Some shareware are good and deserve pay, but some are not. Most shareware is too expensive. Actually there are some freeware can take place these shareware totally. But there are too many freeware on the internet, how do you know which are the best and reliable for you?

Here I share the best freeware I have ever used.

Text Editor:
Vim
Vim is a highly configurable text editor built to enable efficient text editing. It is an improved version of the vi editor distributed with most UNIX systems.Vim is often called a “programmer’s editor,” and so useful for programming that many consider it an entire IDE. It’s not just for programmers, though. Vim is perfect for all kinds of text editing, from composing email to editing configuration files.Despite what the above comic suggests, Vim can be configured to work in a very simple (Notepad-like) way, called evim or Easy Vim.

GNU Emacs
GNU Emacs is an extensible, customizable text editor—and more. At its core is an interpreter for Emacs Lisp, a dialect of the Lisp programming language with extensions to support text editing.

EditPad Lite
EditPad Lite is a general-purpose text editor, designed to be small and compact, yet offer all the functionality you expect from a basic text editor. EditPad Lite works with Windows NT4, 98, 2000, ME, XP and Vista.EditPad Lite is free for non-commercial use. That is, you may use EditPad Lite if you do not get paid, directly or indirectly, for the work you do with EditPad Lite. Registered charities may also use EditPad Lite. If you want more editing power or need a text editor to use at work, check out EditPad Pro.

PSPad
The universal freeware editor, useful for people who:
1.work with plain text - the editor has a wealth of formatting functions, including a spell checker
2.create web pages - as a web authoring editor, PSPad contains many unique tools that save your time
3.want to use a good IDE for their compiler - PSPad catches and parses compiler output, integrates external help files, compares versions and much more.

Notepad2
A fast and light-weight Notepad-like text editor with syntax highlighting. This program can be run out of the box without installation, and does not touch your system’s registry.

Notepad++
Notepad++ is a free (free as in “free speech”, but also as in “free beer”) source code editor and Notepad replacement, which supports several programming languages, running under the MS Windows environment.

Office:
OpenOffice.org
OpenOffice.org 2 is the leading open-source office software suite for word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, graphics, databases and more. It is available in many languages and works on all common computers. It stores all your data in an international open standard format and can also read and write files from other common office software packages. It can be downloaded and used completely free of charge for any purpose.

GanttProject
GanttProject is a free and easy to use Gantt chart based project scheduling and management tool. Our major features include:
1.Task hierarchy and dependencies
2.Gantt chart
3.Resource load chart
4.Generation of PERT chart
5.PDF and HTML reports
6.MS Project import/export
7.WebDAV based groupwork

PDF file:
foxit reader
Foxit Reader is a free PDF document viewer and printer, with incredible small size (only 2.55 M download size), breezing-fast launch speed and rich feature set. Foxit Reader supports Windows Me/2000/XP/2003/Vista. Its core function is compatible with PDF Standard 1.7.

CutePDF writer
Portable Document Format (PDF) is the de facto standard for the secure and reliable distribution and exchange of electronic documents and forms around the world. CutePDF Writer (formerly CutePDF Printer) is the free version of commercial PDF creation software. CutePDF Writer installs itself as a “printer subsystem”. This enables virtually any Windows applications (must be able to print) to create professional quality PDF documents - with just a push of a button!

PDFCreator
PDFCreator easily creates PDFs from any Windows program. Use it like a printer in Word, StarCalc or any other Windows application.

PrimoPDF
PrimoPDF is the web’s #1 free software for creating 100% industry-standard PDF files. Simple to use and free of annoying ads, converting files to PDF has never been easier!

pdfMachine
pdfMachine converts a print stream from an application directly into a PDF. Once you have installed the pdf writer, open your document that you want to convert, then click “print”, select the “Broadgun pdfMachine printer” and that’s it!

Image Viewer:
IrfanView
rfanView is a very fast, small, compact and innovative FREEWARE (for non-commercial use) graphic viewer for Windows 9x/ME/NT/2000/XP/2003/Vista. IrfanView is trying to create new and/or interesting features in its own way, unlike some other graphic viewers, whose whole “creativity” is based on feature cloning, stealing of ideas and whole dialogs from ACDSee and/or IrfanView! (for example: XnView has been stealing/cloning features and whole dialogs from IrfanView, for 7+ years).IrfanView was the first Windows graphic viewer WORLDWIDE with Multiple (animated) GIF support.

