The software that comes preinstalled on Windows PCs is often not the best or (in the case of preloaded trial software) cheapest you could be using.

This is a list of the best free alternatives to common Windows software. Despite my free software advocacy, I have selected the best in field for each category for day-to-day ease of use and of course it has to be free to download and use. I have given a screenshot and some benefits for each.

Right click on the images and click 'View Image' (Firefox) or paste their URL into the address bar (IE, others)

Word Processor

OpenOffice.org Writer

Replaces:

Microsoft Office Word

Benefits:

- Free software
- Looks and feels exactly like Microsoft Word
- Supports .doc, .pdf and many other formats

http://download.openoffice.org/2.3.0/index.html?focus=download

Spreadsheet Editor

OpenOffice.org Calc

Replaces:

Microsoft Office Excel

Benefits:

- Free software
- Looks and feels exactly like Microsoft Excel
- Supports .xls and many other formats

http://download.openoffice.org/2.3.0/index.html?focus=download

Presentation Editor

OpenOffice.org Impress

Replaces:

Microsoft Office Powerpoint

Benefits:

- Free software
- Looks and feels exactly like Microsoft Powerpoint
- Supports .ppt and many other formats

http://download.openoffice.org/2.3.0/index.html?focus=download

Web Browser

Mozilla Firefox

Replaces:

Windows Internet Explorer

Benefits:

- More secure than Internet Explorer
- Fully customisable theme
- Free, powerful plugins like Adblock, Fasterfox, NoScript and IETab
- Excellent support of web standards
- Inline search bar and spell checking
- Free software

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

E-Mail Client

Mozilla Thunderbird

Replaces:

Windows Mail / Outlook Express / Microsoft Office Outlook

Benefits:

- Built-in spam filter
- Fully customisable theme
- Free, powerful plugins
- Excellent support of web standards
- Get the features of Outlook for free
- Free software

http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

Media Player

MPlayer

Replaces:

Windows Media Player

Benefits:

- Support for more file formats than Windows Media Player without additional codecs
- Free software

http://smplayer.sourceforge.net/en/windows/index.php

CD Burner

InfraRecorder

Replaces:

Nero

Benefits:
- Many more options presented in an intuitive way and full progress reports through the burning process
- Free software

http://infrarecorder.sourceforge.net/?page_id=5

Operating System

Ubuntu Linux



Replaces:

Microsoft Windows

Benefits:
- Free software
- Much more secure than Windows
- Prepackaged with all of the above programs or equally good equivalents, also for free
- Comes as LiveCD: run the full version from a CD without affecting your hard-drive
- Package manager allows one-click full install and uninstall of over 20,000 free programs and games as well as constant automatic updaes of everything on your computer with new features and fixes
- Totally customizable interface and system
- Six-month release cycle
- 3D effects preinstalled
- All of this including 3D desktop at full speed on systems barely able to run Windows XP (256MB RAM, integrated graphics, Pentium III CPU)

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

nice, but actually google's free aps are better then open office.

They're about the same for the end user except OpenOffice has better standards compliance, inter-application compatibility and more feaures and Google Docs has online collaboration. OpenOffice is more familiar to the Microsoft Office user because of the "office suite" design.

I wonder if that's the same Mplayer that has corrupted 5 of my Hard drives over 3 computers.

No, really. Was a great player, minus the fact every time I used it, my hard drives got corrupted. Hopefully they've fixed that. Kinda important.

I'm going to try Ubuntu just cause I am curious... Let's see how this will end... XD

I fell in love with Ubuntu...

I'm gonna have to get that OpenOffice.org Writer because I somehow ended up with a disc of Word from 1994 or so, even though I'm on Windows XP. I don't know what happened to my recent Word. Anyway, if it can handle .doc's and feels like it came out in 1995 or later, it's a huge step up for me!



Hey lolita, I'm curious, but not enough to make the jump. How's Ubuntu working out for you?

You might be able to pull off the Sims on Ubuntu with Wine but thats likely to be many hours of study and some hardship though if you like Ubuntu its worth it my brother did the same so he could run Blizzard games and once you get it right sometimes you even find they run better than windows. The insane level of DRM and other spyware services in Vista that report home to MS every second of the day has me finally on the tipping edge to just making my next PC Ubuntu Linux. I'm well aware of the added difficulty it will cause for PC gaming but I'll just take that as a challenge to finally learn the workings of Linux OS more. As for the OP thanks for the link to InfraRecorder never heard of that look forward to trying that in lieu of Nero. @ Rubang you can burn the Ubuntu disc and try it out without installing a thing. Worse thing that happens you hate it and pop the disc out and choose not to install it. I actually keep a Ubuntu disc on hand specifically cause that capability can make it a useful tool to fix some file thats completely borked on a Windows machine in a graphic interface instead of dealing with a command line or something.

If you are looking for a great image editor, Gimp is the way to go. For freeware anti-virus, AVG free edition is the way to go. Both are completely free and very effective applications.

I have been using open office since about 2003 and it is a great program.

Google applications are cool and all, but they have a LONG way to go. Open Office is a very, very feature rich application set that google's software can't hold a candle to. I do applaud Google, however, and I hope they continue to pursue their goal of providing a feature rich application suite INCLUDING an outlook clone that has calendar sharing and such...

If I download ubuntu and install it will I lose all my documents/pictures etc?