is a perfect clone of Redhat Enterprise Linux. It is based on the source RPM's of RHEL so it's about at close as you can get. It's even better than RHEL since it includes yum for automatic updates and package management. If you need a Linux OS under $1500 that is gauranteed to receive updates for five years, then CentOS is your best bet.