XnView
XnView is a tool to view and convert graphic files, really simple to use ! Support of more than 400 graphics formats !

FastStone Image Viewer
FastStone Image Viewer is a fast, stable, user-friendly image browser, converter and editor. It has a nice array of features that include image viewing, management, comparison, red-eye removal, emailing, resizing, cropping and color adjustments. Its innovative but intuitive full-screen mode provides quick access to EXIF information, thumbnail browser and major functionalities via hidden toolbars that pop up when your mouse touches the four edges of the screen. Other features include a high quality magnifier and a musical slideshow with 150+ transitional effects, as well as lossless JPEG transitions, drop shadow effects, image annotation, scanner support, histogram and much more. It supports all major graphic formats (BMP, JPEG, JPEG 2000, animated GIF, PNG, PCX, TIFF, WMF, ICO and TGA) and popular digital camera RAW formats (CRW, CR2, NEF, PEF, RAF, MRW, ORF, SRF and DNG).

Imgv
Imgv is a unique and feature rich Image Viewer. It is released as free software with full source code. Imgv is portable and can run on Windows, Linux, BSD, OSX, and other operating systems. Features include a GUI that doesn’t get in the way of viewing your images, a file browser, slideshows, zooming, rotating, on-the-fly Exif viewing, histograms, fullscreen support, wallpaper setting, the ability to view 4 images on the screen at once, adjustable thumbnail sizes, playlists, view and download images from Web sites, movie playing, file searching/filtering, multiple directory loading, transitional effects, image hiding and more.

FuturixImager
FuturixImager is free for company.

picasa
picasa also is good choice. It is from google.

Graphic Tool:
GIMP
GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring.It has many capabilities. It can be used as a simple paint program, an expert quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass production image renderer, an image format converter, etc. GIMP is expandable and extensible. It is designed to be augmented with plug-ins and extensions to do just about anything. The advanced scripting interface allows everything from the simplest task to the most complex image manipulation procedures to be easily scripted. GIMP is written and developed under X11 on UNIX platforms. But basically the same code also runs on MS Windows and Mac OS X.

Pixia
The original Japanese Edition was created and developed by the author, Isao Maruoka, but has also been aggressively raised by its fans, which makes this software to be quite unique and different from other tools.

Paint.Net
Paint.Net was designed to be immediately intuitive and quickly learnable without assistance. In order to handle multiple images easily, Paint.NET uses a tabbed document interface. The tabs display a live thumbnail of the image instead of a text description. This makes navigation very simple and fast.

Artweaver
Artweaver is a simple Freeware program for creative painting, i.e. Artweaver offers you all artistic effects which you need for your work.You can create sketches from photos and experiment with a wide range of brushes. The brush simulation is thereby so realistic as possible.

Screen Capture:
MWSnap
MWSnap is a small yet powerful Windows program for snapping (capturing) images from selected parts of the screen. Current version is capable of capturing the whole desktop, a highlighted window, an active menu, a control, or a fixed or free rectangular part of the screen. MWSnap handles 5 most popular graphics formats and contains several graphical tools: a zoom, a ruler, a color picker and a window spy. It can be also used as a fast picture viewer or converter. MWSnap does not require installation and does not need any special dlls, drivers or system files which can mess up your system.

