I am writing this article because many of my friends and colleagues do not know that there are many free alternatives to what most people call "essential" software. Things like MS Office and Antivirus. There have been many articles written about this and I am sure there will be many more.
Anyway, on to the article......
I have always been a proponent of free software. This dates back to the early 90's when I was first getting to PC's heavy. I have always tried to help the small guy that would release his software for free in hope of getting feedback and make it better.
Times have changed, and the free software available today has changed. There are now companies that have fully developed, very finished products that are free for personal use. This is great news for those that wish to save a few dollars and still have decent software that is comparable to the big guys that charge mega bucks.
The first free alternative I want to talk about is Open Office. Open Office has been around for many years. It will open the most current MS Office documents with the exception of the Beta Office 2007. If you are used to MS word and MS Excel the window views are very similar. So for a great alternative to the extremely expensive MS Office, give Open Office a try. You may find yourself saving a bunch of money.
The second free alternative is the must have antivirus software. there are three free candidates that offer great protection. First would be Antivir Personal Edtition. This requires registration via email. They do not sell your email address. It will perform automatic updates without user intervention. Has a small enough memory footprint that it will not kill your machine. There is also Avast!. Avast! also requires registration. But Avast! has a larger memory footprint than the others. Still works great. Lastly is AVG. AVG is basically the same of the others, but does not automatically update itself, you have to initiate the update manually. For some this may be a pain.
The third free alternative is Anti-spyware. There are two that I like to use and they can be installed together if you find that you want that type of setup. Spybot S&D and Ad-aware SE. Both products clean spyware/malware from your system adequately. Both have their advantages.
njoy and happy safe computing!
TMS
