List of the best software and online services

Many people have a list of software and services that they consider the "Best". The software that everyone should have and use daily. I always disagree with those lists, and find them inadequate in their target. So I'm going to make my own list. My criteria for things making the list is straight forward. Items have to be usable on a daily basis. Which means an easy to understand, clean interface and alot of features both basic and advanced.

I'm going to list software and services in a series by catagory so things will be easier to find. I'll most likely be making lists for the following:

Media players and hosting sites (multi-media, music, radio, movies, internet-tv, comics)
Media Manipulation (video editing, photo editing, audio editing, 3D rendering)
Communications (voip, instant messaging, e-mail, irc, social networks, usenet)
Security (anti-virus, firewall, adware, tackers, wifi networks, proxy servers)
Office/School Tools (text editors, dictionaries, spreadsheets, organizing software, alerts, pdf's)
Internet (browsers, ftp, file-sharing, file-hosting, logging, website hosts, website creation)
Utilities (password managers, thumb drive, file-managers, search tools, boot cd, network tools)
Fun Stuff (games, muds, shell replacements, icons, themes)