using Microsoft.Net;

NOTE: This is very much a "work-in-progress", so check back often if you're interested...

Another installment in the "free tools" lists, this one is intended to contain tools (standalone and web-based) that I feel I could recommend to anyone. More specialised/complex tools appear in other lists:

• development tools
• troubleshooting tools
• "power user" tools (to follow shortly)

Enough blurb, and on with the tools themselves:

• Security
  • Anti-virus
    • Grisoft AVG
  • Anti-spyware
    • Lavasoft Ad-aware
    • Microsoft Anti-Spyware (beta)
  • Updates
    • Windows Updates
• Applications
  • OpenOffice.org (office suite)
  • Paint.NET (image editing)
  • Picasa (digital photo processing/management)
• Utilities
  • Adobe Acrobat Reader
• URL (web link) sharing / management
  • del.icio.us

There are also various tools/services from the "big 3" of the mass-market web world (I probably ought to add AOL and make it four...) that are best summed up in tabular form: