I usually only use free open-source programs since they have the right idea about building up a good and secure software community (i.e. people who want to learn how to do certain things in programming can simply look at the code of another program and learn). If open-source isn't available, I'll go with free proprietary (Adobe Flash for instance, is much better that Gnash).
Rarely do I ever use software that I have to pay for.
Rarely do I ever use software that I have to pay for.