Free Software
The Open Source Movement makes available all sorts of software applications free of charge. A number of companies provide free, cut down versions of their products in the hope you might like it enough to purchase the full version. Other companies provide free tool and utilities out of generosity. Either way, there's plenty of free applications available - you never need to buy anything you need to get your job done. Here's a selection.
Web Browsing
Mozilla Firefox
The premier free, open-source browser. Tabs, pop-up blocking, themes, and extensions. Considered by many to be the world's best browser.
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Mozilla Thunderbird
Powerful spam filtering, solid interface, and all the features you need.
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Word Processing / Office Suites
OpenOffice.org
Big, full featured suite of tools for word processing and spreadsheets. Compatible with and a free replacement for Microsoft Word documents. Also supports OpenDocument Format.
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AbiWord
A word processor. Leaner and quicker than OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Word documents and OpenDocument Format.
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Video Player / Video Podcasting
Miro
Beautiful interface. Plays any video type (much more than windows media player). Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
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VLC
Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
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MPlayer
Similar to VLC-- plays loads of video formats.
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IM - Instant Messaging/Chat
Pidgin
Connect to multiple IM accounts simultaneously in a single app, including: AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber.
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aMSN
MSN Messenger client written in TCL/TK aMSN Messenger
RSS
RSSOwl
Solid cross-platform RSS client.
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Peer-to-Peer Filesharing
Cabos
A simple, easy to use filesharing program. Gnutella network.
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Gnucleus
A very good Gnutella search and download filesharing program.
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Azureus
A powerful, but complicated BitTorrent client. So many features you'll lose your mind.
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DVD Ripping / Video Conversion
Media Coder
Great tool for ripping CDs, DVDs, etc and converting between tons of video formats.
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Handbrake
DVD to MPEG-4 ripper/converter.
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Podcasting
Juice
Solid podcasting client.
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Sound Recording
Audacity
Simple sound recording tool.
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Graphics / Photo Editing
GIMP
Photo editing application that rivals Photoshop in features.
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Paint.NET
Graphics editor with a very nice interface.
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Inkscape
Vector graphics application.
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FTP / SFTP
Filezilla
Excellent FTP program.
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Archiving
PeaZip
Fantastic archiving utility to extract and pack archives of an extensive amount of formats. PeaZip also features password protecting archives, keyfile support, system integration, a lovely interface, and much more.
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Note Taking
Freemind
An innovative application for note taking and outlining. Takes time to get used to, but some people swear by it.
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Personal Finance
GNUCash
Simple, easy to use application for managing personal finances.
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Screensaver
Electric Sheep
Immersive, trippy screensaver.
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3D Graphics and Modeling
Blender
Powerful 3D Modeling software.
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Stars and Outer Space
Celestia
Open-source 3D planetarium software. Akin to traveling through space (outer space).
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Stellarium
"Renders realistic skys in realtime." See what you would see if your city wasn't so light-polluted. Used in real planetariums.
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Security Tools
AVG Free
Free Anti-Virus from AVG. Cut down version which will do the job. Small footprint means it doesn't effect performance in the way McAfee and Norton do.
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ClamWin
Open Source Anti-Virus. Very good at detecting viruses. Can be plugged into hMailServer for e-mail protection LIMITATION: Real Time scanning not implemented yet
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Eraser
Delete files securely off your hard drive utilizing DoD standards
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Utilities
Cobian Backup
Backup software.
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7-Zip
File archiver.
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