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Freeware software means that
a company offers their software for free, anyone can use
it, and you don't have to pay for the software. Just
because it's free doesn't mean that the software is necessarily
less than the commercial counterparts. I've found
that most freeware software is either equal to or better
than programs you pay for. You're also able
to find programs that wouldn't be commercially distributed
because it does one small useful task that might not be
"commercially" viable. Here is a listing
of my favorite freeware software, I'll be adding to this
list regularly and giving reviews of the best freeware on
the net. All of these programs are for Windows Operating
Systems.
OpenOffice
- Businesses, home users, or anyone that wants a replacement
to the Microsoft Office suite of products, look no further
than OpenOffice. What is OpenOffice? Basically
it's everything that Microsoft Office is, but it's completely
free. It has word processing, spreadsheets, PowerPoint
like displays, and many other features you would find
in Microsoft Office. It opens doc files so you shouldn't
have trouble sharing information with other people that
use Microsoft. I give this a full 4 star rating
because it's just great to find something of this high
quality for free. It's a little hard to find the
download on the page, but if you go to OpenOffice.org
you should be able to find the download links. Note
this is for all MS operating systems and also they recently
released a Mac version. So this is a download for
everyone. It's about 50 mb big, but well worth the
download.
Pixia
- Everyone at one time or another will need a graphics
editing program, whether it is to punch up some pictures
or make some graphics for a website or to add devil horns
to your bosses picture, umm, yeah well, haven't we all
done that sort of thing? Now you could go with a
program like Photoshop, the mother of all graphics editing
programs, only it costs $699, yes, you saw that right.
Well, there are cheaper alternatives like PaintShop Pro
or Photoimpact, both good programs for about $80 to $90,
still expensive if you just use the program once and awhile.
Well, that's where Pixia comes in, this is a rich graphics
editing program that allows you to do all the basic photo
editing the average person would want. The price
of this great program? Yep, Zero, nada, nothing!!!
This is the perfect solution for most people that need
a graphics editing program. It was originally a
Japanese program, but they've translated it into English.
For professional graphics this program is a little light
and would never replace Photoshop, but for editing photos,
adding some text, doing some neat filters, this is a perfect
program and more than enough for most users.
ieSpell - I just downloaded this program and thought
to myself, "Great idea, why didn't someone think
of this sooner!" Basically this is an add-on
to your Internet Explorer that will do a spell check on
words you type in at forms, message boards, guestbooks,
webmail, etc. It'll add a little icon in your IE
toolbar and you just click it when you want to spell check
something you've written. Example, if you use Yahoo
mail, this program can quickly check over your spelling.
Just a great program. You can download it here www.iespell.com
Ad-Aware
- Grrrrrr spyware, I hate spyware, I detest spyware,
and now I can find spyware easily with Ad-Aware.
Basically this program will scan your hard drive for spyware
and ask if you want to delete it or not. One simple
click and the spyware is gone. Just one note, some
programs won't work once their spyware is removed...personally,
I would just delete any program that contains spyware,
it's just tacky and wrong to include such things in programs.
You can download Ad-Aware at
http://www.lavasoftusa.com/
iProtectyou -
I reviewed this program here but
I like it so much I thought I would included it here as
well. Basically its a webfilter, no even more, a
whole computer filter to keep you kids away from material
you don't want them seeing on the net. You can download
this program here: http://www.softforyou.com
AVG Antivirus - Probably the best freeware Antivirus
software available at the moment. This happens to
be the AV software that I use and recommend to people.
Stable, easy to use, automatically checks incoming and
outgoing emails, has a automatic download manager and
scheduler so you can set up a schedule to download new
updates (important so your virus database is always up
to date) and you can schedule scans, say late at night
when you know you won't be on your computer. Just
a great piece of software that in my mind is better than
most of the commercially distributed AV software.
If there would be any complaint, it might be that the
virus database isn't updated as fast as say Norton's would,
but I really haven't noticed that much of a delay.
So download this, you have no excuse to not have an AV
program. Download it here :
AVG Antivirus
EMS
Free Surfer mk II - Okay, the name for this program
is sort of, umm, well, okay it isn't the best, but the
program itself is great. Its a popup blocker that
will stop those annoying popup ads. This also stops
a number of other things like, animated gifs, those annoying
scripts that forces a page to be your homepage, flash,
etc. Great little program that works the way it
should. Download EMS
Free Surfer mk II
Rambooster - This is an interesting little program
that will help you keep your computer up and running without
having to reboot. Windows will fill your ram memory
up with information and eventually your ram will get full,
and slow down your system, until you have to eventually
need to reboot. This program basically frees up
the ram memory that Windows will fill up with unnecessary
information. Great program if you leave your computer
running for days at a time. Download it here:
Rambooster
That's the freeware list for now, I'll be adding new reviews
constantly so keep checking back here.
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