Remember that line in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home where Kirk says society doesn't use money in the 24th century and his companion is so startled? The Internet, by opening its ethereal doors to one and all, may be moving us closer to that sort of economy.

Past the ongoing discussion over the rights to download and swap music and video for free, those in the industry are empowering the People to help themselves to a number of upgrades and programs for their computer lives at no cost.
 
Note as an example PC World's staff contribution to the non-monetary betterment of the user's world with two separate articles telling us where the best free applications can be accessed.

This month at MSN Tech, PC World staffers Preston Gralla and Erik Larkin provide a list of the 101 Fantastic Freebies.

These applications vary over a huge range from clocks for your taskbar, free word processing programs, places you can store your data online, better tools, as well as utilities that can help you use your machine and the Internet better.

A couple of months ago, PC World.com writer Ron White created a shorter list of free and inexpensive software applications that he says will outdo the big guys, at a much smaller hit on your wallet. His list includes email programs, word processors, graphics and photo tweakers and more.

Of course there are also hundreds of free software and shareware sites available on the Net--the above come with a tried and tested recommendation, which is nice.

It's also true that the average user can get all the anti-virus protection he needs for free, with a combination of Grisoft's AVG for email and virus scanner, Ad-Aware and Spybot for malware and other self-installing type programs, and Spyware Blaster which keeps a running tally of sites that are known to have threats, blocking the user's entry there.

So check out what you don't have to spend your hand-earned money for-- and then feel free to indulge yourself and score new SLI Graphics cards so you can kick your Grand Theft Auto IV into high gear.