GuruNet is a free (more features if purchased) tool that allows you to Alt-Click on any word in any program and find out more information about it by using a wide variety of reference materials (dictionaries, encyclopedias, news clippings, etc.). It also includes an "always-on" search bar that you can type into directly. Believe us, it's cool.

Block unwanted web junk, such as advertisements, popup windows, animations, music, and more. Protect your online privacy by blocking unwanted cookies and managing the many cookies already present on your computer. AdSubtract also can block 'referrers' that inform each web server how you came to their site.

A great free firewall. Tons of options (including the ability to instantly look up machines that are trying to look up you). Straightfoward and stable, it's hard to believe it's free.

There is spyware on your machine. If you surf the net, especially if you, like us, try out downloadable freeware and shareware, there are plenty of marketing-driven little monitors running on your hard drive. To kill them all, use Ad-Aware. Take back your machine.

Tired of those annoying ad windows popping up while surging? Pop-Up Stopper does just what the name says. A basic, but effective utility. It's creator, PanicWare.com, has other helpful surfing utilities as well, but for $$$.

Register for this free service that lets you save pages and articles to your own private folders on the web. It's simple and you can share your folders with anyone.

By highlighting text on any web page, and then clicking on the xrefer it! button, you will perform a search using the highlighted text as your search term. X-Refer searches a large database of reference titles to find you answers.

ZoneAlarm is an easy-to-use Internet security utility that sets up a personal firewall. Not only is it effective, but it's totally free. It can be a little tricky to configure VPN support, but it does work.

GREAT BIG CAVEAT: Uninstalling ZoneAlarm is an absolute nightmare, as many files are left behind and need to be manually deleted or you may not be able to connect to your ISP. Make sure to refer to their Technical Support page for uninstalling instructions.