Free Alternatives to Costly Software

Relatively few people know about free alternatives to some of the most popular (and costly) software packages. Whether you're looking for word processing, website building or even photo editing, there are free software programs waiting to be found with absolutely no cost and no strings attached. Best of all, these programs are often equal or superior in quality to the popular name brands. You just have to know where to find them.

Looking for office productivity software that won't break the bank? Consider downloading Open Office, an open-source office suite available absolutely free from openoffice.org. Open Office offers a word processing program similar to Microsoft Word®, a spreadsheet application similar to Microsoft Excel®, a presentation application similar to Microsoft Powerpoint®, and a drawing/vector graphics editor. Files created using Open Office products are compatible with the respective Microsoft Office® programs and many others, which means that if you created a document in Mircosoft Word® it can be opened and edited in OpenOffice Write. Likewise, a document created in Write can be saved in the Word® .doc format and opened by Word® users.

For those who are new or novice in the area of web design and looking for an alternative to the awkward web building tools provided by the hosting company or the commercially available software, there is another choice. Nvu is an open-source WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get - which means it's graphic instead of writing code) web authoring application similar to Microsoft Frontpage® or Macromedia Dreamweaver®. You don't have to know how to write HTML or CSS to use Nvu, so it's a great choice for beginners or intermediate users. Nvu is available absolutely free at nvudev.com.

For a serious website with considerable amounts of content, one might want to use an open-source content management system (CMS) such as Mambo or Joomla. Both are free, moderately simple to install, and easy to use with unlimited potential and possible uses thanks to the numerous extensions available from third-party developers.

Software to professionally edit images and designs doesn't have to make a dent in your pocketbook thanks to Inkscape, an open-source vector graphics editor available free at inkscape.org. Inkscape offers a clean workspace and a wide array of features to edit most image files.

Whenever you have a need for software, try adding the words "open source" to your internet search and chances are you will find a great free alternative to the commercial software.

One of the easiest ways to find high-quality free software is to search with term "open-source" (for example; "open-source word processing.") By definition open-source simply means that the source code (the code that makes the program work) is openly available. In non-techie terms, that just means you can have the recipe in addition to the cake.

Commercial software producers on the other hand closely guard their source code because it is the 'recipe' they use to sell the finished product, whereas open-source is almost always a group effort to develop an application where many talented developers contribute to the project. While commercial software developers aim to create a solution for a profit, open source is almost always a collaborative effort of developers working to create a great open and accessible solution using a variety of talent and input. With its open nature, even developers who weren't involved in the core program have access to it and can offer improvements, additions, or specific add-ons, often called extensions.

The support for these applications is outstanding through a network of users and developers. Documentation is usually available and numerous forums exist where users discuss their experiences and issues and find solutions through the user community.

So what's the catch? This is the best part, there isn't one! The developers aren't trying to sell you anything, the software doesn't contain annoying ads, and you don't have to subscribe to a mailing list. Simply download the software and enjoy.