Avast Antivirus Avast antivirus is not only FREE, but rated as one of the BEST antivirus programs available. I have installed it on EVERY computer that I have built or repaired for over 9 years. Once you install it, it takes care of itself. It updates automatically every hour and talks to you if it detects a virus or any threat with easy instructions to delete, quarantine or allow the virus. Avast does not slow down you computer like the leading two antivirus programs ( N***** and Mc****) do, catches more intrusions and is FREE! Don't pay for garbage programs when the best is free. From the Avast web site: Avast! antivirus Home Edition is FREE to use but it is necessary to register before the end of the initial 60 day trial period. Following the registration you will receive by e-mail a license key valid for a period of 1 year. After you have downloaded and installed the program, the license key must be inserted into it within 60 days. The registration process is very easy, and it will take you only a couple of minutes. CCleaner - Free System Cleaner I have been using CCleaner for the last 5 years on every computer that I build or repair. It keeps your computer running fast and has NEVER deleted a single file that was not garbage and needed to be deleted. You will be amazed at the improvement that this program will make after you run the registry cleaner on your PC or notebook. CCleaner is a freeware system optimization, privacy and cleaning 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. Additionally it contains a fully featured registry cleaner. But the best part is that it's fast (normally taking less than a second to run) and contains NO Spyware or Adware! :) This program has beenm downloaded over 330 million times from the ccleaner web site. Gmail - Free Email Gmail by google is my favorite on line free email. Gmail is run by Google and is totally free. The advantages are that it is a web based email program meaning that your mail stays on their servers so that you can access your email from ANY computer as long as you remember your email address and password. They give you over 7 gigabytes of online storage so you can save ALL of your attachments that anyone sends to you. Since they are Google and control most of the web, they know WHO is sending all of the spam and automatically filter it OUT of your email box © copyright delphiretirees.com  GBH,LLC Google Chrome - Best Web Browser Google Chrome runs websites and applications with lightning speed Fast start-up   Google Chrome launches in a snap. Fast loading   Google Chrome loads web pages quickly. Fast search   Search the web right from the address bar. Ckick here for reasons to use Google Chrome. Foxit - Free PDF reader This (which I agree with 100%) is from the Cnet.com site: To put it gently, Adobe Reader is a real pain in the hindquarters. It's monstrously large, slow to load, and includes many features most users will hardly ever need. Foxit PDF Reader 3.0 kills the bloat and throws in some useful features, such as multimedia support and content-sharing options, while still allowing you to quickly access your PDFs. I install the free Foxit PDF reader on every computer that I build or repair. It is a replacement for Acrobat Reader, is 90% smaller in size and about 5 times faster. You will like it! Use Add - Remove programs in control panel to remove Adobe Acrobat reader and then download and install Foxit Free PDF reader. Openoffice - Free Office Suite OpenOffice.org 3 is the leading open-source (free) office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages including Microsoft Office. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose. I paid for Microsoft Office XP, but after using Openoffice, uninstalled MsOffice and much prefer openoffice. Is is in my opinion better and FREE. VLC Media Player - Free program to play all audio and video files. Plays everything, Files, Discs (DVD, CD, VCD, Blu-Ray), Webcams and Streams  Plays most codecs with no codec packs needed: MPEG-2, H.264, DivX, MPEG-4, WebM, WMV player Completely Free, 0 Spyware, Ads or User Tracking Hulu.com - Free TV and Movies Hulu.com is a free, legal web site that lets you watch free TV shows and Movies.  Requires broadband internet connection.(not dial- up). Pandora.com - Free Music Pandora is a free legal music Internet radio service created by the Music Genome Project. You enter a song or artist and Pandora responds by playing selections that are musically similar. Type in Elton John and Pandora will play both Elton John music and what it considers to be the same type of music for as long as you leave the page open. You can open Pandora, start playing your favorite music in the backround while you browse the net (in another web browser page) or run other applications. ICDsoft.com - Web Hosting If you would like to have your own web site, ICDsoft is the best company that I have found to host the site for you. That means that you pay them a yearly fee and they put your site on their servers and make it available to the internet. You will be the owner of your own .com , can have an unlimited number of email addresses and can make your own web site. They have absoutely fantastic support. I can email them with any problem 24 hours a day and have an answer within 3 minutes at the most! This site is being hosted by ICDsoft. I have been using them on 4 different .coms for the last 9 years. Email me (link on the delphiretirees home page) if you have more questions about the advantages of having your own web site. Free programs for your computer.   I created the Delphiretirees.com website and have been into computers and programming since the late 60s. I would like to share what I consider to be VERY good information to save you some money and keep your computer running fast. The following programs are all free and are the best that I have found. Even the paid counterparts are not as good as far as I am concerned. I have free access to the paid counterparts but still use these programs as I consider them better. Do yourself a favor and give these programs a try, you PC will run faster and these programs will not cost you a penny. Links to Free programs Free TV, Radio and computer utility programs