Free software is everwhere these days. Some applications are so good, you find yourself asking, “Is this really free?”

Well, here’s a list of completely free software downloads that are either:

a) incredibly useful, or…
b) really cool.

Satellite imagery
Google Earth (http://earth.google.com)

Unless you’ve been out exploring cave systems for the last few years, you’ve probably heard of or used Google Earth. This incredible application lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, and even explore galaxies in the night sky or venture underwater and explore the ocean floor. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places, and share it all with others.

Microsoft WorldWide Telescope (http://www.worldwidetelescope.org)
The WorldWide Telescope is a visualization software environment that enables your computer to function as a virtual telescope, bringing together imagery from the best ground and space-based telescopes in the world for a seamless exploration of the universe.

3D Design
Google SketchUp (http://sketchup.google.com)

Google SketchUp is software that you can use to create, modify and share 3D models. It’s easier to learn than other 3D modeling programs, which is why so many people are already using it.

General Computing & Development
Xenu Link Sleuth (http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html)

Xenu’s Link Sleuth (TM) checks websites for broken links. It verifies links for “normal” links, images, frames, plug-ins, backgrounds, local image maps, style sheets, scripts and java applets. It displays a continously updated list of URLs, which you can sort by different criteria. A report can be produced at any time.

WinSnap (http://www.ntwind.com/software/winsnap.html)

WinSnap is a small enhancement utility for taking and editing screenshots. Standard features include easy capture of non-rectangular windows with customized and transparent backgrounds, simple and automatic canvas transformations, coloring effects, and the addition of eye-candy drop shadows. WinSnap supports a variety of image formats and has advanced auto-save features.

CoreFTP (http://www.coreftp.com)

This free, secure FTP client gives you a fast, easy, reliable way to update and maintain your website via FTP. It also provides a secure method (via SSL, TLS, or SFTP) to up/download files to and from FTP servers.

IZArc (http://www.izarc.org)

IZArc provides support for most compressed and encoded files, as well as access to many powerful features and tools. It allows you to drag and drop files from and to Windows Explorer, create and extract archives directly in Windows Explorer, create multiple archives spanning disks, creating self-extracting archives, repair damaged zip archives, convert from one archive type to another, view and write comments, and much more.

RealVNC (http://www.realvnc.com)

VNC stands for Virtual Network Computing. It is remote control software which allows you to view and fully interact with one computer desktop using a simple on another computer desktop anywhere on the Internet. The two computers don’t even have to be the same type; for example, you can use VNC to view a Windows Vista desktop at the office on a Linux or Mac computer at home. For ultimate simplicity, there is even a Java viewer, so that any desktop can be controlled remotely from within a browser without having to install software.

Image Editing
GIMP (http://www.gimp.org)

GIMP is an acronym for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a freely distributed program for such tasks as photo retouching, image composition and image authoring. It has many capabilities and can be used as a simple paint program, an expert-quality photo retouching program, an online batch processing system, a mass-production image renderer, an image format converter, and more.

Audio & Video
CD’n'Go Suite (http://www.download.com/CD-n-Go-Suite/3000-2140_4-10151226.html)

The audio ripper allows you to extract digital audio data from your standard audio CDs using your CD-ROM. CD’n'Go! supports a wide variety of SCSI CD-ROM readers, including ATAPI drives. The CDDB button lets you get the song titles from a CDDB server and then store them in the standard Windows CDPlayer.ini file. It can also automatically set the ID3 TAGs to make MP3 files or other compressed audio files.

Super C (http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html)

If you need a simple yet very efficient tool to convert (encode) or play any Multimedia file without reading manuals or spending long hours training, then SUPER © is all you need. It is a Multimedia Encoder and a Multimedia Player, easy-to-use with 1 simple click. SUPER C “The Player” surpasses any known player by supporting just about any Multimedia file format.