Screenshot Captor
Screenshot Captor is a program for taking screenshots on your computer. It’s different from other screenshot utilis in several notable ways:
1.Optimized for taking lots of screenshots with minimal intervention.
2.Smart autonaming of files, and ability to embed textual comments in files.
3.Good multi-monitor support.
4.Highly configurable to make it work the way you want it to; stays out of your way in the system tray.
5.Lots of capture modes: Multimon (multiple monitors), Desktop, Active Window, Region, Windows Object. Each mode has a hotkey for quick access.
6.Unique Cool Effects, including automatic active window enhancement (see pictures below).
7.Unsurpassed support for 3rd party user configurable tools, including file browsers and image editors; extend the program to do whatever you need by interfacing it with other programs.
8.Slimline sidebar file browser provides full shell operations.
9.Optional automatic image file versioning.
10.Seamless integration with Unicode Image Maker tool.
11.Automatically finds boundaries of non-rectangular/themed windows.
12.Autoscroll capture for windows too big for screen.
13.Deluxe thumbnail maker.
14.Quick PostCapture PopUp Dialog.
15.Quick Screenshot Emailer Menu.

Tutorial and Presentation Creator:
Wink
Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users.

Audio Record:
Audacity
Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to:
1.Record live audio.
2.Convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs.
3.Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files.
4.Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together.
5.Change the speed or pitch of a recording.

MP3 Player:
Winamp
Nullsoft Winamp is a fast, flexible, high-fidelity music player for Windows. Winamp supports MP3, CD, Audiosoft, Audio Explosion, MOD, WAV and other audio formats, custom appearances called skins, plus audio visualization and audio effect plug-ins.

Foobar2000
Foobar2000 is an advanced audio player for the Windows platform. Some of the basic features include full unicode support, ReplayGain support and native support for several popular audio formats.

Media Player:
realplayer
The all-in-one digital media player that lets you find anything and play everything. Helix Powered RealPlayer is the all-in-one digital media player that lets you find anything and play everything. Now it includes an option to install the Real Toolbar for Internet Explorer.

KMPlayer
KMPlayer is a powerful media player covering various formats such as VCD, DVD, AVI, MKV, Ogg, OGM, 3GP, MPEG-1/2/4, WMV, RealMedia, QuickTime etc. It has an extra feature to play Incomplete/Damaged AVI file, Locked Media Files while downloading or sharing, Compressed Audio Album (zip, rar) and so on. It handles a wide range of subtitles and allows you to capture audio, video, and screenshots in many ways. The player provides both internal and external filters with a fully controlled environment without grappling with DirectShow merit system. The player can set multifarious audio and video effects, control playback speed and octave, select parts of a video as favorites, do a powerful A-B repeat, remap the keys of remote interface for HTPC including overlay screen controls, change a skin dynamically depending on a media type playing, and many more. It is completely customizable thanks to a wide selection of skins and color schemes, and configuration options are extensive.

KPlayer
KPlayer is a KDE multimedia player. With KPlayer you can easily play a wide variety of video and audio files and streams using a rich and friendly interface that follows KDE standards.Features include:
1.video, audio and subtitle playback from file, URL, DVD, VCD, audio CD, TV, DVB, and KDE I/O Slaves;
2.volume, contrast, brightness, hue and saturation controls;
3.zooming, full screen and fixed aspect options;
4.status and progress display and seeking;
5.multimedia library to organize your media files and streams;
6.configuration dialog;
7.file properties for setting file specific options.

MPlayer
MPlayer is a movie player which runs on many systems (see the documentation). It plays most MPEG/VOB, AVI, Ogg/OGM, VIVO, ASF/WMA/WMV, QT/MOV/MP4, RealMedia, Matroska, NUT, NuppelVideo, FLI, YUV4MPEG, FILM, RoQ, PVA files, supported by many native, XAnim, and Win32 DLL codecs. You can watch VideoCD, SVCD, DVD, 3ivx, DivX 3/4/5, WMV and even H.264 movies.

Email Client:
Thunderbird
Thunderbird 2 features many new enhancements to help you better manage your unruly inbox, and stay informed. Thunderbird 2 scales to the most sophisticated organizational needs while making it easy to find what you need.

Web Browser:
Firefox
The award-winning Web browser is now faster, more secure, and fully customizable to your online life. With Firefox 2, we’ve added powerful new features that make your online experience even better.

Opera
Safe, secure, powerful and fully customizable, the Opera Web browser is faster and more secure than other browsers available on the market. Opera delivers robust security and a far-richer feature set than any other Web browser and it’s free.

