Also for instant messaging, i use TRILLIAN (http://trillian.cc)
It's tight...it's an all in one chat program that supports ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, IRC, and MSN. And it's free. Do it up!
I use eDonkey for apps. It's been getting a little slower lately, but you can't beat it. The other day I saw the entire Visual Studio .NET (all 8 CDs) available.
I use Limewire. It works pretty good, and has some good features. It uses the Gnutella networks. Nothing has ever been as good as Napster was. I rarely find those "gems" that are hard to obtain.
enry wrote a chat thing so that you could talk to people that use all different chat types. say i use msn and linux uses tritton (spelling), we could use app that enry wrote and still talk