Big software bargains
Among the best free email software programs are Pegasus Mail (http://www.pegasus.usa.com/) and Eudora Light (http://www.eudora.com/). Both are fully-featured, easy to use and cost nothing.

When it comes to serious business software, pop over to Stardivision (http://www.stardivision.com/) where you can download StarOffice 5 - the equivalent of Office 97 - provided it's just for personal use. At 60Mb in size it'll cost a few quid in phone bills to download - but it's still a lot cheaper than buying Office '97 off the shelf.

If you want free Windows software but aren't entirely sure what, Winfiles (http://www.winfiles.com/) contains a list of links for every conceivable type of software from drivers and bug fixes to freeware, demos and on-line tutorials.

Game on
If you're tired of Quake clones and have a secret hankering for the days of Asteroids, Breakout and Space Invaders, you'll be in gamer heaven at the Wavhounds Game Room (http://www.wav.hounds.com/wavs/gameroom/index.html) where you can play everything from Pac-Man to Duck Hunt. That old favourite Tetris, the intriguingly named Topocopter, manic Circlemania and more are available for free at The GameGate (http://ww.gamegate.com/) while the hilarious Godzilla vs. Tamagotchi (http://www.jitterbug.com/gvt/gvt.shtml) is worth playing just for the sound effects.

If you have young children check out the Microsoft Kids site at http://www.microsoft.com/kids/freestuff/. It offers a range of educational games for young minds. To take full advantage install the Shockwave plug-in (free from Macromedia - http://www.macromedia.com/).

Spice up your site
The nice chaps at Elated (http://www.elated.com/) offer free web toolkits containing full tutorials in web design and the beautifully-designed I-Face Warehouse (http://ifaces.hypermart.net/) has a range of stunning designs for your website. A good port of call is the Corbis site (http://www.corbis.com/) which seems to own every picture and photograph on the planet. Although the main purpose of the site is to sell, there's still a good range of free pictures, desktop themes, wallpaper and screensavers.

Special deliveries
Plenty of manufacturers offer free product samples over the Internet. To take advantage of most of them you need to live in the US. Nevertheless, there are still plenty of freebies to be had in exchange for a few details, from Asian Home Gourmet SpicePaste (http://www.asianhomegourmet.com/free.html) to soap (http://shop.holisticamerica.com/ha/guest_book/gb_new.htm) or mouse pads (http://www.freemousepads.com/).

Aspiring bank robbers can get a free pair of tights from Silkies (http://www.silkies.com/contact-hca.htm). Men might like to have a shave first - get some Shaving Oil or ShaveGel courtesy of the King of Shaves (http://www.shave.com/free.html). Fans of more relaxing pursuits can sit back with a free fishing video from the Oak Bay Marine Group (http://capesantamaria.com/santa3.html).

Music to your ears
Do you yearn to have Tinky-Winky saying "Eh-Oh!" when new mail arrives? The official Teletubbies Site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/teletubbies) provides free sound samples for Tubby lovers everywhere. Alternatively, go on down to the South Park site (http://www.comedycentral.com/southpark) for some essential sound and video bites. Your computer may never be the same again.

Free music can be had from the definitive MP3.com (http://www.mp3.com/). The site offers thousands of songs for download in CD-quality MP3 format and provides links to all sorts of free music players too. For the ultimate collection of free sound, check out EarthStation 1 (http://www.earthstation1.com/) which has an astounding collection of movie, TV and radio theme tunes as well as downright weird sound samples.

Free services
If you've ever searched the Web only to discover that the site you're looking for is in Spanish, help is at hand. One of the best free translators is Babelfish (http://babelfish.altavista.com/). Simply paste or type the text or web address you want translated, select a language and hit the button.

It's very fast and can translate to and from French, Spanish, German and even Portuguese. But beware - it's not 100 per cent perfect - if you're translating anything important you should always get a professional translator in to avoid disaster.

The Dialectizer (http://www.rinkworks.com/dialect), like Babelfish, enables you to translate text or web pages. But instead of proper languages you can turn English into Redneck, Elmer Fudd, Swedish Chef, Moron and, our favourite, Jive Talk. Hours of fun guaranteed as you translate memos, company reports and Radiohead lyrics into hilarious nonsense.

Less fun but more useful is the TPC site (http://www.tpc.int/tpc_home.html), which enables you to send emails to fax machines. It's free, and reasonably easy to get to grips with.

Finally, to see just how broke you are in all the world's major currencies, there's a comprehensive currency converter at http://www.xe.net/currency/, which conveniently converts all types of money.

Weird stuff
Some free things are just plain nuts. Find out if you're pregnant and whether the milkman is the father at the On-line Pregnancy Test (http://www.fossml.com/pregnant/). Without a doubt, the best bits of the site are the complaints from scary people who take it seriously.

If you have any friends, alienate them by installing some of the 'hilarious' free fake crashes from the entertainment section of RUL Software (http://www.rjlsoftware.com/), although why anybody in their right mind would want to make Windows appear to crash even more than normal is baffling.
Happy hunting!

Useful Free Sites

• The Free Site
  A huge list broken into handy categories, although descriptions tend to be on the thin side. Probably the best list of links out there. http//www.thefreesite.com/

• Free Index
  Useful if you're making a website. Links are well organised and up-to-date. http://www.freeindex.com

• PocketStuffer
  Similar to The Free Site but a wee bit smaller and prettier. There's less choice but the descriptions tend to be better. http://www.pocketstuffer.com/

• Just Free Stuff
  Hideous, but fast and well-organised. Most of the offers are US-only. http://www.justfreestuff.com/

• FreeBee
  Definitely the cheeriest-looking of the free sites although it only concentrates on web design links. Nice yellow colour, though. http://www.free-bee.net/