Through­out years of refor­mat­ting PCs, It’s become second-nature to quickly down­load and install a few soft­ware pack­ages I couldn’t live with­out. Hav­ing recently installed Win­dows 7 on one of my per­sonal com­put­ers, I thought it would be worth­while to post a quick list of my top choices, which I use on a daily basis.

Instant Messaging/Social Networking

Digsby

In addi­tion to con­nect­ing to AIM, MSN, and Yahoo, Digsby allows you to con­nect to Face­book Chat, MySpace IM, and Google Talk. If that’s not enough, it also shows your social net­work noti­fi­ca­tions as well as new mail for GMail/POP3 accounts.

Down­load: http://www.digsby.com/

Pid­gin

Before being revamped, Pid­gin used to be titled GAIM. Pid­gin has grown into quite an impres­sive piece of soft­ware. It’s easy to use, cus­tomiz­able, and fast.

Down­load: http://www.pidgin.im/

Media Play­ers

VLC Media Player

VLC is a ver­sa­tile media player capa­ble of play­ing any­thing from audio and video files to DVDs, CDs, and much more.

Down­load: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Winamp

As an avid music fan, I’ve always needed a sim­ple and fast media player for audio. Winamp is just that.

Down­load: http://www.winamp.com/

Office Suites

OpenOf­fice

OpenOf­fice is one of the lead­ing exam­ples of how open-source soft­ware can thrive. If you’re look­ing for a good alter­na­tive to Microsoft Office, check out OpenOffice.

Down­load: http://www.openoffice.org/

Web Browsers

Mozilla Fire­fox

Fire­fox has been grow­ing in pop­u­lar­ity since it’s release. It’s fast, secure, and extremely cus­tomiz­able. If you’re still using Inter­net Explorer, make the switch to Firefox.

Down­load: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

Google Chrome

If you’re look­ing for an easy-to-use, sim­ple, and extremely fast browser, check out Google Chrome.

Down­load: http://www.google.com/chrome

Anti-Virus

AVG Anti-Virus

AVG is often the first soft­ware pack­age I install upon refor­mat­ting. It is a great alter­na­tive to pack­ages such as Nor­ton Anti-Virus, which is often slow (and not free).

Down­load: http://free.avg.com/us-en/homepage

Photo Editing/Graphic Design

GIMP

GIMP is an excel­lent alter­na­tive to Adobe Pho­to­shop. With some tweaks, it’s very easy to use GIMP as a replace­ment to Pho­to­shop if you’re unable to obtain the lat­ter due to it’s hefty price tag.

Down­load: http://www.gimp.org/

FTP

FileZilla

When I quickly need to trans­fer files via FTP, I almost always use FileZilla.

Down­load: http://filezilla-project.org/

Pass­word Management

KeeP­ass

Can’t remem­ber your pass­words? Using the same pass­word for every­thing? KeeP­ass allows you to store all of your pass­words and infor­ma­tion encrypted behind a sin­gle password.

Down­load: http://keepass.info/

File-Syncing

Drop­box

Drop­box allows you to sync files between mul­ti­ple com­put­ers auto­mat­i­cally via the inter­net. In addi­tion, it allows you to setup auto­matic file sync­ing with other users.

Down­load: https://www.dropbox.com/

Anti-Spyware

Spy­bot S&D

Down­load: http://www.safer-networking.org/en/index.html

Lava­soft Ad-aware Personal

Down­load: http://www.lavasoft.com/

Feel free to com­ment and let us know if I’ve missed any­thing, as well as your favorite free soft­ware picks.