Internet Chat
There are quite a few free online chat clients. In fact, most chat networks make their chat clients available for free, but here are the notable ones:
- GAIM. Allows you to connect to multiple networks at the same time.
- Trillian Basic. This is the one I use. They have the Pro version which is not free, however the Basic version does pretty much anything you will ever want.
- HydraIRC. A free IRC client for those who like traditional IRC chats.
- X-Chat. Another very popular IRC client.
- Skype. Allows you to talk on the phone over the internet.
Video / Audio
Multimedia plays an increasingly large role in today’s computer use. We deal with more and more video files. And with the popularity of podcasts, more of us are not only playing audio on our computers but also making it. Here is some software to help with that.
- Audacity. A very popular, free sound editor which is also quite capable. Very popular among podcasters.
- Juice. A very popular podcasting client.
- Media Player Classic. A powerful media player that can play almost anything.
- VLC Media Player. A very powerful media player that can play almost anything, including DVDs and corrupted files.
- MPlayer
- Democracy Player. A great video player and organizer that also works very well for internet TV stations.
Web Development
Those of you who make websites or do programming, you’re not left out.
- Filezilla. A very nice, free FTP client.
- Notepad++. A free open source text editor complete with all the features a programmer usually demands.
- Nvu. A web authoring program that, in many ways, rivals Frontpage or Dreamweaver.
- First Page. Another very nice, free WYSIWYG design application.
- DBDesigner. A graphical database designer for MySQL.
- WinMerge. A great program for comparing files and finding/merging differences. I use it all the time when programming.
Utilities
We all need certain, everyday utilities on our PC that don’t really fit into another category. Here are some to keep you from having to fork over any coin.
- CCleaner. I highly recommend this utility to help keep your PC free of useless junk that gets left around. Keep Windows clean.
- PDF Creator. Create your own PDF files without having to buy Adobe software.
- CamStudio. A free screen recording application. Make your own screencasts!
- Daemon Tools. I use this utility to emulate a CD/DVD drive. Mount an ISO and work with it like a real disc!
There You Have It
This is a fairly comprehensive list of freebies available for your Windows computer. Many of these titles are quite good and rival the commercial equivalents. Whether you should go free or commercial really depends on what you need and want. For example, Microsoft Office is more polished in some ways than OpenOffice, especially when it comes to collaboration. However, OpenOffice does pretty much everythng most of us would ever want. In the area of accounting, however, there aren’t really any big names in free accounting software, and certainly nothing that would rival Quicken or Quickbooks. So, it all depends on your needs.
However, I set out to prove that you really don’t need to pay for any software for your Windows machine in order to make it useful. Many of us probably will purchase some commercial software, but the point is that you don’t really have to.
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