Freeware/Open Source Alternatives

[ken_cinder]

Ok, so I figured I would share and encourage the sharing of alternatives to oft bloated and costly software for (Usually) everyday use.

Feel free to contribute to the list, I'll add it to this post. Just be sure to denote what the software is, and it's homepage. Windows 98/2k/XP ONLY! (I don't know anyone still using 95, ME counts as 98 and Vista only stuff is of no use to most people yet)

 

Internet Browsers - Because Internet Explorer isn't

 

Mozilla Firefox

Opera

Lynx - Text Browser

 

Email Clients - Face it, Outlook Express has more holes than swiss cheese!

 

Mozilla Thunderbird

Anything else here people? Eudora is no longer developed, taken over by the Mozilla team.

 

FTP Clients - Because a standalone app does a better job

 

Filezilla

WinSCP

FireFTP (Firefox plugin, requires Mozilla Firefox)

 

Microsoft Office Alternatives (Can I say it any different? Didn't think so)

 

Open Office

 

Art Programs - Because Corel and PSP are great, but not FREE

 

GIMP

DrawPlus (I haven't used this, but it looks decent)

Picasa

IrfanView

 

3D Modeling/Animation - 3D Studio Max is THE best, bar none. But it's INSANELY EXPENSIVE!

 

Google SketchUp

Anim8or

Blender

[prithwin]

you forgot

image manipulation-GIMP

http://www.gimp.org/

Edited August 11, 2007 by prithwin

[Agozer]

The FireFTP Firefox extension (FTP client) can be found here:

 

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/684

[CJ Jackson]

You didn't mention Blender ( http://www.blender.org/ ) which goes under 3D modelling/animation it just behind 3DS Max, Blender was used to create a video called Elephants Dreams ( http://www.elephantsdream.org/ ) which I watched in HD myself.

 

As for the Internet Browser there also Safari ( http://www.apple.com/safari ) yes the new version does runs on Windows.

Edited August 12, 2007 by Hexter

[ken_cinder]

Added Blender, did not add Safari.

 

I knew of Safari already, but I did not add it because the Windows version is still a beta and has not had a stable release for Windows. Let me know when it does and I'll add it.

[iq_132]

Irfanview - http://www.irfanview.com/

Picasa - http://picasa.google.com/

 

Lynx - http://lynx.isc.org/

[CJ Jackson]

Multi-Protocol Instant Messaging, Trillian is free & useless (to me it is,) and Trillian Pro is better but is not free.

 

The best alternative is Pidgin (GAIM) ( http://pidgin.im/ ) and it very stable of course.

Edited August 14, 2007 by Hexter

[Ahmad89]

You also forgot SUPER which is a program for converting video and audio files. http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

[GodPigeon]

Paint.Net is an Awesome PS alternative and its super Small. Gimp is better, but still this is cool. http://www.getpaint.net/

[Weirdy]

For hard drive partitioning, there's gparted: http://gparted.sourceforge.net/

 

it can be used as regular software, a livecd, or liveusb

 

edit: replacement for Partition Magic

[Gryph]

Paint.Net is an Awesome PS alternative and its super Small. Gimp is better, but still this is cool. http://www.getpaint.net/

I love paint.net.

 

Also, another free and open source IM program is Miranda which is nice and lightweight.