The Free Desktop

Open source software is an amazing way to get high-quality and secure products for your desktop at absolutely no cost. With the rise of open source, you can replace nearly any expensive commercial application with a fully functional counterpart. To top it off, you'll also have a community of loyal and experienced users to provide technical help and usage advice when you encounter a problem. Not all software here is officially open source, but it is all free for use. So take a look at these commercial alternatives; I think you'll be pleasantly suprised by what you find.

Need : An office suite

Try : OpenOffice

OpenOffice, created and developed in collarboration with the software company Sun Microsystems, provides a quick, effective and easy to use alternative to commercial office suites. Manage documents, spreadsheets, databases, presentations, equations and presentation image creation in 6 independent but interusable applications. The suite comes with built in templates for a wide variety of business products, such as business cards, labels, letterheads and postcards, and the ability to import/export from the most widely used commercial software suites.

OpenOffice.org

Need : A secure web browser

Try : Mozilla FireFox

Mozilla aims to 'Take Back the Web' with it's highly customizable, unbelievably secure, and ultimately user-friendly open-source browser FireFox. You can add modifications quickly and easliy that will assist you in everything from blocking unwanted ads to downloading videos with a single click.

Mozilla.org

Need : An eMail client

Try : Mozilla Thunderbird

Thunderbird is an open source eMail client that is completely compatible with Mozilla FireFox. Add eMails account with easy-to-understand wizards; send, receive and achive eMails with the intuitive user interface. You can even sort out SPAM quickly with built-in alerts and one click flags.

Mozilla.org

Need : Media converter

Try : MediaCoder

MediaCoder is a "universal media transcoder which nicely integrates most popular audio/video codecs and tools into an all-in-one solution, converting between almost all popular audio/video formats with high performance and a rich adjustable parameters." In plain English, take your favorite YouTube videos and convert them for your iPod, PSP or desktop media player. MediaCoder works with vitually all media types, and converts at a very good pace without rendering your computer completely unusable, like many commercial converters. There are built in wizards for converting to popular devices and formats, and the ability to resize the coverted file.

MediaCoder

Need : Multi-format media player

Try : VLC Media Player

VLC is a cross-platform media player that is compatible with all video codecs. It's lightweight and easy to use. What more needs to be said?

VideoLAN.org

Need : CD to MP3 converter

Try : FreeRIP

FreeRIP is a simple to use audio converter that can transfer your audio CDs to digital audio formats. It removes the problem of converting a CD in proprietary programs and not being able to use it in another. FreeRIP will also connect to the freedb CD database and attempt to automatically tag your converted files.

MGShareware.com

Need : MP3 Tagger

Try : Mp3Tag

Mp3Tag is a user friendly ID3 tagger that integrates into Windows Explorer. You can also search for the album on freedb and automatically tag it that way.

Mp3Tag

Need : An image editor

Try : Paint.NET

Paint.NET is a highly functional image editor originally developed with help from Microsft. Open, manipulate, and create the most common image files, and increase functionality with freely available plug-ins. Paint.NET has one draw back : it requires the Microsoft .NET platform, which not all computers have installed.

GetPaint.Net

Try : The GIMP

The Gnu Image Manipulation Program (GIMP for short) is extremely powerful, almost to a fault. Designed for users with heavy graphics editing needs, The GIMP is not for everyday users.

GIMP.org

Need : Program development tools

Try : Eclipse

Eclipse is a cross-platform development tool that can be used to create a wide variety of programs. There are dozens of plug-ins available to help you develop for the web, desktop and even mobile phones. Manage multiple projects in individual workspaces, eliminating the need to open each individual file. Also, Eclipse will automatically detect synax errors, preventing the potentially tedious hunt for a single error.

Eclipse.org

Need : An FTP client

Try : WinSCP

WinSCP is a lightweight FTP client that allows you to manage multiple FTP accounts. The built in page editor lets you modify your source in real time, and the file/directory manager lets you move, copy, delete, create, download, upload and change permissions with a few clicks. And, you can keep directories up-to-date during production with folder synchronization. WinSCP is not compatible with all FTP servers.

WinSCP.net

Try : FileZilla

If WinSCP was no compatible with your FTP server, give FileZilla a try. Compatible with virtually all FTP servers, FileZilla is an easy to use FTP client. Upload, download and browse directories with a simple double-click.

FileZilla

Need : An SSH Client Try : PuTTY

PuTTY is a single file SSH client. Manage all your SSH/Telnet connetions.

PuTTY