Free and Open Source for Windows

So much free software is worthless junk slowing down your computer or even worse. What are the best free programs for Windows?  And how do you know you're not signing your whole life away when you tick that box agreeing to the End User Licence Agreement?

Before trying a new software product I'll consider what I'm going to use it for. I'd take a lot more care choosing a software product for a life support system than for casual use. Then I research:

• documentation
• the licence agreement
  
• maturity
• reviews and reports
• security alerts

Here's my top three free and open source programs that I've been using for years.

I much prefer Firefox to Internet Explorer. It seems snappier, cleaner and I can add modules to make it do new tricks. It's got a great zoom facility if you want a larger font size. 22% of people use Firefox, whereas 68% use Internet Explorer. If you're using an old browser like IE6 to view AscotMatters, try Firefox. Its licence agreement is Mozilla.

I use PDFCreator every day to create PDF files. It installs itself as a new printer: when you want to create a PDF, from almost any program, you print the document to this "printer". Its licence agreement is the GPL: GNU public licence

paint.net is a free photo and image editing program. Unlike most free image editors it supports advanced features like layers and plugins. At telanova we use it to edit logos, icons and artwork. It's a compact download (less than 2Mb) that won't overload your system. Its core is open source, licensed under the MIT X11 licence, with the remainder licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 2.5 licence.