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Okay, admit it: You took one look at our cover this month and thought, "There can't possibly be any new free stuff on the Web--at least not anything worth the effort of opening a browser for." But if you think the only thing free on the Net these days is the free fall of all those dot-com companies, we've got news. You can still get something for nothing online--sites, services, and downloads that are great for work or play. And we've found the best of the bunch: an array of winners you haven't read about a million times before, plus our picks for the free stuff Hall of Fame.

Some of the best free stuff available on the Web today is potent software that's yours for the downloading: office suites, utilities, and even operating systems. In Fee vs. Free, we offer our take on how four free applications compare to their for-pay counterparts.

Got a favorite freebie we didn't cover? Drop us a line at freestuff@pcworld.com .

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