Personally I think this item should be a 'sticky'. It is a very good list and this or something like it should be compulsory reading for contributors to this forum. Especially us windose users.
It was interesting going thru the list. I run the recommended browser, use the recommended anti virus, have the recommended firewall, FTP client, picture viewer, photo editor etc etc. There were only a few things that I missed or didn't know about. There is a lot of good free utility software out there and if you read the above list you might have some idea what it does and why you need it...
Now please don't thank me for my great idea and get this discussion locked as well. Instead feel free to contribute your own link to any other similar well researched list of great titles.