Ask DLS: What free apps would you like to share with Karen?

firefox
google talk
vlc

Those are three I can't live without.

avg free
ad-aware
team viewer
picpick

She's too stupid to use or see the value of most of my free apps, but Firefox, OpenOffice, and GIMP would be the most likely candidates.

iTunes is free.

The Gimp; OpenOffice Suite, Audacity,FoxitReader,AVG,Skype,IrfanView, Launchy,Opera Browser,PopPeeper, and X-Chat are the ones I use every single day!

Firefox (of course)
Everything Google (not really free?? could be argued) Lots of schools using their apps I bet.
Notepad++

Ubuntu seems like an obvious choice. AbiWord and GNUMeric are nice alternatives to heavy office suites like OOo and MS Office. Pidgin or similar is a must for people who use multiple IM protocols.

Firefox, Digsby, Skype, VLC, Utorrent, iTunes, Foxit Reader, 7zip, IMGBurn, Ccleaner, Handbrake, DVDflick, and Audacity.

And the websites for Vimeo/Youtube, Flickr/photobucket/Webshots, Hulu, Google Maps/Streetview, youconvertit, and last.fm

And the Firefox plugins for ABP, Stylish, Greasemonkey, and Video Download Helper

I install this always in any computer that gets in m y hands:
Firefox
Open office
Aimp
My Lockbox
Dropbox
Foxit PDF Reader
VLC
utorrent or bittorrent
emule
Digsby
Silkroad ;)
Combat Arms

Any of the portableapps.com applications, but especially the suite, I find them indispensible.

Gimp and Picasa
Firefox
Google Chrome
Pidgin or Trillian
Launchy
Foxit Reader
iTunes(free without account!!!)
Firezilla

These programs are all the basis for my day-to-day productivity--to try to tell me that there is no way they are free(with the exception of my iTunes account), is ridiculous.

oh man, where to start.

I'm on windows most of the time, yet there are many free apps I definitely couldn't do without ... no way Im paying for something that does the job half as good!

EAC - best audio extracting / encoding program I've ever used
PitchPerfect - a fantastic guitar tuning application ... it works suprisingly well simply using a built in laptop mic
Winamp - it has a PRO version, but that just adds more bloat
for video I use Media Player Classic... there are other great programs too like Foobar and VLC
MP3tag - to keep all my ID3 tags and mp3 filenames in perfect order
Defraggler - a super handy defragging tool
Avast is my free Antivirus of choice
Free Download Manager - its free, it downloads, it rocks
There are some great free games out there these days - my fave being Trackmania Nations

There's so many more great free apps I use such as CCleaner

Give her this link
Freeware World Team - International Freeware Database.
Presents 36324 freeware programs, for Windows OS, from all around the world.
http://www.all4you.dk/FreewareWorld/links.php

Audacity
Pidgin
Firefox
PortableApps in general, especially with GeekMenu

With her being an educator, I would recommend the Moodle project, a course management system (a replacement for the BlackBoard system). Hand out assignments to the class, distribute grades, collect assignments.

Ubuntu is a great starting point for someone in her situation. OpenOffice has not let me down, hell, it's even saved my ass when I couldn't open files with Microsoft Office 2003 (they were Microsoft Office 2007 files!!)

Hopefully, she can learn there is ALWAYS an alternative to purchasing software.