Both Raven & Ahrefs recently announced that they will drop scraped Google search result data. As part of the Ahrefs announcement they stated that:

Ahrefs is going to close Keywords Analysis on 11 January 2013. Till that time Keywords Analysis will be totally free for all.

So if you wanted to use a competitive research tool for free, set up a free account with Ahrefs today, look up your leading competitors to see their top keywords & if there are any areas that they are targeting that you missed. A number of other competitive research tools & rank trackers have also offered free trials & discounts in order to try to get people to give them a try.

Competitive Research

• SpyFu is offering a free 3-month trial. A couple great features from SpyFu are cached historical SERP results & the ability to download an unlimited number of keywords per website (many competing services only allow you to download the top 1,000 or 10,000 or so keywords per listing). Their free trial also includes their RECON files product, offering brandable reports.
• SEM Rush is offering a free 1-month trial. They have some innovative features in allowing you to cross compare sites, as well as comparing AdWords vs organic search data. Recently they added filters by URL footprint.

Rank Tracking

• Advanced Web Ranking is a desktop-based rank tracking tool. They offer a boatload of features & a free 30-day trial.
• AuthorityLabs is a web-based rank tracking tool & the one that originally powered Raven. They are offering a 25% discount for new members using SEOBook2012

You rarely see Google warning people against meta tags or blocking people from shooting themselves in the feet. That some of these companies are being warned out of the market is recognition of the value of the data by Google. That many of the remaining tools are offering free trials is a Christmas gift for SEOs.