The following post was written for Science Cheerleader readers by Karen of Online College Reviews.

 Coming up with money to trick out your computer after paying for essentials like tuition, books, and food can be downright impossible. Fortunately, there are tons of free web apps and software downloads out there that will serve all of your academic (and not so academic) needs. Here are 40 fantastic web apps and software downloads chosen with the college student in mind.

Budgeting and Finance

• PearBudget – This expense-tracking service is easier to use than Microsoft Money or Quicken. PearBudget is fully customizable, quick to set up, and secure.
• Buddi – Buddi is a personal budgeting service for people who have no experience with budgeting. It’s easy to use and perfect for students who don’t have a lot to keep track of.
• Moneytrackin’ – This free online tool is great for roommates and students who share expenses. Moneytrackin’ can help you track where money was spent and budget for future expenditures.
• Wesabe – Wesabe is part money management tool and part community. The service is secure and simple to use.
• Student Loan Calculator – This student loan calculator from the CollegeBoard will help you keep track of all of your student loan payments. The calculator analyzes Stafford loans, Perkins loans, and other types of loans.

Communication

• Skype – With Skype’s free software, you can make free video calls from your computer to other people who have Skype. You can also use it to chat online.
• ooVoo – ooVoo is similar to Skype, but with a few more features. With ooVoo, you can transfer files and hold video conferences with six people at once.
• Meebo – This free instant messaging and group chat service is great for students who want to be able to communicate with others on Aim, MSN, Google Talk, MySpace, Facebook Chat, and Yahoo! at the same time.
• Phonevite – With Phonevite, you can send free phone reminders and alerts to yourself and other people.
• Facebook – Facebook makes it easy to keep in touch and share class notes with other students. You can also use it to plan parties and socialize.

Computer and Internet Security

• AVG – Trusted by 80 million users, AVG is a free program that protects against viruses and spyware. AVG is for Windows users.
• Comodo – This award-winning suite offers virus and firewall protection. It scans your computer for viruses and removes anything it finds.
• Spybot Search and Destroy – This award-winning privacy software helps keep spyware and adware at bay. Spybot recently updated their scan speed and massively improved their detection range to make their free software safer and more convenient.
• Hotspot Shield – AnchorFree’s Hotspot Shield keeps your information private and secure by making sure you stay anonymous online. Hotspot Shield works with wired and wireless connections.
• Kruptos – This 256 bit file encryption utility helps you keep sensitive files safe, secure, and password protected. Kruptos works with PCs and portable storage devices.

Entertainment

• Jing – This free software is designed to help you share videos and screenshots with other people. Jing can snap a picture of your screen or record video of onscreen action.
• Kongregate – With more than 10,000 free games that you can play online, Kongregate is the place to go when you’re looking for gaming entertainment.
• Project Playlist – You can create your own playlists and listen to any song for free on Project Playlist. You can also share your music with other Project Playlist members.
• Picnik – This free web service makes it easy to edit and tweak your photos. Picnik works with Flickr, Facebook, Picasa, Photobucket, and a number of other sites.
• Netvibes – Netvibes makes wasting time on the Internet fun and fast. You can use it to bring together all of the online services you use and all of the websites you visit on a regular basis.
• Photoshop –Share, edit and store photos with ease.

Research Papers and Other Homework

• BibMe – This automatic bibliography maker can help you build your works cited page for reports, essays, and other assignments. Your bibliography can be created in MLA, APA, Chicago, or Turabian formats
• Open Office – Open Office is a Microsoft-like suite of products that can be downloaded for free. It can be used to create and open documents, spreadsheets, and other projects.
• ThinkFree – ThinkFree has a whole suite of products to help you create, edit, and store documents safely and securely online. You can also use ThinkFree to view documents on your iPhone.
• Minomo – This web-based mind mapping software is a great way to plan papers and other types of projects. You can create, edit, and share maps online without downloading any software to your computer.
• Calcoolate – Known as the “coolest calculator on the web,” Calcoolate is great for all sorts of calculations and conversions. It even keeps a history of previous calculations.

Schedules, Calendars, and PIMs

• CollegeRuled – CollegeRuled is perfect for creating free, color-coded class schedules. A message board is automatically created along with your schedule so that you can discuss assignments with classmates and members of your study group.
• HipCal – Developed by fraternity brothers, HipCal is an online calendar, to-do list, and address book. Special features include alerts and group calendars.
• mySchoolog – Designed specifically for students, this free web app can help you organize every aspect of your school life. Data can be accessed from anywhere at any time.
• Remember the Milk – Remember the Milk has so many nifty features that it’s hard to keep them all straight. You can set up and manage tasks, online, offline, and from your mobile phone. You can also share tasks, get reminders, and much more.
• TracksLife – You can keep track of almost anything on TracksLife–and if you forget to update something, you’ll get a reminder from the Friendly TracksLife Remindbot.

Taking Notes

• Notely – Created specifically for students, Notely is a an online note taking tool. It can also be used as a calendar, scheduler, and homework planner.
• NoteCentric – NoteCentric is an online note taking application that doubles as an organizer. It allows you to save notes locally or as an html file.
• NoteMesh – This free note taking service is designed for students and study groups who want to collaborate on notes. NoteMesh uses a Wiki format that anyone can edit.
• shortText – This easy-to-use tool is great when you want to quickly post text online or change notes into a URL. Unlike most free note-taking services, shortText offers instant web presence and requires no log in.
• MyStickies – MyStickies are like notes for the web. You can bookmark a page and place a little, yellow note on it explaining why you bookmarked it in the first place.

Web Research

• Web-Chops – This free web app can clip any part of a web page and save it to your own personal topic page.
• Diigo – Diigo is a virtual highlighter with digital sticky notes. You can use it to highlight and save text on any web page.
• BlinkList – BlinkList is a bookmarking tool that helps you save your links for later. It’s faster than a Google search and easy to use.
• Sync2It – This free service lets you synch your bookmarks and store them privately so that they can be used on any computer at any time. Bookmarks on Sync2It can also be accessed via wireless devices.
• Hooey – Hooey tracks and analyzes the pages you visit so that you can retrieve links and learn how to use the web more effectively.