I am a fan of freeware that serves a useful purpose and often find that these programs do a better job than some commercial alternatives.  I am always on the lookout for sites that promote these free programs and help give exposure to the authors.  There is a great listing of free programs that users have voted as the "best of the best" in their respective categories and the appropriately named Pricelessware site is a good stop if you are looking for that perfect free program.  The 2004 Pricelessware of the Year list is the most complete collection of great free software I have ever seen and consists of the top 262 programs as voted by the participants of the alt.comp.freeware newsgroup.  If you need a good program or utility I would start my search here.