Fire Fox Browser - much better than Internet Explorer. Remembers frequently visted web sites so just one or two letters of the domain name will recall the web site. A real time saver.
Cool Iris - Great image browser addition to Firefox, makes you think you are on a Mac or iPhone.
ZoneAlarm Firewall  - You cannot have your PC hooked up on the Internet without a good firewall and this is one of the best and it is FREE.
Ad-aware - find and remove adware, malware	The feature-limited free version doesn't offer real-time protection, and it will discover security or privacy threats only when you run a manual scan. But it should run happily alongside your existing antivirus (which likely has antispyware features of its own), and can offer an extra layer of protection for your PC. Ad-Aware's free version also doesn't automatically update, so before you run a scan, be sure to click the Update button on the main program window get the latest spyware definitions. Then hit Scan Now to kick off your first scan.
AVG - Antivirus Protection Software You cannot have your PC hooked up on the Internet without a good anti-virus program running 24/7 and this is one of the best and it is FREE.
Idrive - Automatic backup software *** Not free but very reasonable at $49 per year you get 150 GB of backup space. It is easy to use and darn near foolproof in  protecting your valuable files. It uses the familar Windows Explorer file management layout. We use this sofware for all of data files, web pages, images and at least once a week we are recovering some lost file saving us lots of time. The software backups your selected files in folders at a time you specify when your computer is on. We schedule ours to do the backup either at night or at lunch.