If you are working on a budget or just like tinkering, these programs are great replacements for Windows software. I’ve used quite a few of them (look for a * next to the ones I’ve used) and starting late July, I’ll be doing reviews of some of them.
Good luck!
Anti-Virus:
* AVG Free - http://free.avg.com/ww.download
* Avast! Antivirus - http://www.avast.com/
PDF Reader:
* Foxit Reader - http://www.foxitsoftware.com/
Media Players:
* VLC - http://www.videolan.org/vlc/
Media Player Classic - http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/
Web Browsers:
* Firefox- http://www.getfirefox.com
* Opera - http://www.opera.com
Email:
* Thunderbird - http://www.getthunderbird.com
Bit-Torrent Client:
* uTorrent - http://www.utorrent.com/
Anti-Spyware:
* Spybot: Search and Destroy-http://www.safer-networking.org/index2.html
IM:
* Gaim: http://gaim.sourceforge.net
* Meebo: http://www.meebo.com
Firewall:
* Comodo Firewall Pro http://www.personalfirewall.comodo.com/
This special feature, Geek Girl, appears every Monday. Subscribe to the Geek Girl feed to get new installments in your feed reader.
Juliana Peña on August 30th, 2007
1
Actually, most of these aren’t open source, but freeware. The only open source there is VLC, Firefox, Thunderbird, and Gaim. The rest are free as in $0 but proprietary. Just thought someone should make a distinction.
Ellie on August 30th, 2007
2
I stand corrected.