Firewall Software
If your modem does not come with an internal firewall, it is always recommended to get that extra protection and the windows firewall was never really enough. Fortunately, you can still find the old Sygate Personal Firewall Free to download.
AVG Free is the anti virus I tend to use the most. It is not a small installer, but, it gives the tools keep my computers clean. I have been using it for about five years and have learned to
trust it.
Music Player
My personal favorite music player is small, fast and supports
all major music formats. There are a lot of extensions available, skins and many more nifty options.
Video Players
When installing a video player, the problem is always the codecs. That is why I use two video players without installing any codec pack. One of them usually does the trick. The first one is a small, cute, convenient player called GOM Player.
Another brilliant video player which main advantages are the internal codec pack that comes
with it and its portability is the VideoLan player or VLC player.
Archiving Software
7-Zip is an open source file archiver that works for most known file archiving formats.
Image Editing Software
This small application will give professional image editors a good run for the money. It is called Paint.Net and you need to have .net framework 3.5 SP1 installed to get it to work.
Source Editor Software
This small source code editor, a notepad like program, is actually a very powerful tool. I'm sure you will find its many options and features useful if you are in need of a good source code free editor or even if you just need a smarter notepad replacement.