The Free and Open Source PC
The price of hardware continues to drop, with WalMart now offering a PC for $299 that includes Vista Home Basic and Open Office. With the combination of open source and commercial (but free) web-based software, the price of computing has never been lower. Here is a look at some of our favorite software available for the reasonable price of $0.
OFFICE APPLICATIONS
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Microsoft Office is no longer the only choice for basic business functionality – word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations. There are a variety of open source and web-based alternatives:
Open Office: This open source project originated with Sun Microsystems and now includes word processing, spreadsheets, presentations, and more. It’s compatible with Word and Excel so you can still open files from Microsoft Office users.
AbiWord: AbiWord is an open source word processor that is compatible with Microsoft Word and Open Office. It runs on Windows, Linux, QNX, FreeBSD or Solaris. There are also a variety of plugins that can be used to extend the functionality of AbiWord.
Google Docs & Spreadsheets: Google provides free web-based tools for word processing, spreadsheets, and soon presentations. It also offers collaboration so multiple users can work on the same documents. Google also offers a calendar tool for scheduling that can be shared with others.
Zoho: Zoho offers a basic office suite for free, with additional web-based software for scheduling meetings, project management, and CRM available for a low price.
Writeboard: From 37Signals, Writeboard is a free web-based text editor with collaboration features.
E-MAIL
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Replacing Microsoft Outlook for e-mail might be one of the easiest things to do with open source and web-based alternatives, most of which allow you to use your corporate or university email address with their software. In addition to the obvious Gmail and Yahoo Mail, there are also free downloadable applications for those that want email on the desktop.
Mozilla Thunderbird: From the makers of Firefox comes Thunderbird, now in version 2. Thunderbird is a full-featured email client with an interface that will be familiar enough for Outlook users, but advanced features for tagging messages, searching, filtering junk mail, and more.
Gmail – Google’s web mail product is still tagged “beta”, but a favorite of many for its fast loading and search capabilities. Check out how it compares to Microsoft Live Hotmail.
Yahoo Mail – Yahoo Mail has a very Outlook-esque feel, yet runs reasonably quick and provides unlimited storage.
Zimbra – Offers an open source version of their enterprise messaging software. The Zimbra client resembles Outlook, and is designed to allow you to integrate messages, contacts, and calendar data from it.
Zoho Mail – Zoho also offers a web-based mail client free for personal use. It also includes Outlook-like features like calendar and scheduling.
WEB BROWSING
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Mozilla Firefox – The most popular alternative to Internet Explorer, Firefox features tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, and tons of plugins you can use to customize your experience. For example, check out our 40+ Firefox Add-ons for High Speed Blogging.
MEDIA PLAYERS
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Songbird – This Mozilla-based media player is much like their other products, supporting a variety of skins and extensions. Songbird also includes a built-in web browser for so you can play and save songs from web pages.
Miro – Miro is an open source video player that supports virtually any file format, allows you to save videos from YouTube and others, and download Bit Torrent files. Miro also comes with 1,500 built-in Internet TV channels from video bloggers and RSS feeds.
INSTANT MESSAGING
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While AIM, Yahoo Messenger, and MSN Messenger are all free, there are several good alternatives that not only provide high quality IM, but allow you to communicate with friends on multiple networks.
Pidgin – Pidgin allows you to sign on to multiple IM accounts at once across different IM networks, so you can be on AIM, MSN, and Yahoo all at once.
Jabber – Jabber is an alternative to the major IM networks while still providing access to them. Jabbers offer a wide variety of code libraries and other resources for developers that want to contribute to the project.
Trillian Basic – Another popular IM client, Trillian also supports the ability to sign on to multiple networks and accounts at the same time. They offer a plugin API for developers. The Pro version costs money.
SECURITY
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While McAfee has a stronghold on the commercial antivirus market, there are several open source projects looking to unseat the costly leaders in protecting your computer.
ClamWin – This non-profit project relies on a large community of supporters helping maintain a current registry of viruses, spyware, and other evil stuff. It includes automatic upgrades and a scanner for Microsoft Outlook attachments.
Nmap – “Network Mapper” is designed for scanning large networks and ensuring they are secure.
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Whether you are looking to save money or simply tired of Microsoft, essential computing features can now be had legally at no cost. There are literally thousands of other pieces of free and open source software that can be used to customize your computer as well from graphics to games to serious business software. Feel free to add some of your favorites in the comments.
mashable.com
