free recommended software

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Winamp is an excellent media player with endless skins and visualizations, great for organizing your music and creating playlists, streaming tv and radio, ripping music, and more.

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PeerGuardian is an IP blocker that attempts to keep your computer from connecting to risky organizations such as the RIAA and the gov't. This will allow you to rest a little easier when using p2p networks.

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Ad-Aware is a program used to scan your computer for spyware crap, something that should be done regularly nowadays.

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Firefox is, by far, my web browser of choice. The features are endless, but most notably provides a safe and fast browsing experience. By keeping the code open to developers, many great add-ons have been created, allowing you to customize the program to do exactly what you want it to do. I highly recommend adding Adblock Plus to your experience, blocking nearly every popup and advertisement you run into.

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uTorrent is a highly efficient BitTorrent client [download from multiple peers sharing the same files, via sites such as btjunkie.] Small program with encryption capabilities.

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Soulseek is a peer-to-peer file-sharing application that is used primarily to share underground and independent music. Virtually free of all spyware and viruses. Great program, so long as you remember to forward your ports!

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WinRAR is a file archiver (think WinZip) that allows you to compress and extract .zip & .rar types of files. Essential for regulars to this site.

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Pidgin is a multi-protocol Instant Messaging client that supports accounts from various services such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo, IRC, Google Talk, and more.

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ZSNES is a Super Nintendo emulator that allows you to play SNES ROMs on the computer and across the net.

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ePSXe is a Playstation (the original, kids) emulator that allows you to play PS1 ISOs on your PC.

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