There are millions of free and open source projects available, many of them better than any commercially available product. Below is a short list of what we think is the best out there, divided into ten categories below.
Virus and malware protection
Recognize most PC users that they need protection on their computer or can an installed antivirus program have on their computer manufacturer. What most do not know is that there are free programs that are just as good and in some cases better than the commercial products. Here are our recommendations
Antivirus program: Avast! or AVG
Malware and Spyware Protection: Malwarebytes
Recognize most PC users that they need protection on their computer or can an installed antivirus program have on their computer manufacturer. What most do not know is that there are free programs that are just as good and in some cases better than the commercial products. Here are our recommendations
Antivirus program: Avast! or AVG
Malware and Spyware Protection: Malwarebytes
Backup Solutions
There are dozens of free and commercially available backup programs for computers. Unfortunately many of these backups are stored locally, which means if your house were to catch fire, robbed, or if you lost your backup discs all your data would be lost. Therefore, when dealing with important data we suggest users use online backup services.
Online backup solution: Mozy or Dropbox
Browser
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 faster, have more options, and in many cases more secure than Internet Explorer.
Internet Browser: Mozilla Firefox or Google Chrome
Compression utility
If you are files on the Internet eventually encounter one. Zip. Rar or other compressed file. Dealing with these files can simply be with our below free file compression utility.
File compression program: 7-Zip
Disc ripper and creation utility
Making an audio or data CD / DVD, ripping the data from an audio CD or CD creation from a. ISO file can also be done free through our below free recommendation.
CD burner program: CDBurnerXP
E-mail is another service that can be made freely. Most users today use online email solutions such as listed below. However, for those who are still using an email client such as Microsoft Outlook, we strongly recommend that one or both of the following suggestions.
E-mail client Mozilla Thunderbird
Online E-mail: Gmail
FTP, SFTP and SSH utilityUsers who need to keep their own web page or to load to or from a server or download files must use an FTP program or an SSH client. There are many commercial programs to be able to do this but our below free recommendations beats them all.
FTP Client: Filezilla
SSH client: Putty
Image editor, drawing program and image organizer
There are many good 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 euros, but all of the programs listed below are 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. Here are our top free multimedia programs for watching video files and audio recording.
Editing and creating audio tool Audacity
Video and DVD players: VLC and MPC-HC
Office Suite
An office suite like Microsoft Office is often one of the most expensive programs that install a user account on your 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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