I need your help nerds

[Strike For The South]

I bought a new computer and need to know what is some super cool software I can download

[LeftEyeNine]

Everything you find on websites that call you their 1.000.000th visitor.

[drone]

What kind of computer?

[Strike For The South]

Toshiba Satellite L755 running intel core I5 and windows 7

[Vuk]

It may help Strike if you say what types of Software you are looking for, and what you are planning on doing with it.

[HopAlongBunny]

It hasn't been updated in a bit, but still useful:

https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?59901-The-Freeware-and-Open-Source-Software-Thread

[Lemur]

The free software I can't live without:

PDF Creator (http://www.pdfforge.org/download)
GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/)
VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html)
Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/)
7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/)

... and probably about 20 other utilities I'm not thinking of right now ...

[Beskar]

I agree with 7zip. But for some reason, when I sent Secura to get it, she some how downloaded internet-aids instead and blames me for it.

[Vuk]

7zip is garbage. Just get WinRAR. It is much better.

[Xiahou]

The free software I can't live without:

PDF Creator (http://www.pdfforge.org/download)
GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/)
VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html)
Handbrake (http://handbrake.fr/)
7zip (http://www.7-zip.org/)

... and probably about 20 other utilities I'm not thinking of right now ...
A good start.

I've always used CutePDF writer for turning documents into PDFs. It creates a software printer that gives you a "Save as" window whenever you print to it. Is that basically what PDFCreator is?

I'd also add...
LibreOffice (https://www.libreoffice.org/)
Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/)
And of course Firefox with the NoScript & AdblockPlus extensions.

Oh, and the Battle for Wesnoth (http://wesnoth.org/).

[a completely inoffensive name]

Every time I got a new computer, I used a convenient program called Ninite. (https://ninite.com/) It speeds up the process of downloading a bunch of free programs by doing it all at once for you.

If you want to become a Starcraft nerd like me, I would suggest using Ninite to download the GOM TV video player......

[Furunculus]

7zip is garbage. Just get WinRAR. It is much better.
nah. peazip is teh bomba!

[Kralizec]

I've always used CutePDF writer for turning documents into PDFs. It creates a software printer that gives you a "Save as" window whenever you print to it. Is that basically what PDFCreator is?

I've used CutePDF, but if it's just about text files it's unnecessary nowadays as long as you've got Word 2010.

[caravel]

7z is pretty good as is xz...

[Lemur]

I've always used CutePDF writer for turning documents into PDFs. It creates a software printer that gives you a "Save as" window whenever you print to it. Is that basically what PDFCreator is?
Same exact functionality. Only difference I see is that PDFMaker is open-source, and what you see is pretty much all there is. Glancing at CutePDF's page, there's a lot more functionality you can buy, if you're so inclined.

But really, I just want something reliable and maintained that will print from anything into PDFs. That's plenty enough for this lemur.

[Ironside]

I agree with 7zip. But for some reason, when I sent Secura to get it, she some how downloaded internet-aids instead and blames me for it.

You probably forgot to mention that the page was one of those "there's 4 download buttons, only one is real and not scummy comercials, and that's the tiny one to the right" or "all is false, you'll need to wait for a while".

It might not be needed nowadays (it's a habit from XP) but Irfanview is good for going through a lot of pictures and make light editing.
Paint.NET is a simpler but free version of photoshop.

[Xiahou]

Paint.NET is a simpler but free version of photoshop.Don't forget the open-source photoshop. GIMP (http://www.gimp.org/)!