Wouldn't it be nice if some things in your life came for free? I can imagine an easy life with free healthcare, a free movie every once in a while, and maybe some free time to goof off and play a game, don't you think? Well, while a guy can dream of such an easy, relaxed life, I can show you how to get those kinds of services for your computer, all from the crazy and resourceful place I call the internet. So let's look at a couple of useful and impressive freebies all ready to be downloaded and streamed.

Anti-Viral, Spyware, and Malware Protection

While many new computers come pre-installed with some kind of free-trial version of Norton AntiVirus' or McAfee's anti-viral services, which once expired it expects you to pay some fee in order to enable and continue their services, there has become such a large variety of service options popping up for free personal use, available online. Now, I understand that the perception of a “free” security system seems like a shoddy and useless service to keep your computer clean, but a few of these are great quality products that have some of the highest detection rates in the industry. Here are my recommendations for a free AV service: Avira AntiVir Personal, and BitDefender Free Edition.
Avira AntiVir is a new program for me, as I happily used AVG Free for a few years now with no frustrations, until recently. AVG Free has started reporting false-positives in my system, and is acting more like a paranoid conspiracy-theorist than an actual secure guard for my data. And it is annoying. Avira AntiVir was recommended to me by a good friend of mine with extensive experience in consumer-based system security. She tells me that it's consistently ranked high in viral-detection rates among it's pay-based competitors, all while keeping a small footprint on your computer, having a pleasing interface and keeping the majority of your resources free. I'm installing it this weekend to replace AVG Free 8, and I'm excited to see if it screams past it.
In addition to AntiVir, I'm also using BitDefender Free Edition, which I've had for a couple of months now with no complaint. I'm mentioning it here because it is easy to use, has very extensive features for a free AV program, and is constantly keeping itself updated with new detection lists and virus signatures. I do recommend using more than one security program to ensure your protection, if you're system can handle them both relatively easily.

TV and Movies

I'm a huge fan of the Hulu online-on-demand entertainment service. My sister has been a user since private beta, and I started immediately after the service went public. Hulu was started by both NBC Universal and News Corp. as a premium video-streaming service to deliver high-quality, entertaining content to your laptop, desktop, and pretty much anywhere else you can find a Flash-capable web browser. One thing worth noting is their excellent streaming capabilities: I've successfully streamed HD (480p) content over a 802.11g Wi-Fi connection many times with no frame-stutter or unexpected stream buffering. In my experience, Youtube hasn't been able to consistently deliver “high-quality” streams to me without those issues, and if Hulu can then that is saying something.
But separate from their great success in streaming HD videos to my laptop, is their excellent video library all available free to enjoy, online. We're talking about full TV episodes and movies from well over 100 networks. Popular hits like Fox's Arrested Development, King of the Hill and House, NBC's The Office and Heroes, Comedy Central's The Daily Show and Colbert Report, all have full episodes available to stream. It's not all funny stuff up on Hulu, too; some other hits are FX's 30 Days and the cult-classic sci-fi series of Firefly. Movies are available, too, including some of my favorites like Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johannson, The Fifth Element with Bruce Willis and Chris Tucker, or The Professional with Jean Reno, Natalie Portman and Gary Oldman. Right now, since it's just past the Halloween season, classic horror films like Stephen King's Christine and The Thing just premiered and are showing on Hulu right now.

Games

Now, games are relatively commonplace and just crowd the internet with crap flash-based stuff and cheap look-a-likes of each other, so to really find a good gaming site is to really wade through a huge load of crap and waste. But I did find one such site that I do recommend checking out, if you're looking for a place to goof off and be a kid for a short while.
Nexon.net is a South Korean-based gaming company that releases a good collection of free games all readily available to download and enjoy. Their successful 2D based Maple Story, and their more recent 3D adventure game Mabinogi, both are pretty deep and playful MMO (Massively Multi-player Online) games. In addition to those two, there is one first-person-shooter with online playability called Combat Arms that's free, and Audition which is a rhythm based casual game (think of something like Dance Dance Revolution). Check them out if any of those sound interesting, I do play Maple Story from time to time as a break from the real world.