Open source software has
lots of advantages over
other ‘free’ options
you’ll come across –
even if you’re not a
developer yourself. It’s usually maintained by a community and
updated frequently to patch vulnerabilities or
squish bugs as soon as they’re
identified; there are no restrictions on commercial use,
so you can happily use it for your home business; and the ability to edit the source means there’s often a
wealth of user-created plugins available to
download.
You’ll find open source versions of pretty much every software imaginable – from office suites to media apps. With that in mind, here’s our pick of the very best open source
software.
There’s no need to pay for Office with this open source alternative
LibreOffice is a full suite of office software, including excellent apps for text documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and databases. These are all fully compatible with the latest Microsoft file formats, so you’ll have no trouble sharing files that work with users of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and
Access.
LibreOffice’s huge community of contributors have compiled a brilliant collection of support materials, including a forum and
even live chat if you
need a hand.
Our favorite open source photo editor, packed with powerful tools
If you don’t need the power of
GIMP and prefer a simpler
interface, check out Paint.NET – another superb open source photo editor that’s a little lighter on features, but easier to master.
VLC Media Player is one of the world’s most popular free media players, and for good reason – it can handle just about any audio file, video file, or media stream you can throw at it, without the need to mess
around installing additional codecs.
VLC Media Player gives you an amazing degree of control over playback, letting you optimize video and audio for your specific hardware
configuration.
Great for new users, and an excellent substitute for Windows Movie Maker
The perfect open source tool for recording and editing podcasts and music
Audacity is the tool of choice for many
podcasters, musicians and
audiobook narrators thanks to its professional
quality results. You can use it to combine clips, copy and paste sections of audio,
remove noise and other
unwanted noises, strip vocals from songs, alter
frequencies, and apply effects like
echo and reverb.
6. WEB BROWSER: MOZILLA FIREFOX
An powerful, fully customizable browser with a plugin for every purpose
The browser wars show no sign of ending, but Firefox’s open source heritage makes it incredibly flexible. Its main appeal is its collection of extensions. With thousands of plug-ins available at the click of a mouse, it’s easy to transform Firefox into your perfect browser.
Firefox is updated every five to eight weeks, and you can get an early taste of the latest features by installing the beta or taking part in Firefox Test Pilot – a way to sample experimental tools that might be incorporated into future releases.
Firefox’s source code forms the basis of many specialist projects, including the security-focused Tor Browser and speed-centric Waterfox, which is designed with power users in mind.
A free client that’s an ideal replacement for the defunct Windows Live Mail
If you have multiple email accounts – even if they’re with the same provider – open source email client Mozilla Thunderbird will save you
time and hassle flicking between browser tabs and logins. Like Firefox,
Thunderbird is an open source project published by the
Mozilla Foundation, and is
almost infinitely adaptable.
Thunderbird’s standard features include an RSS reader and the ability to link to files too large to send as attachments, and its optional extras include weather forecasts and Google app tabs.
Generate strong passwords for accounts and store them in a secure vault
There’s no shortage of free password
managers, but KeePass Password Safe is our favorite open
source option. It’s not flashy, but it’s packed with all the tools and features you could want, including AES encryption of
your entire database of login details (not just the passwords
themselves), two-factor authentication via both a master password and key file, and secure random password
generation.
KeePass is tiny, and because it’s a portable program you can carry it on a USB stick, and thanks to an extensive library of plug-ins, it’s easy to integrate with your preferred browser and cloud storage provider.
If you run your
own website,
the chances are you’ll
need FTP software to upload files
directly to your server. While there are some good existing FTP
clients out there, FileZilla is
probably the best free
version you can use.
It does all that you need to with a file
upload client, which remains
relatively simple anyway. On the
left pane,
FileZilla presents you with a view of your folder selection (from Windows Explorer, if using Windows) where you can ensure you select your folder of files to
upload – on the right, the
pane shows your location on the server, which will be a similar-looking file tree.
You just need to ensure
you click through the folders on the
right pane to the place where you want to
upload your
files, such as within the Public_HTML
folder on many Linux servers. Then it’s simply a matter of using drag and drop to move your files to upload from the left pane and into the right pane.
If you need to CHMOD permissions for files, that’s as easy as a right-click on any files or folders you need to apply them to, and that’s about it.
It used to be the case that Linux was solely the preserve of geeks and code junkies – it made little attempt to appeal to a wide user base. Those days are long since over, and varieties of Linux have made a big effort to be a lot more user-friendly for people with little if anything coding knowledge, and present a serious rival to Windows and Apple Mac iOS as alternatives for running your desktop.
These efforts have helped to edge Linux
toward the mainstream, as underlined by computer giant Dell moving to sell Linux desktops and laptops directly to the public. Better still, Windows remains the target of
choice for hackers,
so Linux presents itself as a more secure alternative, so long as you keep updates fresh.
Another problem from the
old days is that most software applications were developed for Windows. However, the move toward cloud computing and browser-based applications means that it no longer matters which
operating system you use for many popular applications, so if you’re looking to run your computers for business rather than gaming purposes then much of the time
Linux can be a perfectly valid choice.
Probably the biggest difficulty in moving to Linux these days is actually the choice available. Rather than being one
operating system, Linux is actually a platform
from which a number of different “
flavors” or “distros” have
developed and grown from. Although they all run from the same basic source code, each has been programmed to cater for different uses and emphasis – some are great for home use, others are focused on servers.
Whichever you want to look at, remember that you don’t need to
be stuck to any particular Linux flavor – you can
uninstall any you don’t like and install any you’d like to try. And if you need help making a decision, check out
our reviews.