Maxthon Browser
Maxthon Browser is a powerful tabbed browser built for all users. Besides basic browsing functionality, Maxthon Browser provides a rich set of features to improve your surfing experience. Maxthon has unique features, such as Advanced ADs blocker: support popup blocker and Web content filter, support regular expression; File sniffer: Downloading video/MP3 files have not been so easy. just select the file type you want to catch and Maxthon will reveal any hidden file in the page. Advanced tab managment: Close all tabs, auto refresh tabs, Lock tabs.

The World Browser
The World Browser provides a fast, safe, and easy way to browse the Web. It will revolutionize your internet experience with many useful features that other browsers don’t provide. Give it a try, we guarantee our browser is 100% malware free.

Avant Browser
Avant Browser’s user-friendly interface brings a new level of clarity and efficiency to your browsing experience, and frequent upgrades have steadily improved its reliability. Avant Browser is freeware.That’s right. 100% Free! No cost to you ever. No limitations. No Adware. No Spyware.

GreenBrowser
This is an outstanding web browser. It’s a lot like Maxthon and Slim Browser in many ways. For example, it offers tabbed browsing, plenty of security features (ad blocking, site blocking, and so on) as well as a ton of configuration options. I’ve found, though, that GreenBrowser is actually a bit faster than either Maxthon or Slim Browser or — for that matter — just about any other tabbed browser I’ve tried. So, the coding in GreenBrowser must be very tight, I would think (which is nice!). If you’re looking for a tabbed browser, GreenBrowser is something you should try.

FTP Client:
FileZilla Client
FileZilla Client is a fast and reliable cross-platform FTP, FTPS and SFTP client with lots of useful features and an intuitive interface.

Leech FTP
FTP client - Not in your directories, but very good product! LeechFTP has a feature to check for updates from within the program, you can access this in the Tools menu. A small dialog will show up and tells you wether there is a newer version or not. This is done by connecting to this server, so you have to be connected to the internet.

File Share:
http file server
You can use HFS (HTTP File Server) to send and receive files. It’s different from classic file sharing because it uses web technology to be more compatible with today’s Internet. It also differs from classic web servers because it’s very easy to use and runs “right out-of-the box”. Access your remote files, over the network. It has been successfully tested with Wine under Linux.

Telnet:
PuTTY
PuTTY is a free implementation of Telnet and SSH for Win32 and Unix platforms, along with an xterm terminal emulator.

File Management:
FreeCommander
FreeCommander is an easy-to-use alternative to the standard windows file manager. The program helps you with daily work in Windows. Here you can find all the necessary functions to manage your data stock. You can take FreeCommander anywhere - just copy the installation directory on a CD, USB-Stick or even a floppy disk - and you can even work with this program on a foreign computer.

xplorer2 lite
The lightweight version of xplorer² is not as powerful as the professional version but it shares the same desktop browsing and file management engine, it sports dual panes and folder tabs, and gives many rival paid-for file managers a run for their money — literally! It is a complete little file manager, albeit lacking a bit in bells and whistles.

Clipboard Extender:
CLCL
CLCL is clipboard caching utility.
1.All clipboard formats are supported.
2.Template can be registered.
3.Pop-up menu is displayed by “Alt+C.”
4.Menu can be customized.
5.Item is paste automatically.
6.Picture is displayed on a menu.
7.Tool tip is displayed on a menu.
8.The format to leave and the format to save can be set up.
9.The ignored window can be set up.
10.The paste key for every window can be set up.
11.Function is extensible with plug-in.

ClipX
ClipX is a tiny clipboard history manager. It is sweet, it is free.

Hotkey/Macro:
HoeKey
HoeKey is a teeny (12k) program to assign hotkeys to do most anything. Win-N to run notepad, Win-G to google search on current highlighted word, etc etc. It’s configurable with a simple .ini file.

AutoHotkey
AutoHotkey is a free, open-source utility for Windows. With it, you can:
1.Automate almost anything by sending keystrokes and mouse clicks. You can write a mouse or keyboard macro by hand or use the macro recorder.
2.Create hotkeys for keyboard, joystick, and mouse. Virtually any key, button, or combination can become a hotkey.
3.Expand abbreviations as you type them. For example, typing “btw” can automatically produce “by the way”.
4.Create custom data-entry forms, user interfaces, and menu bars. See GUI for details.
5.Remap keys and buttons on your keyboard, joystick, and mouse.
6.Respond to signals from hand-held remote controls via the WinLIRC client script.
7.Run existing AutoIt v2 scripts and enhance them with new capabilities.
8.Convert any script into an EXE file that can be run on computers that don’t have AutoHotkey installed.

