There are millions of free and open source projects
available, many of them better than any commercially available product.
Below is a short listing of what we think is the best out there, broken
down into ten categories.
Antivirus and malware protection
Most
PC users realize that they need protection on their computer or may
have an installed antivirus program from their computer manufacturer.
What most don't realize is that there are free programs that are just as
good and in some cases better than the commercial products. Below are
our recommendations
Malware and Spyware protection: Malwarebytes
Backup solutions
There
are dozens of free and commercially available backup programs for
computers. Unfortunately many of those backups are stored locally,
meaning if your house were to catch fire, get robbed, or if you lost
your backup discs all your data would be lost. This is why when dealing
with important data we suggest users use online backup services.
Browsers
Although
Microsoft Internet Explorer comes pre-installed on Windows computers.
There are several excellent free alternatives that everyone should try.
These free alternatives can often be faster, have more options, and in
many cases be more secure than Internet Explorer.
Internet Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome
Compression utility
When
downloading files on the Internet you'll eventually encounter a .zip,
.rar, or other compressed file. Dealing with these files can be easy
with our below free file compression utility.
File compression utility: 7-Zip
Disc ripper and creation utility
Creating
an audio or data CD/DVD, ripping the data from an audio CD, or creating
a CD from a .ISO file can also be done freely using our below free
recommendation.
CD burner utility: CDBurnerXP
E-mail
is yet another service that can be done freely. Most users today use
online e-mail solutions like the one listed below. However, for those
still using an e-mail client such as Microsoft Outlook we strongly
suggest one or both of the below suggestions.
E-mail client: Mozilla Thunderbird
Online e-mail: Gmail
FTP, SFTP, and SSH Utility
Users
who maintain their own web page or need to upload or download files to
or from a server will have to use an FTP utility or a SSH client. There
are many commercial programs capable of doing this but our below free
recommendations beats them all.
FTP client: Filezilla
SSH client: Putty
Image editor, paint program, and picture organizer
There
are many great free solutions for editing, creating, and organizing
your images on your computer. Many of the programs capable of doing
these tasks can be several hundred dollars, but all of the below
programs are completely free.
Image editor: GIMP
Paint program: Paint.net
Picture organizer: Google Picasa
Multimedia
There
are dozens of different multimedia programs with different capabilities
and limitations. Below are our top free multimedia programs for
watching video files and recording audio.
Audio editing and creating tool: Audacity
Video and DVD Player: VLC
Office Suite
An
Office suite such as Microsoft Office is often one of the most
expensive programs that a user can install on their computer. Why
install these expensive programs when there are free solutions that are
just as good.
Office suite: OpenOffice
Notepad and Source code editor: Notepad++
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