Netbooks make fine travel machines for surfing, typing and watching videos, but as most new owners eventually discover, things start to get a little slow when you push too far beyond the basics. After all, 1.6GHz and 1GB of RAM can only take you so far. But you needn’t resign yourself to typing in Notepad and playing Minesweeper whenever you leave the big guns at home in favor of a netbook. We’ve rounded up some of the best lightweight software from across every category that will turn your netbook into a an all-around gaming, multimedia and productivity machine without slowing it to a crawl in the process. And the best part is, almost all of them are free.
