My computer, which celebrated its first birthday a few weeks ago, was lagging terribly.  If possible, I try to not pay for my software.  I play around with a lot of freeware registry cleaners, firewalls, anti-virus, and the like.  It was time to fix the problem, so I searched around for what were the newest and best programs to get a computer running like new.  This list is a compilation of what I installed, ran, and used.  It successfully made my computer run like new.  The programs on this list are made for the non-expert who just wants to install some programs, run them once in a while, and make their computer run better.  I choose the simpler programs because I have to install them on my father-n-law's computer and he needs to be able to use them.  All of these are free of charge for personal use.  Just make sure you click on the right downloads on the respective download pages.

Here are my picks.

Best Free Anti-virus:
Avira Anti-Virus - I have had trouble getting this to work without slowing up my Vista machine, but it runs great and gives great protection on my XP machine.  I have been free from viruses, even on the unprotected Vista machine, for a long time now.

Best Free Trojan remover:
a2 - A trojan is a file that has implanted itself on your computer through some other download.  You really do not want them on your machine.  This is a program that is good to run every once and a while.
 
Best Registry Cleaner:
Eusing Registry Cleaner - I love this puppy.  It cleans my registry and keeps my computer running like new.  I have never had a problem with this program removing too much from the registry (something you need to be careful of with registry cleaners). 

Best Disk Defragmenter:
Iobit Smart Defrag - This program defrags your computer on the fly while it is idle and does a thorough defrag according to the schedule you give it. 

Best Free Spyware Program:
Super Anti-Spyware - This is a new one that I recently downloaded and it removed a lot of stuff that Spyware Doctor left on my computer.  I recommend running two different spyware programs because they will each find some that the other left untouched. 

I also run Malwarebyets Anti-Malware.  This is a great program that helps sniff out things that other programs might not.

Best PC Tune Up:
Advanced WindowsCare -  This program comes with a spyware detector, privacy sweep, registry cleaner, startup manager, disk cleanup, and more.

Following is some other freeware that I use that is not security or maintenance related.

Best Photo Program:
Picasa - This program does it all and makes it very convenient to order photos. 

Best WordPad Replacement:
EditPad Lite - I use this on my computer whenever I would have used WordPad.  It is a great program.  

Best Office Suite:
OpenOffice - If you want to be legal and legit, this is a free office software suite.  It's like Microsoft Office but free.  It is what I use on my computers that I have not purchased all of the Microsoft software.  I just set the program to save the file in Word or Excel format so the files are quickly available to email to a teacher, friend, or anyone for that matter.   

Although I found some of these freeware on my own, I must also give recognition to Gizmo's Tech Support Alert which highlighted some of the software I was not using.  Gizmo provides a much more thorough list of freeware for almost every possible use.