The Firefox web browser is an excellent replacement for Internet Explorer and offers significant protection from many threats on the web. I use it on all of my computers and strongly recommend it to my friends, family and clients. It feels enough like Internet Explorer that you will be comfortable using it in mere minutes. While some people encourage completely removing Internet Explorer from your PC, I do not. I suggest you keep Internet Explorer for the very rare website that does not work well with Firefox; I’ve encountered only a handful and I browse a lot of sites.

As your comfort with Firefox grows, learn about adding extensions to it. (Go to “Tools” in the menu bar and then “Add-ins.”) They really enhance the browser by adding great functionality to it, but only the features you want. As of April 20, 2006, there were 2442 extensions available to make your browser work the way that best fits you. More are frequently added as creative programmers around the world see needs and address them. Among the extensions I use are: AdBlock Plus, Tab Mix Plus, Mouse Gestures and Image Zoom.

AVG Anti-Virus Free and AVG Anti-Spyware Free - Posts about these are here and here, respectively.

OpenOffice.org is a free multi-platform office productivity suite. It includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Sophisticated and flexible, OpenOffice.org also works transparently with a variety of file formats, including those of Microsoft Office. If you do not use the advanced features of Microsoft Office, consider trying OOo first. You can always buy Microsoft Office if you don’t like it. If you do like it, you’ll save at least $145!