There you have it; we've covered the fundamental computing fronts out there with a nice mixture of applications (a majority of which are freeware) and where the commercial product still reigns we have at the very least covered a non-paid alternative.

You should now be able to browse the web and download torrents securely, watch or listen to almost anything you care to, chat with all of your buddies, keep up productivity for that deadline you're facing next week and preserve some form of maintenance on your operating system.

Here's a cheat sheet for your next fresh OS install:

* Italics denote a commercial/paid application

Have your own picks and favorites of your essential apps to install after a Windows reformat? Please share them with us.

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