10 Oct 10 GT Video: Go Open Source or Go Home
You don't have to be a geek to want to save your money and download programs for free. Here are 5 of my quick picks for open source software.
You may be wondering, What is Open Source?
Open source generally refers to software that is released with open code and no restrictions on downloading, modifying or advertising the work. An open source program usually starts when developers publish their code where other developers can learn about it, download it, and play with it.
Where do you come in?
You can reap all the benefits of course by using the application for no cost to you.
Pros of Open Source software I use:
Firefox –Flexible
secure (noscript makes it arguably the safest web browser)
- Many add ons to do whatever you need
free (no charge, and not tied into anyone's operating system)
large community willing to help support people with problems (via mozillazine.org and others)
cross-platform (runs on Windows and linux for dual-booting fun! + Mac)
professionally developed and maintained by the Mozilla Foundation (non-profit) and the Mozilla Corporation (for profit)
(honorable mention to Thunderbird and other Mozilla projects, such as the latest version of the web browser - “Shiretoko”)
Openoffice – Supports almost every Microsoft Office format
free (does what the $150 version of Office does and more, including most features of the $500 version)
large community willing to help support people (try getting support from Microsoft)
much smaller and considerably faster than Microsoft Office
cross-platform (runs on Windows and linux for dual-booting fun! + Mac)
uses many of Microsoft Office's interface conventions, making switching between them easy
developed and maintained professionally by Sun Microsystems
GIMP
(GNU Image Manipulation Program) – free (is not a replacement for, but can be used by amateurs to do much of what Photoshop can do)
much smaller and faster than Photoshop
community support
cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac)
Pidgin – provides many of the features of non open-source IM clients such as Trillian
free and open source
small and fast
cross-platform (Windows, Linux, Mac)
KDEnlive – free and open source
many powerful features seen with commercial video editors like Sony Vegas
lightweight and fast
clean interface
- (only available on Linux , try Avidemux for Windows)
Reader Comments (10)
I knew nothing about this stuff, you sold me! I was seriously about to go out and buy photoshop today! I don't think I will be doing that now. Thanks for the tip! Great video by the way!