AutoIt
AutoIt v3 is freeware BASIC-like scripting language designed for automating the Windows GUI and general scripting. It uses a combination of simulated keystrokes, mouse movement and window/control manipulation in order to automate tasks in a way not possible or reliable with other languages (e.g. VBScript and SendKeys). AutoIt is also very small, self-contained and will run on all versions of Windows out-of-the-box with no annoying “runtimes” required!

File Compress:
7-Zip
7-Zip is a file archiver with a high compression ratio. The main features of 7-Zip:
1.High compression ratio in new 7z format with LZMA compression
2.Supported formats: Packing / unpacking: 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2 and TAR ; Unpacking only: RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, MSI, WIM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS
3.For ZIP and GZIP formats, 7-Zip provides a compression ratio that is 2-10 % better than the ratio provided by PKZip and WinZip
4.Strong AES-256 encryption in 7z and ZIP formats
5.Self-extracting capability for 7z format
6.Integration with Windows Shell
7.Powerful File Manager
8.Powerful command line version
9.Plugin for FAR Manager
10.Localizations for 69 languages

ZipGenius
ZipGenius is the absolutely free software for Windows® that lets you compress files to almost any kind of archive. ZipGenius supports more than 20 compressed archive formats, including CD/DVD-ROM image files in ISO9660 standard. This is the file compression suite you were searching for: it is free and easy to use, plus it supports more than 20 formats of compressed archives, including RAR, ARJ, ACE, CAB, SQX, OpenOffice.org documents and the excellent 7-zip. ZipGenius now can precompress executable files going to be added to a ZIP archive through the UPX compressor.

Security:
AVG Free Edition
AVG Free Edition is the well-known antivirus protection tool. AVG Free is available free of charge to home users for the life of the product. Rapid virus database updates are available for the lifetime of the product, thereby providing the high level of detection capability that millions of users around the world trust to protect their computers. AVG Free is easy to use and will not slow your system down (low system resource requirements. Highlights include automatic update functionality, the AVG Resident Shield, which provides real-time protection as files are opened and programs are run, free Virus Database Updates for the lifetime of the product, and AVG Virus Vault for safe handling of infected files.

ZoneAlarm
ZoneAlarm is designed to protect your DSL- or cable-connected PC from hackers. This program includes four interlocking security services: a firewall, an application control, an Internet lock, and Zones. The firewall controls the door to your computer and allows only traffic you understand and initiate. The Internet lock blocks Internet traffic while your computer is unattended or while you’re not using the Internet, and it can be activated automatically with your computer’s screensaver or after a set period of inactivity. Zones monitor all activity on your computer and alert you when a new application attempts to access the Internet. Version 7.0.362 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

Comodo Firewall
The Award-Winning, Free Firewall Software include features:
1.Complete protection from Hackers, Spyware, Trojans and Identity theft
2.Host Intrusion Prevention System stops malware from being installed [NEW]
3.Clean PC Mode registers your current applications then will allow only applications that you approve to be installed on your computer [NEW]
4.Malware Scan Feature checks your computer for viruses, spyware and trojans before you install Comodo Firewall Pro [NEW]
5.Free Download. No charges or license fees ever.

SpyCatcher Express
SpyCatcher Express protects all Web surfers by providing the safest and most advanced antispyware solution available as a free service. SpyCatcher Express protects against next-generation, mutating spyware and puts users back in control of their PCs. SpyCatcher Express enables even novice PC users to remove and block the most insidious spyware automatically, protecting user privacy and preserving PC performance.

StartupMonitor
StartupMonitor is a small utility that runs transparently (it doesn’t even use a tray icon) and notifies you when any program registers itself to run at system startup. It prevents annoying programs from registering themselves behind your back.