Look no more! Below I’ll post the best freeware alternatives. I’ll be updating this whenever I find more great freeware alternatives!



Alternative to WinZip, PowerArchiver
ALZip Powerful compression utility. Supports zip, tar, tgz, 7z, and more.



Alternative to Microsoft Office
Open Office contains a word processor, spreadsheets, presentation, graphics, databases, and more! Compatible with Word Documents.



Alternative to Internet Explorer
FireFox allows extensions, themes, tabbed browsing, and more. Currently taking over.
Opera another great browser with tabbed browsing, themes, and other great features.



Alternative to Windows Media Player
VLC is a powerful media player for a great multitude of video formats including mpegs, DVDs, and various streaming media as well.
winAMP my personal favorite. Allows you to customize it with skins, plugins, and is community driven. Allows ripping cds to mp3s, organizing music into a power library, syncing to your iPod and more!



Alternative to Windows Picture Viewer
Irfan View is a fast and powerful image editing program. Allows you to paste images from the web, resize, crop, rotate, and much more. Also allows you to view your images as a slideshow. Extremely recommended.



Alternative to MSN Messenger, AIM
Pidgin allows you to chat on various platforms such as AIM, MSN, ICQ, IRC, Yahoo, and more on one simple easy to use client!
Trillian is another multiplatform client that allows you to chat on multiple accounts.
Meebo allows you to chat in your internet browser! Supports AIM, MSN, Yahoo, and more!



Alternative to Adobe Acrobat Reader
PrimoPDF installs a printer on your computer that allows you to “print” anything which saves it to PDF format!
Foxit powerful and fast PDF viewer.



Alternative to NotePad
Programmer’s Notepad allows tabbed documents, and highlights syntax for various languages, and more! I use it all the time to edit simply HTML, PHP, or CSS files.



Alternative to Microsoft Outlook
Thunderbird allows you to have multiple e-mail clients. Supports plugins, and more!



Networking Utilities
Hamachi allows you to establish a LAN with users who download the client as well. Great for playing games online, sharing files, and more!



Codecs
K-Lite Codec Pack is if for some reason your computer didn’t come with the codecs required to play DVDs or certain media. This is completely free and plays a great variety of media files!



Alternatives to Scanners
AVG provides a free and fast virus scanner!
AdAware scans for malware, and spyware.



Customize Windows
Object Dock allows you to add a tab anywhere on your screen where you can store shortcuts, programs, and running tasks!
DExposeE2 allows you to “expose” your programs visually similar to the Mac.



P2P Programs
Frostwire best alternative to LimeWire!



CD-DVD Editing Programs
MagicDisk allows you to “mount” your iso images to a virtual drive.