Anti-virus

AVG Free website
Free, user friendly, and effective enough.
AVG Free has been becoming more bloated and less effective lately.

Anti-malware

Malwarebytes website
Free, not as user friendly as other tools, and effective enough.
MBAM replaces Ad-Aware in my recommendation here because Ad-Aware
has become severely bloated. Where MBAM fails at usability it excels in
performance and effectiveness.

Disk Defragmenter

Contig and MS Defrag website
Free, user friendly, and more effective than the standard Windows Disk
Defragmenter.

Archive Utility

IZArc website
Free, user friendly, and more effective than the standard Windows archive
utility.

CD/DVD Burner

InfraRecorder website
Free, user friendly, and more effective than the Windows utility.

PDF Reader

FoxIt website
Free, user friendly, and more effective (and more secure) than Adobe's.

Web Browser

Firefox website
Free, user friendly, and more effective than Internet Explorer.

Recommended Add-ons

• Adblock Plus
  With these lists:
  • EasyList (Usually the default)
  • EasyPrivacy
• TACO

• Better Privacy
• Control de Scripts

• Compact Menu 2
• Classic Compact Theme Saves the most pixels out of those I've tried.

Misc

http://www.recuva.com/ http://www.undeleteunerase.com/

http://www.ccleaner.com/

http://home.comcast.net/~SupportCD/XPMyths.html