Software I Always Install

When I get a new Windows 7/8.1 PC, the first thing I do is install some key free applications to "tame" it. To the greatest extent possible, I like to have similar tools available for all platforms, so I can use any available Windows/Linux/Mac/BSD system as a workstation without having to kill my workflow or productivity.

General:

1. Firefox - Not necessarily the best browser, but it has the best plugins.
2. NoScript - Makes browsing tolerable.  Blocks a bunch of evil.  Has a learning curve: RTFM.
3. Classic Shell - Provides a Win7-style Start button/menu/taskbar under Win8.
4. Clover -  Adds tabs to Windows Explorer
5. Foxit PDF reader - Better than Adobe
6. LibreOffice - Covers 99% of what I'd need from Microsoft.
7. 7-Zip - The best all-platform archive handler.

Engineering Tools:

1. Cygwin (32-bit) - A full GNU/Posix environment under Windows.
2. MobaXterm - Multi-tab terminal and X11 environment. Better than CygwinX, includes Cygwin subset.
3. Geany - My favorite lightweight IDE for all-platforms (even RasPi).
4. TortoiseGit - Becoming the global revision control system of choice.
5. TortoiseSVN - The prior RCS champ, still very popular.
6. DesignSpark Mechanical and PCB - Free schematic entry, layout and MCAD.
7. yEd Graph Editor - Faster and easier than Graphviz.
8. Anaconda (64-bit) - Ginormous Python environment (all of SciPy and more).
9. Node.js - Javascript is everywhere.  Deal with it.

Maintenance:

1. SysInternals Suite - Everything needed to control Windows. 
2. CCleaner - Even new systems need cleaning.
3. EaseUS Todo Free - Backup & cloning toolset.

I'll update this post when I find new favorites.

There are several multi-platform numerical and symbolic analysis apps I used to install, but I'm trying to force myself to stay within the Scientific Python environment.  Still a bit of a learning curve, but it's coming along.  There are lots of reasons for this, but that's a separate post.