[Jeff W]

Kerio Personal Firewall 2.1.5 is way better than ZoneAlarm. 2.1.5 is better than 4.x

For AV: Are you purchasing Norton's AV? If so, buy Kaspersky Anti Virus instead. If you are getting Norton free, then stick with that. If you want a freeware program, get AntiVir. Also make sure you get MS Antispyware.

Firefox is worlds better than IE. I use webmail so I can't comment on thunderbird.

I use OpenOffice for word processing and I like it better than MS. The OO spreadsheet program is not as fully functional as Excel(MS's best App) in my experience.

The only software I've bought in the last 4 years: Windows XP and Pokertracker. Freeware is the way to go. If you need more apps, I can dig up some links for you.