Helen M. Overland

Save Your Business Money: Free Software Tips

By: Helen M. Overland, May 13, 2007


Did you know that there is a lot of software out there that is completely free? Of course you did... but many people don't seem to be aware that there are some pretty decent alternatives to many more costly commercial programs.

Here is a list of software that (mostly) I've used before and found to work quite well. Most are free for at least personal use, some are free for most commercial use, and a few have quite reasonable trial offers. There are a few here that I actually prefer over higher cost commercial offerings, so it may be worthwhile giving most a chance and seeing how they work out for you.

Please note that if you choose to use any of this software, you do so at your own risk.

Office & Creative Software

OpenOffice
OpenOffice is a free office suite from Sun Microsystems. It comes with Writer (word processor), Calc (spreadsheets), Impress (presentations), Math (equation editor), Draw (graphics), and Base (databases). OpenOffice opens and writes most MS Office formats with ease, and I've frequently ported documents between home (OpenOffice) and office (MS Office) without any trouble. One great feature of this suite is it's ability to export most files as PDF documents native in the software (without needing extra plug-ins)

GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program)
GIMP is a free image editing program. One great feature of this suite is the ability to open and write Adobe PSD documents.

General Utility Software

Textpad
Textpad is a text editor which can replace notepad. It has great features like regular expression find and replace, code syntax highlighting that can be configured and extended, spell check, case changing, macros, compare files, sorting, and some other pretty nifty features. It has a pretty friendly trial period after which you can purchase the a licence if you wish.

Metapad
Metapad is also a text editor which can replace notepad. It also has some nifty features, although not as many as Textpad. It is, however, entirely free without having to purchase a licence.

Ad-Aware
Ad-Aware can help you control spyware on your computer. It can scan your registry, files and cookies, can block browser hijackers, etc. It is free for personal use.

AVG Anti-Virus Free Edition
I haven't actually used this program before, however I have several friends who tell me it is a great option. Basically, this is an anti-virus program for a single computer, free for personal use.

FilZip
Tired of nag screens when you want to zip or unzip something? Me too; that's why I really like FilZip. It can add and extract ZIP, BH, CAB, JAR, LHA (LZH), TAR and GZIP. It can also extract files from ACE, ARC, ARJ, RAR, and ZOO, and has some other nice features. It can easily integrate into Windows menus. I've found it to be simple, fast, easy, reliable, and no-nag.

Web Software

Core FTP
This is a free FTP program for windows. It can handle "SFTP (SSH), SSL, TLS, IDN, browser integration, site to site transfers, FTP transfer resume, drag and drop support, file viewing & editing, firewall support, custom commands, FTP URL parsing, command line transfers, filters, and much, much more!" (according to the website). I've found that sometimes it can hang a bit on a large volume of transfers, but overall, my personal experience has been that this has been a solid and reliable program.

Apache
Apache is a free web server, and you've probably already heard of it. It's usually deployed on Linux, but I've seen it run on Windows. From a site administrator point of view, it has some really nifty features like being able to control website behaviour specific to each directory (you can create custom error messages, password access and url aliasing separately in each directory without needing administrator access).

FireFox
Free browser... you've probably heard of it... or are currently using it. Nice features, simple to use, works well... a solid browser.

Opera
If FireFox is a nice reliable browser, Opera is the luxury upgrade. There is little this browser can't do, and I haven't seen any other browser ever do it faster. The native integration of Mouse Gestures means that you can browse the Internet at some mind boggling speeds. It has a very smooth zoom feature that will also scale images, and you can turn images on and off with one click. For savvy users, there is the ability to easily turn off stylesheets, disable tables, emulate a text browser, and other features. As well as having global preferences, it also allows you to control cookie, pop-ups, animation, plug-ins, java, frames, javascript, etc specific to each site you visit. It has a really nice feature of being able to turn off referrer logging (so sites can't see what page referred you), and can also mask itself as other browsers (for less savvy web designers). This all being said, an average user can use this browser, but a savvy user will be able to get the most benefit from it's advanced features. If you are a really serious Internet user, I highly recommend you give Opera a try.

Putty
A free telnet client and xterm terminal emulator for Win32 and Unix platforms. It can handle SSH, Telnet and Rlogin, SSH-2, and Public key authentication (both RSA and DSA). Quite reliable.

Email Clients

Thunderbird
Nice solid email client; it can handle multiple accounts, and has nice search functions. If you use Thunderbird, one thing you may want to do frequently is compact folders to help avoid a corrupt mailbox. Version 2 now available.

Eudora
Eudora has been around for a while, and has long been a free alternative email client. I haven't actually used Eudora since version 6.x, however, I found it to be quite solid and reliable. If you use Eudora, one thing you may want to do frequently is compact folders to help avoid a corrupt mailbox. According to their website, commercial development of Eudora has ceased effective May 1, 2007, however, an open source version is apparently in development.

Database

MySQL
Free database software. I have found it to be stable, reliable and fully featured.

PostgreSQL
Free database software. I haven't actually used this software, but have heard great reviews about it from people whose opinion I respect.

Miscellaneous

GenoPro
This is actually genealogy software that is offered as a free trial version. But here's a trick - although it is designed to visually organize family histories, with a little creativity it can be used to design website information architecture & navigation structures. Seriously.

BitTorrent
Peer-to-peer (P2P) file distribution tool. Basically - download stuff for free.

iTunes
Can you possibly not have heard of iTunes? I suppose it's possible if you've been living under a rock for a few years. Anyway, this is a free jukebox, video player, online radio player, podcast download system, etc, etc, etc.



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