free software alternatives

frak

As a little experiment i built a test system just using free alternatives of software i use on a regular basis. The list was by no means comprehensive there are a number of tasks i havent done yet with free software but i thought it would make a noice starting point for people to use alternatives to payign for software. Obvioulsy with Linux i installed it and everything was free lol I've left linux in for completeness but the rest of the appliations are for the windows platforms. Feel free to add any of your own. Remember these are not recommendations or endorsements and am sure there are many better so add anything you feel is better

dan

Office software

open Office - https://www.openoffice.org
Abiword - freeware word replacement - https://www.abisource.com
MS Word Reader - Microsoft product that allows viewing of MS word files http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=95e24c87-8732-48d5-8689-ab826e7b8fdf&DisplayLang=en
MS Excel Reader As above but Excel - http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyID=c8378bf4-996c-4569-b547-75edbd03aaf0&displaylang=EN
PDF4Free - Create industry Standard PDF's for free - http://www.pdfpdf.com/pdf4free.html

Audio/Video

winamp - masively customisable free audio player - https://www.winamp.com
real alternative- no nasty machine hogging software just play real audio in Windows media player classic - http://www.free-codecs.com/download/Real_Alternative.htm
Divx player - https://www.divx.com
Nimo codec pack - discontinued now but contains all the video and audio codecs you will ever need - http://nimo.titanesk.com/modules/news/

Graphics

photoplus - vey powerful phtoshop alternative opens photshop files - http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/software/PhotoPlus/default.asp

Antivirus

AVG - free anti virus software for personal use - https://www.grisoft.com

Compression

IZarc - complete replacement for all compression formats supports manymany formats and options - http://www.florida.plus.com/izarc/

CD/DVD burning
CDBurner xp pro- fullyfeatured cd and dvd burning software - http://www.cdburnerxp.se/

Disk Management

Eraser - Erase confidential information from you hard disk - http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/download.php
freebyte backup - free bakcup software - http://www.freebyte.com/fbbackup/

wolfman

Browser:
Opera v8.5 - In my opinion it's better than Firefox.

Firewall:
Kerio Personal Firewall - light and effective. Wouldn't use anything else, apart from at a push ZoneAlarm.

Anti-Spyware:
AdAware & Spybot - no longer quite as good as other tools on the market, but considering they're free it's difficult to complain.

Email:
Gmail with Gmail Notifier - light, easy and accessible anywhere.

Ftp:
FileZilla - one of the best ftp clients around, except for FlashFxp (which costs)

Instant Messaging:
Trillian - lighter and more modular than MSN Messenger. Much more customizable and less clunky than MSN too.

Archiving:
TugZip - wouldn't use anyother zip/compression app. It handles everything and looks great.

Music:
Winamp - around 7x lighter than iTunes and has much more functionality. There's also an endless number of plugins and skins for it.
Exact Audio Copy (EAC) - the best music ripping application about. CDex is another good one, a little more simple to use too.
iPodder - great app for getting PodCasts. Tell it what you want and when and just let it do it's job.

Video Encoding:
Gordian Knot - brilliant suite of apps for encoding any films (your own) into mpeg/avi.

Internet Media:
Real Alternative & Quicktime Alternative - if you're sick and tired of the these two apps clogging up your system, get the light and free alternative.

Desktop Tools:
3M Post It Notes - there's a free version and it's very handy too. Helps keep your desk free of yellow clutter.

Tweaking:
HijackThis - quite advanced but still very good app for clearing up what is currently running on your system.

frak

nice one wolfman althoguh i was just trying to stick to free alternatives to paid for software and i did already include winamp and real alternative, good job though

wolfman

All the above are free. I only mentioned other paid software in comparison (such as FlashFxp).

Yeah saw you included Winamp, and the Real/Quicktime Alternatives. Just included them as well to show they are widely used/recommended.

frak

wolfman yeh i know they are free but but messneger is free anyway but i know trillian is good but didnt include it for that reason.

wolfman

Ah ok. See where you're coming from. Although, wouldn't that cancel out quite a few of both of our suggestions?

Windows Media Player is free and inbuilt. So is the inbuilt zip/archiving app inbuilt into Windows. RealPlayer and Quicktime are free too.

frak

Hmm yes windopws media is inbuilt that removes winamp. Real player and quicktime have pro versions though that you pay for i think we can still include them

Mr_Skint_2

wolfman

Just found this about kerio......http://www.kerio.com/kpf_home.html

wolfman

Yeah I know

Think I'll continue to use it though. Ideally I'd like to use Kerio Personal Firewall v2.1.5. It still does the job and hasn't been changed in a couple of years. However, everytime I build in Visual Studio.Net the firewall throws a wobbly as dll's are being changed, hence I had to upgrade to the slightly more bloated (but still light) Kerio Personal Firewall v4.2.

frak wrote:

Hmm yes windopws media is inbuilt that removes winamp. Real player and quicktime have pro versions though that you pay for i think we can still include them

With regards to Winamp, leave it in. It's a good suggestion. Same with Firefox/Opera over IE (as an example). IE is free, but from the problems it can cause, it may in the end still cost you.

Mr_Skint_2

wolfman wrote:

Yeah I know

Think I'll continue to use it though. Ideally I'd like to use Kerio Personal Firewall v2.1.5. It still does the job and hasn't been changed in a couple of years. However, everytime I build in Visual Studio.Net the firewall throws a wobbly as dll's are being changed, hence I had to upgrade to the slightly more bloated (but still light) Kerio Personal Firewall v4.2.

Er dont you like sygate then or is it just preference?

As thats 100% Free

jampton

Have been using vlc media player for years http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

It's free and cross platform.

Never spend the time to work out how it works - but I don't seem to have to bother with codecs I just update the player from time to time.