Using 100% Original Software

So you want to use 100% original software but think you can't afford it?
Here's my guide to working without having to pay for applications yet without any illegally copied software.

Basically, there are 2 situations:

1- You have a laptop with an original copy of Windows pre-installed and all you have to worry about is application software.
2- You don't have Windows. In this case you could run Linux and Linux-based applications.

I'll talk about issue #1 in this post. Linux and its applications will have to wait for a future post. I won't mention any software unless it's has high enough quality to be usable for day to day tasks, either personally or in a company.

Programming

For C# and C++ programming on Windows, I use Visual Studio Express. High quality, free and straight from Microsoft. They also allow commercial use.

C++ express doesn't come with MFC. A lot of projects use wxWidgets so I think I'll be evaluating at some point to see if it's a good replacement (Update: I now Qt Creator for almost all my C++ work. Download from here).

For Java, I use Eclipse. Its refactoring support is amazing and the editor is very powerful. If your work focuses on designing Java GUI's I recommend Netbeans.

For LISP, I use SBCL, and for editing text files I use Notepad++.

Office & Web

I use OpenOffice.org, it has good Arabic support, opens and saves Word and Powerpoint files and has most of the features needed for everyday use. For email I use Thunderbird and for viewing PDF files I use Foxit Reader (Adobe Acrobat reader is free but I don't like it's quality. You'll learn to hate it too after you use Foxit).
For web browing I use Firefox (again, even though Internet explorer is already bundled with Windows, I don't consider it of high enough quality).

Utilities

For opening compressed files like *.rar or *.ace, I use 7-zip. Notice that WinRar is shareware and needs to be paid for, so it's not original software. 7-zip is free, however. My antivirus is ClamAV.

If you have more suggestions for free high quality software, I'd like to hear about them!