- Graphics -

IrfanView (Image Viewer)	IrfanView is a very compact and fast multimedia viewer, that supports over 50 image/audio/video formats. IrfanView comes from Bosnia and has long been established as one of the best programs of its kind.
Persistance of Vision (3D Renderer)	PoV, one of the most well known open source projects, is a 3D ray tracing program. It allows you to describe the objects of a 3D scene (using either its C-like language or an external modeller) and it calculates and displays the scene. PoV is a very complex program, that can help you create amazing 3D graphics.

- Audio / Video -

WinAmp (Audio Player)	These days there are a lot of fancy MP3 players out there, but the pioneer WinAmp is still my first choice. WinAmp is compact, easy to use, stable, it supports many file formats and it has a very nice visualization system for those that like eye candy.
Virtual Dub (Video Processing Tool)	Virtual Dub is an amazing tool that allows you to edit video files in various ways. You can cut, copy and paste video parts, you can apply effects, you can convert the file to another format, you can capture video, you can join files and many more.

- File Tools -

WinRAR (Compression Tool) - Shareware -	Even though WinZIP is the most well known, WinRAR is probably the best compression/decompression tool. It supports internally many formats (zip, cab, arj, lzh etc) and it also supports the rar format, which has a better compression algorithm than zip. WinRAR has a nice interface and it integrates seamlessly with Windows Explorer.
Windows Commander (File Manager) - Shareware -	Windows Commander is a very powerful file management tool, that uses a two-pane view, just like Norton Commander. Ex NC users will feel right at home with Windows Commander, while those who are used to Windows Explorer will probably find a more powerful way to manage their files. Apart from basic file management (copy, move, delete, compress / decompress, encode / decode, split / join), WC has more advanced features, like the included FTP client or the mass-renaming tool, and is very configurable.
FRHED (Hex Editor)	A hex editor is always a nice thing to have, whether you are a would-be cracker or someone who wants to have a look at how programs work under the hood. FRHED is probably the only freeware hex editor for Windows. .

- Office Tools -

Atlantis Nova (Word Processor)

If you are one of the people that seek an altarnative to MS Word, Atlantis may be your best choice. Atlantis is a very competent word processor that may not have the advanced array of features of MS Word, but holds a few cards under its sleeve. It is very small and very fast, it is fully WYSIWYG and it has a smart interface with many nice ideas, like the "hot calculator" and the "easy hand" mode. The only thing I personally miss is table support, but I hope that it will be added in future versions. Given the fact that Atlantis can read MS Word files, it is a very good alternative. Apart from the freeware Atlantis Nova, there exists a more capable shareware version.

Mighty Fax (Fax Program) - Shareware -

I like programs that are compact and do what they are supposed to do without hogging my system. Mighty Fax is the perfect example of such a program. It allows you to send and receive faxes easilly, its interface is easy to use and it does not get on the way with silly wizards.

- Internet Tools -

Opera 6.01 (Web Browser) - Shareware -	MS Internet Explorer might be the de facto standard for Windows web browing these days, as it is surely a good program and is supported by the industry giant, but there is always room for more. If you seek an alternative, either because you don't like Microsoft practices or because you find IE to be a system hog, you can try the norwegian-made Opera. Opera is a very fast and small web browser, that supports most web standards, has a very well thought out interface, is privacy concerned, has built in mail, usenet and icq clients, includes a download manager and generally adds fresh ideas to browsing. Despite somedisadvantages (i.e. incompatibilities with some pages and external-only Java support through the Sun JRE plug-in), Opera is a compact and robust program, that you may find suprisingly good. The newest version of Opera (6.01), among other things, adds Unicode support and contains several cosmetic changes. Keep in mind that the freeware version of Opera is ad-supported, but it is using a quite discrete and innocent ad system, unlike other programs I could mention.
Fox Mail (E-mail Client)	As well as having almost everything that characterizes a good e-mail client, like HTML support, message filtering, multiple account support, built-in address book, encoding/decoding attachments and more, Foxmail allows remote mailbox management, works very fast and is under 1MB, thus proving that you don't have to create a multi-megabyte application to get the job done. I used v2.1 which had all I needed, except SMTP authorization support. The newest version (4.0 - currently in beta) has this, as well as other features, like SMS message sending, but it is quite bloated.
Proxomitron (Web-page filter)	Browsing is not always a pleasure. Pop-up windows, advertising banners and gif anims often distract and slow down your connection, while certain elements like cookies threaten your privacy. Proxomitron is a wonderful tool that works as a proxy and filters the html code of the web pages you visit, thus removing all unwanted material. Proxomitron is easy to install and use, does not interfere with the os, can be customised to you heart's content and has quickly become indispensable for me.

- Simple Editors -

Editor2 (Simple Editor)	Not to be confused with the developers' editors mentioned in the Dev Tools section, Editor2 is a very nice little editor, capable of not only completely replacing Notepad, but also for undertaking fairly complex editing tasks, since it supports automatic indentation, url recognition, unicode text, hex viewer and more, all in just 83Kb. Very good indeed.
The GUN (Notepad Replacement) (Updated Link)	If you are looking for the ultimate lightweight notepad replacement, look no longer; The Grown Up Notepad (GUN) is a 6Kb (!) program written in assembly, that can fully replace Notepad, as it is smaller, it has better search features, no file size limit and can open binary files.