If you haven’t yet switched to GNU/Linux you can gain some of the benefits by using some of the software listed below. In many cases the software is available for both Windows and MacOSX.
WEB BROWSERS
Mozilla Firefox Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably have this installed on your computer.
SeaMonkey Project The old Netscape/Mozilla Suite lives on with the Sea Monkey Project which also includes an e-mail programme, an IRC chat programme (Chatzilla) and a basic WYSIWYG HTML editor called “Composer”.
Qupzilla A newer web browser built on webkit, (the rendering engine used in Safari and Chrome/Chromium) but with some very significant privacy features pre-installed.
Midori A lightweight and fast browser, (not exactly pretty) but gets the job done.
OFFICE TOOLS
Libre Office The community built successor to “Open Office” but light years ahead of Open Office. If you are still using Open Office switch to Libre Office.
Abiword – A simple light-weight stand alone and cross-platform word processing programme
PDF Creator This is just about the only free software tool around for turning absolutely anything into a PDF (i.e. web pages etc.) However, if you are one of those Windows users who is in the habit of answering yes to everything, DO NOT INSTALL THIS SOFTWARE!
The developers of PDF Creator bundle adware with the software. If you are not careful with the installation, you will end up with adware on your computer.
When you install, agree to the GNU General Public License for PDF Creator, but when you are asked to install the adware, uncheck whatever programmes they have bundled and hit the “cancel” button.
E-MAIL CLIENT SOFTWARE
Mozilla Thunderbird – Handles your POP3 or IMAP E-mail and
RSS feeds.
GRAPHICS TOOLS
The Gimp The GNU Image Manipulation Project. This is a fanastic cross platform photo and graphics editor with capabilities similar to those contained in Photoshop.
Inkscape A scaleable vector graphics programme with capabilites similar to Corel Draw and Adobe InDesign.
Scribus A powerful desktop publishing application
Greenshot – A programme for doing screen captures.
WEB DEVELOPMENT
BlueGriffon – A WYSIWYG web design programme similar to Dreamweaver
BlueFish – A powerful text editor for web developers and programmers
Filezilla – An FTP programme for getting you website up on your webserver!
NEWS READERS
RSS Owl A powerful RSS news feed reader
AUDIO/VIDEO EDITING
Audacity – An excellent audio editing programme, suiteable for recording and editing your podcast, recording your old vinyl and cassette collections etc. Install the Lame MP3 encoder to enable MP3 support in Audacity.
Avidemux – A simple video editing programme for cutting and pasting video clips and encoding and re-encoding video
Miro Video Converter – A programme for converting just about any type of video to MP4, WebM and Ogg Theora
Virtualdub – A video capture and processing utility
Handbrake – A video transcoding programme
Blender – A 3D modelling and animation programme
Infrarecorder – A CD/DVD burning programme for Windows capable of handling .iso images
DVD Flick – A programme that will convert your digital videos so that they can be played on a standard DVD player.
CamDesk – A simple web cam programme
ANTI-VIRUS
Clamwin – A GNU GPL licensed anti-virus programme for Windows. It does not include an real-time anti-virus scanner. You’ll need to scan files manually but it works really well.
MULTIMEDIA SOFTWARE
VLC Media Player – The Swiss Army knife of audio and video. VLC Media Player will handle just about any audio or video format you throw at it.
Clementine Player – A cross platform alternative to iTunes for organizing your digital music collection, subscribing to podcasts etc.
Miro – A cross platform application for watching internet video, subscribing to video podcasts, RSS, and more!
INSTANT MESSAGING
Pidgin – A cross platform instant messaging programme that will handle many instant messaging services including AIM, GoogleTalk, IRC, Yahoo!, MSN, XMPP and many more!
REMOTE ACCESS
TightVNC – A programme for remote controlling another computer across a network.
PuTTY – A Telnet/SSH programme for remote access to another computer.
ASTRONOMY
UTILITIES
PhotoRec – A tool for recovering your photos and other files from corrupted file systems
Unetbootin – A tool for creating bootable USB media from .ISO image files
