Essential Software and Hardware You Should Own

Internet Browser

Firefox	Opera
Firefox would be my primary choice in a browser. It is free, fast (enough), light (enough), and most importantly, it is highly extensible, which puts it over all other browsers because of the wide variety of third-party tools and plugins available.	Opera is the free alternative to other browsers; if you do not think you will need third-party tools and is looking for an extremely fast and light browser, choose Opera.

Firefox Extensions

Firefox extensions are so useful that it deserves a section all of its own.

Adblock Plus
The most popular ad-block implementation for Firefox. If you come from Internet Explorer, you may not know what ad-blocking is. This free add-on to Firefox will strip out most ads on pages you will encounter, and rerender the page without them.
Filterset.G Updater
Adblock requires ad-definitions, or filtersets, to operate. Adblock Plus comes with a set; however, I always add Filterset.G for optimal performance.
Forecastfox
Uses the Accuweather free service to put weather forecasts anywhere on your browser, so that you will know future weather at a glance.

Productivity

Applications for generating work.

Office Suite

OpenOffice.org	Microsoft Office
The open source office suite, designed for compatibility with the OpenDocument format. However, perfect compatibility has not been achieved with Microsoft Office.	The industry standard office suite.

Image Editing

Full Editor	GIMP for Windows	Adobe Photoshop
	This open-source image editor can do what most people want Photoshop for; however, its interface is not particularly intuitive.	The industry standard office suite.
Image Viewer	IrfanView
	Fast and powerful image view for Windows to replace the useless image previewer in Windows.
Panoramas	autostitch
	Autostitch can quickly and easily combine multiple images into panoramas; it does all the blending and perspective adjustments automatically.

Antivirus and Security

Antivirus

Avira Antivir PersonalEditing Classic

Alwil avast! 4 Home

G DATA AntiVirusKit

Kapersky Anti-Virus
F-Secure Antivirus
Norton Antivirus

The free antivirus are just as good as the commercial; Avira Antivir, in particular, has rated higher than even commercial solutions [1]. However, they usually do not come with firewall, spyware detection, and the like. Detection-wise, I believe Avira is better than avast 4, though avast has the flashier interface.

It is difficult to say which is the best antivirus, because their capabilities fluctuate from week to week as new threats are constantly released. Suffice it to say that you probably won't go wrong with any of these. Solely from an antivirus perspective (not considering what firewall or antispyware comes with the full suite), I personally will try to aquire one in the priority of the order given.

Computer Management

SequoiaView (Graphical HDD viewer) Norton Partition Magic

CD/DVD Utilities

DVD Decrypter Alcohol 52% or 120% Daemon Tools Nero

Media Player Classic (with one codec package from free-codecs.com)

Linux Live Distributions

Knoppix Ubuntu SLAX

Thunderbird Firefox (with ad-blocker plug-in)

VLC or Media Player Classic (with one codec package from free-codecs.com)

Adobe Acrobat Reader

Google Earth

DVD Decrypter

Alcohol 52% or 120%

IM Client (Trillian Pro, Gaim, etc.) (NOT AIM!)

Winrar or 7-zip

DVD burning software

Antivirus, spyware, spam, internet security

Xvid codec

Torrent Downloader

Encyclopedia/Dictionary

Itunes/Quicktime

Irfan View or XNView (image viewers)

Linux live distro (Knoppix, Ubuntu, etc.)

Hardware Accessories:

Flash memory drive (at least 1GB)

External Hard Drive

Surefire (M6 Guardian)

H&K USP or Springfield XD .45 compact

CRKT M21

Required Software:

Firefox (with ad-blocker plug-in)

VLC or Media Player Classic