Free Useful Programs
There are tons of free programs out there that are very useful and great alternatives to some of the high cost competitors. You would be amazed at the wide variety of software people are putting out for one of 2 reasons. 1) to get their company or personal name out there as a developer or 2) simply to provide an alternative to high priced programs
So, are you wondering what these programs are and how to get them? Let’s take a look!
Anti-Virus
There are a few good anti-virus programs out there and two of which I’m going to mention here. The first is AVG Anti-Virus. They offer a subscribe version as well as a free version. With the free version, you get virus protection along with mediocre spy-ware protection. There are some things you may want to disable when you first install it – like having it scan when you turn on the computer if it missed it scheduled scan. This would always drive me nuts; wondering why my computer is going so slow when I first turn it on.
Avast Anti-Virus is a great alternative as well. You will want to check out their site for more details on how these two programs are different.
Productivity Software
When Microsoft came out with their latest version of Word 2007, it quickly hit everyone that when they would work in it and try to e-mail to other people who haven’t upgraded yet, they couldn’t open it. Every few years, Microsoft will do that; release an upgrade that is not compatible with older versions.
For those of you who have no productivity software at all, and don’t want to cough up $150 for the student version of Word or $399 for the whole package, there is a free alternative that contains all the same capabilities.
OpenOffice.org has fully functional word processing, spreadsheet tools, publishing tools, and presentation tools totally comparable to Microsoft Office. You will find this program very easy to use and user friendly. It has so many features to it, you will think you own the world because you were able to get it for free!
Internet Browsers
Because most viruses and spy-ware are directed towards Microsoft, it is a good idea to use a different interent browser besides Internet Explorer.
I prefer Firefox over the others because it has all of the functionality of Internet Explorer and then some. Of course, the other browsers have their great features as well. Click on any of them to visit their site and decide for yourself which one you would prefer.