How to Not Pay for Software

As mentioned in a previous post, there are multitudes of companies that offer their products at a Student Discount Rate. However, I am going to tell you today how you can deck out your computer for FREE, starting from the operating system. How can you do this? A lovely movement called Open-Source Freeware.

Open-Source software is developed by people who have the philosophy that everyone should be able to freely access and share software. You can find them readily available through their websites, or through sites such as http://www.sourceforge.net. There is no catch, it is completely free! The main difference between freeware versus actual software is that the freeware may not have every individual tool or task that actual software does. A word of caution: be careful where you download from; as always, find some sort of virus protection (which you can also get for free!)

There are tons of programs out there that mimic Microsoft, Adobe, and other such company software. Below is a list of freeware that can equip your computer.

Operating Systems

http://www.ubuntu.com/  Ubuntu (like Windows, but linux based; this one is the most compatible with all other services))

http://www.haiku-os.org/  Haiku (like Microsoft Windows, and for normal computer users)

http://www.chromium.org/ Google Chromium (made for people who spend most of their computer time on the web)

Microsoft Office free alternatives

http://www.openoffice.org/    Open Office (like  Office)

http://www.google.com/google-d-s/b1.html  Google docs (like Office)

Adobe Products free alternatives

http://www.gimp.org/  Gimp (like Photoshop)

http://www.lightworksbeta.com/ Lightworks (like PremierePro or any video editor)

http://www.kompozer.net/ Kompozre (like Dreamweaver)

http://net2.com/nvu/ NVu (like Dreamweaver)

http://inkscape.org/ (like Illustrator)

http://creativedocs.net/  (like Indesign)

http://get.adobe.com/reader/ (Already free!)

http://www.foxitsoftware.com/Secure_PDF_Reader/ (Reader alternative)

http://www.scribus.net/canvas/Scribus (like Acrobat)

Media players 

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.html Video Lan (like Windows Media Player but better)

http://xbmc.org/ XBMC (all inclusive media player)

http://www.moovida.com/ Moovida

Virus protection

http://www.avast.com/en-us/index Avast (very user friendly)

http://www.malwarebytes.org/ MalwareBytes (best out there for malware protection)

http://www.avira.com/en/downloads#home AVIRA

http://www.avg.com/us-en/free-antivirus-download AVG

http://www.comodo.com/  Comodo

Audio Editing/Recording

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ Audacity

http://www.kreatives.org/kristal/ Kristal

http://www.wavosaur.com/ Wavosaur

Browsers (most browsers are already free)

http://www.google.com/chrome Chrome

http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/ Firefox

http://www.apple.com/safari/ Safari

http://www.opera.com/ Opera

Well there you have it. This should be enough to get you started on your journey to saving hundreds of dollars. Now go buy a discounted laptop, get your student discount on whatever kind of software you must have (Windows and Office are ones I would purchase), and the rest can be substituted with freeware. Good luck!

By Nicole with No comments