PC software links
See also the Wikipedia category
Lists of software and
article
List of liberated software. For Linux software, see my
Linux page.
The stars of the open source world:
- Operating system:
Ubuntu Linux
http://www.ubuntulinux.org/
Damn Small Linux
http://damnsmalllinux.org/
- Linux is an open-source freeware version of the Unix multi-user operating system, that runs on the Intel processors used in ordinary PCs, and on other processors; a viable alternative to Windows for both user workstations and servers. Ubuntu is a popular and totally free Linux distribution; you can even have it mailed to you on CDROM at no charge. Damn Small Linux is a mini-distribution that will run on obsolescent computers Microsoft has abandoned. See my
Linux page for more.
- Office suite: OpenOffice.org
http://www.openoffice.org/
- Full-featured freeware alternative to MS Office can open, edit, and save the MS Office document file formats and runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac platforms. OpenOffice 2.0 was released 20 Oct 2005; see my
OpenOffice pages for details.
- File formats: OpenDocument
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenDocument
- A completely open, published, XML-based standard for office-suite document formats, supported by OpenOffice.org 2.0+ as its default formats, and now defined as ISO 26300.
- Web browser: Firefox
http://www.mozilla.com/firefox/
- Superior alternative cross-platform open-source freeware Web browser offers popup blocking, tabbed browsing, better security, many extensions and other features; see
Web browsers page. Recommended by Wall Street Journal and Forbes.
- Email client: Thunderbird
http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/
- User-friendly cross-platform open-source freeware POP-mail client offered along with Firefox, with the same systems for documentation, support, and extensions. Thunderbird is an easier alternative to Outlook, for people who prefer the old-school POP-mail style over browser-based Web-mail. See
mail clients page.
- Software repository: Sourceforge
http://sourceforge.net/
- "The world's largest development and download repository of open source code and applications; providing free services to open source developers." Thousands of projects: see the software map. Sourceforge projects have a project page with download links, RSS feeds, and standardized project information, and usually also an author homepage which may or may not be in the Sourceforge domain.
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Selected other open source tools:
- 7-Zip home page
http://www.7-zip.org/
7-Zip project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/sevenzip/
- ZIP-format support with OS shell integration; see
featured items page in this section for more details
- Free Download Manager
home page http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
Free Download Manager
project page http://sourceforge.net/projects/freedownload/
- Download manager for Windows
- Aria home page
http://aria-rpm.sourceforge.net/
Aria project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/aria-rpm/
- Download manager for Linux
- Audacity home page
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
Audacity project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/audacity/
- Sound-file editing software
- The GIMP home page
http://www.gimp.org/
- Bitmap graphics editing software
- Inkscape home page
http://www.inkscape.org/
Inkscape project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/inkscape/
- Vector graphics editing software
- Pidgin home page
http://www.pidgin.im/
Pidgin project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/pidgin/
- Multi-network cross-platform IM client (formerly known as Gaim) see
Internet chat
- Miranda home page
http://www.miranda-im.org/
- Miranda project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/miranda/
- Resource-efficient multi-network IM client for Windows, in beta v0.7.1 as of Nov 2007; see
Internet chat
- FeedReader home page
http://www.feedreader.com/
FeedReader project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/feedreader
- Simple RSS aggregator; see tools for writers & researchers
- Eraser home page
http://www.heidi.ie/eraser/
Eraser project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/eraser/
- Secure file wipe tool for Windows; makes deleted files unrecoverable, by overwriting them multiple times with data patterns
- Bookmark Bridge home page
http://bookmarkbridge.sourceforge.net/
Bookmark Bridge project page http://sourceforge.net/projects/bookmarkbridge/
- Bookmarks synchronizer (0.72 beta released Feb 2004) see
bookmarks managers
- ol'bookmarks home page
http://olbookmarks.sourceforge.net/
ol'bookmarks project page http://sourceforge.net/projects/olbookmarks/
- Online bookmarks manager (requires Web server access)
- Notepad++ home page
http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/
Notepad++ project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/notepad-plus/
- HTML/CSS/Javascript editor; multiple documents in tabs, multi-language syntax highlighting, regular expressions support. See tools for writers & researchers.
- FileZilla home page
http://filezilla-project.org/
FileZilla project page http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla/
- Cross-platform FTP client; see ftp clients page
- AstroGrep home page
http://astrogrep.sourceforge.net/
AstroGrep project page
http://sourceforge.net/projects/astrogrep/
- An advanced file search utility for Windows. This does more sophisticated file/GREP searches than standard Windows Find can do. ("GREP" is the name of the utility that does this on a Unix/Linux box.)
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- Sun Microsystems: Java
http://java.sun.com/
- Source for the free Java Runtime Environment (JRE) download, which supports some extras features of OpenOffice.org (linked above under open source) and Java applets found on certain Web pages. If you have Microsoft Windows XP, Mac OS X, or a recent Linux distribution you should already have native Java support as part of the operating system.
- Adobe
http://www.adobe.com/
- Acrobat and free Adobe Reader for PDF files, Dreamweaver Web publishing, Photoshop image editing, PageMaker desktop publishing, and FrameMaker technical publishing.
- OldVersion.com
http://www.oldversion.com/
- Adobe's own Reader downloads are now online installers as is done with MSIE. OldVersion.com has the full install packages through Reader 6.0.1,* plus superseded versions of 60+ other applications.
- Corel
http://www.corel.com/
- WordPerfect Office suite including Quattro Pro spreadsheet and Paradox database manager; Paint Shop Pro image editing, Ventura desktop publishing
- Free Serif Software
http://www.freeserifsoftware.com/
- Software house Serif makes superseded versions of their products available free, including image editor PhotoPlus and Web authorship tool WebPlus.
- Zone Labs firewall and security software
http://www.zonelabs.com/
- Freeware version of the ZoneAlarm firewall is well thought of
- Symantec
http://www.symantec.com/
- Products including Norton Antivirus, the corporate standard, and Norton Personal Firewall
- McAfee Antivirus
http://www.mcafee.com/
- Also very popular
- Grisoft antivirus
http://free.grisoft.com/
- Including a freeware version
- FileMaker
http://www.filemaker.com/
- A very nifty users' database
- Poker Academy
http://www.poker-academy.com/
- If you want to learn to play Texas Hold-em poker, apparently this software is the way to go.
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- download.com
http://www.download.com/
- A primary source for general software downloads
- TUCOWS
http://www.tucows.com/
- "The Ultimate Collection Of Winsock Software," rated with little cow icons
- JoshMadison.com
http://www.joshmadison.com/software/
- Freeware Convert software does about any unit conversion you can think of
- NONAGS
http://nonags.com/
- Shareware/freeware site: "YES—We Have NO NagWare, CrippleWare, DemoWare, or TimeBombWare" (now with mirror sites)
- www.shareware.com
http://www.shareware.com/
- www.winfiles.com
http://www.winfiles.com/
- Was windows95.com
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