Here are five very popular free programs that I use and you might want to try out.
Open Source is an idea held by programmers that software should be free for anyone to use, share and improve. It’s a huge community that creates many free high quality programs that compete with proprietary software.
1. Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox is used by millions of people (including me) every day to surf the web. It has far superior security, performance, and usability than it’s competitor, Microsoft Internet Explorer.
If you still use Internet Explorer, just take a glance at the Firefox website and see what you’re missing out on.
2. Open Office
Open Office is a productivity suite I use to create and maintain all my business documents including writings, spreadsheets, diagrams and invoices.
I’ve never bought the Microsoft Office Suite because Open Office does everything I need for free. Most importantly, it is compatible with opening and saving most Microsoft file formats.
3. Songbird
Songbird is an music player developed by Mozilla (the same guys who made Firefox). It organizes your music library, connects to your iPod, and lets you surf the web. Songbird comes with nifty addons that let you read about the artist, album reviews and see related pictures and videos.
I use Songbird everyday to listen to my music and favorite online radios. The only down-side is that Songbird cannot play movies off your computer yet.
4. Thunderbird
Thunderbird is a high quality email program that is easy to use and easy to set up so you don’t have to surf the web for your mail. Thunderbird has good user interface, which makes sending and receiving emails a breeze. It is what I use instead of Microsoft Outlook.
5. Gnu Cash
If you do any personal or small business accounting, you may want to read about GnuCash and try it out.
Conclusion
All of these professional quality applications are free downloads that I personally recommend. It’s important for every computer user to be aware of these alternatives so that they can choose the best software for themselves.
One Comment
Been with Natwest 16 months, from the outset I was refused free business banking due to a technical glitch on my credit report. I should add this was not my fault and I had letters backing this. Last month we faced some difficulties when a customer did not pay an invoice, I informed Natwest immediately that a few DD payments would likely fail. They agreed to refund me charges should this happen. To my horror they found it reasonable to charge me ?485 in failed payments!