Since we all know how expensive college is, every way to save money counts.
Open Office -
www: OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite
This is a Microsoft Office replacement. In my experience it can do almost everything that office can do, (Except some weird powerpoint problems) and is actually a bit better with compatibility in some cases.
The GNU Image Manipulation Program, GIMP -
GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program
Photoshop replacement. Since photoshop is insanely expensive, I've been using this for years instead. It has a smaller memory footprint than photoshop and does pretty much everything it does, except it's free~
AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition -
AVG Free - Download antivirus and antispyware software for Windows XP and Vista
I *loathe* Norton. They charge you oodles for a program that barely works as advertised. This does so much better.
VLC Media Player -
VideoLAN - Free Software and Open Source video streaming solution for every OS!
Plays any video file
ever.
And last but not least
CCleaner -
CCleaner - Home
If you're on an older computer with limited space (Like mine XD) this cleans out the cobwebs and frees up some space.
Hope that was helpful
