This is just a list of software that I recommend or know of, that will allow you to avoid downloading copyrighted software.

Open Office
Free and open source replacement for Microsoft Office. Fully functional for all but the most serious stuff. The big difference is that the macros are all in perl rather than Visual Basic.

VLC
Free and open source media player. The best video player period. Plays music to, but for that you have…

Songbird
I have used winamp in the past, but it is not open source. There is a free version, but you get prompted to buy the full version frequently. Songbird is pretty good, but I don’t use it often enough to fully recommend it. Mostly I use it because there is a version available for Portable Apps.

irfanview
The best picture viewer in the world. There is a thumbnail viewer and there are some image adjustment tools. This is privately developed (by one guy Irfan Skiljan). It is free for private use.

Audacity
Free and open source audio recorder and editor. There is a portable apps version, all I have done with it is some clipping of soundbites, but it is pretty intuitive.

HandBrake
“HandBreak is an open source, GPL-licensed multiplatform multithreaded video transcoder”. I found it while trying to figure out how to convert the Quick Time videos from my Canon DSLR into a format to play on my XBOX 360. In the end I used Pazera MOV to AVI, but I am keeping this one in mind for another project.