I've decided to compile a list of free stuff I've found quite useful in shaping my computer into what it is today. If we talk in terms of specifications, my computer falls horribly short. My hard drive is less than 60GB, and it doesn't run at the speed of light. It has a $30 sound card. It also has a neat graphics card, but other than that, it's just your average joe computer. But it gets the job done. I plan to upgrade/get a new computer in the future, and when I do, I've got a bunch of files and links handy to cluster up my new computer with more free uncrippled programs and files.

Some of these are going to be really damn obvious, but they're there nonetheless. I'd like to think of my computer as containing quite the package of free and easy downloadable content.

Mozilla Firefox: Internet browser. I prefer it over internet explorer.

Thunderbird: This one's by the same group that own firefox. Personally, I don't use thunderbird. From what I gather, it's pretty much an alternate to Microsoft Outlook, for all your email.

iTunes: Music. If you haven't heard of iTunes, then you've been living under a rock for the past few years. I prefer it over windows media player as my media player of choice.

Open Office.org: This was a great find for me. It's a free java based alternative of Microsoft Office. It comes in a bundle of 6 programs-
Writer: The equivalent of Microsoft Word. Pretty much the main reason I was looking for, and came across Open Office.
Calc: Equivelant of Microsoft Excel. Haven't really looked into this one.
Impress: Equivelant to powerpoint. Has the ability to export as .swf
Base: Equivelant to Microsoft Access, whatever that is. Haven't really looked into this one either.
Draw: Had a little look at this. Looks pretty crap, to be honest, although I didn't really look into it too much...
Math: I probably would have found this handy last year... I think it could definitely come in handy for math students.
Yeah, I don't know a great deal about Open Office.org, but I only really use Writer, and it gets the job done, so if you want any more information, just check the official site out a bit more, or maybe read up about it here.

For me, those are the big general application programs, everything mostly stems off from there...

Getting more technical, there are a bunch of great free music creating programs that are most definitely worth the time and effort of learning how to use them.

Finale Notepad: A simple, effective, fully functional notation program. You do need to have your basic music theory known pretty well, but after that, it's pretty straight forward. It does have limitations such as a maximum of 8 staves per project, but that's only a small downfall for an otherwise great free program. It can also export MIDI, which can make things real easy, if you want to import it into a program such as reaper, so you can swap the MIDI with more realistic VSTi's/Samples.

Reaper: Technically not free, but you can use it under an indefinite evaluation period without purchasing it, however, it is nice to the people that made it to pay for it, should you choose to use it extensively. I didn't like it at first, because it does take some knowing to get used to, but once you've got it, it's pretty easy to use. It's not much of a match to its more expensive counterparts, but it's great if you're strapped for cash, but still want to make some music.

Audacity: If you want to record live music, Audacity can get the job done. It's pretty simple, and it works a charm.

VST/i's: Free VST/i's aren't hard to come by, although a lot of it is trial and error, and finding really good quality VST/i's can be tricky. For everyVST/i you could ever want , there's KVR Audio. You might also want to check out Tweakbench. There are some really decent free VSTi's there, especially for chiptunes, so it's well worth a look.

Samples: Blackhole12 was like an angel from heaven, for bringing 780MB of zipped (unzipped well over 1GB) piano and orchestral samples to newgrounds. See for yourself. If you make classical, this might be very handy. I've found the piano, in particular to be very good.

Sound fonts: Some great classical soundfonts here, I think they're awesome.

All these samples and soundfonts and VSTs can work wonders, when used in combination with reaper (and maybe finale notepad, too).
Yeah, so there's no excuses for making poor quality music because you can't afford the thousands of dollars for that huge orchestral library you secretly lust for.

So, that's covered making music. I think there's just the little stuff left to discuss about on my computer.

Music: Free, from the portal! Seriously, some of this stuff right here on newgrounds is damn awesome. You just need to look at the likes of MaestroRage and DavidOrr. But it's all about personal tastes. There's some great classical stuff, and some high quality electronica, as well as small amounts of genuinely exceptional musicians in the other genres, but if it's recorded stuff, rock, etc... you might not have much luck. The portal!

Podcasts: One feature I like about iTunes, within the store, there's a huge library of podcasts, all free. You can find some good music podcasts, or whatever you want, really. I like to poke around for a little something something there once in a while...

Wallpapers: I love my NG Wallpapers, but the variety is pretty small. You can find some pretty amazing stuff by doing a simple search for wallpapers on DeviantArt.

Literature: Did someone say free literature? Wikisource is a large online library of literature that's in the public domain. It's best to have an idea of who/what you're looking for. Obviously, you're not going to find entire books that have been released in the last couple of decades unless the author hasn't copyritghed them, or something like that, so, you're most likely to find old and/or short works in here. Works such as Frankenstein.
My recommendation would be to check out the collection of short stories by Macabre/Horror literary genius, H.P Lovecraft.

Movies/Games: Yeah, this is newgrounds, I think you'll be able to find good free movies and games without too much difficulty. Just in case, here's a link.
Also, for non-flash based games, I came across this wikipedia page today: List of freeware games. I'm leaving that up to you to check out, to decide what's good and what's not.

So, that's pretty much it, the sites, programs, links that fill my computer with awesome freebies. If you've got anything you'd like to add, feel free to comment. I hope this list has helped you out in some form or another.

Cheers.