well, I have only an occasional crash with Netscape 4.75...and I understand that 4.78 & 4.79 are even better, but it may be in how YOU configure them....I LOVE Opera, and it can be free with a little ad stuck in the corner...for totally free, but not as configurable, try K-Meleon ...and ongoing project...it is small & fast, and will handle 'most' things.

Pegasus Mail is great, although I have been using Eudora for years...(I may yet switch)

as was noted above, 602 PRO is a free office suite that is good, and there is "Open Office" which is the open source for StarOffice....unless one is a MAJOR user of MS Word (I am not), I suspect any of those would do what you need.

I use several free wordprocessors and text editors that do almost anything I want, CryptEdit, TextShield Fusion....a couple of quick, smaller ones, too.....