Free and Open Source PC Software

From Evrose

There is a wide variety of Open Source and free commercial software available for home and business use. Some of this software is as good as, if not better than, paid-for commercial software. One difficulty is knowing which ones are worth having and which ones are, frankly, a waste of time.

Beware of two tricks often used by some to entice you to spend your cash.

• Free trials (sometimes not advertised as trials) are often a waste of time, not actually giving you anything use usable. As soon as it appears to do something useful, it stops and asks you to hand over your credit card details. OK, you've wasted some time but if its a reputable supplier, no other damage. But it wouldn't be unknown for you to have inadvertently downloaded and installed, quite willingly, something malicious that damages your PC or its security.

• Free scans are another method of luring you in. You don't know what it is really scanning or where it is sending the information, but as per the free trial, you've willingly downloaded and installed potentially dangerous software onto your PC and it may not be that easy to get rid of it. Never ever ever click on a "free scan" offer on the Internet. If I see one I try and close the browser without clicking anywhere at all - if need be by accessing the Windows Task Manager (Ctrl-Alt-Del) and stopping the browser there. Certainly never click on any button to decline the scan - just because it says "No Thanks" doesn't mean the underlying computer code that activates when you click "No Thanks" isn't saying "Yes Please, Scan my computer for passwords and personal financial information and send it to a hacker in China who can empty my bank account in 60 seconds flat." Why do people believe what some malicious criminal is saying to them just because they are saying it on a computer?

So what to look for...

• Make sure any free software from a commercial vendor comes from a reliable source. Google them and check what other users have said. Download from an official site or link on an official site. At worst you will just have wasted some time if it doesn't work out for you. Sometimes, but not always, there is some form of restriction on business use.

• Anything labelled Open Source is generally a fully functional and free forever piece of software. Often it has been developed and is offered by commercial companies alongside their commercial products. The other source is volunteer projects where experts collaborate in their spare time to produce some pretty sophisticated programs. It does no harm to do some googling to check the source out - misdescribing malware as Open Source isn't that common but must be a temptation.

We make no guarantees as to safety and take no responsibility if something goes wrong but the free and open source software we use for personal and/or business use, and have not experienced any problems with, include (Google for the links as they may change):

Office Suite - OpenOffice

This is a full suite of office programs, including word processor, spreadsheet, presentation tool, drawing package, etc. all compatible with MS Office files (including password protection). It isn't as pretty as MS Office but unless you have very specialised needs it will do all the basic stuff you could want at home or at work. As Open Source software it is completely free and has no commercial use restrictions.

Desktop Publishing - Scribus and PagePlus SE

OpenOffice Draw is said to have functional similarities to MS Publisher. Personally I don't see that and Draw is pretty ugly to be honest. PagePlus SE is a free version of a Serif commercial DTP package (the paid-for version is quite good value). The downside is that you have to register to get an activation code, and Serif will use the information to pester you. Scribus is an Open Source DTP package that is pretty sophisticated and award-winning, but may be too sophisticated for some.

Firewall - ZoneAlarm

The free version of ZoneAlarm should suffice for home use and is better than the one provided with Windows. Easy to install and use, it is a well-proven product. You will be invited to upgrade to a premium paid version and it is up to you but if you stick to the free version it won't stop working or give you inferior protection.

Anti Virus - AVG Free

Again, this is a free version of a commercial product. Personal experience is that AVG Free catches far more potential viruses than some of the well-known players. There are some premium features requiring a paid-for upgrade but I've never been tempted as the basic package does everything I need. Daily updates are free so this is every bit as good as one of the expensive subscription services. If you get a new PC with a trial of Norton or similar, don't pay when the trial expires, install a free virus checker instead. Recently AVG seems to have been causing some quite significant performance issues on a number of PCs and I have switched to Avast, see below, which appears to be just as good for virus checking but does not cause the system slow-down.

Anti Virus - Avast!

This is an alternative to the more popular AVG Free but has excellent reviews and possibly a better virus hit rate. There are some neat features such as an audio message when the scan is complete. It looks better than AVG and seems a little more flexible. I had trouble when an AVG file corrupted and I could not uninstall it, and when I did manage to remove it, I could not re-install. Avast! had no trouble installing. AVG has also been causing performance issues of late so I have switched entirely to Avast. So far, recommended.

Anti Malware - Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware

This picks up and removes malware programs you may have inadvertently installed, or that a wayward website might have secretly installed. Malware is not the same as a virus so needs a different treatment. The version of the program that I use is free but there are, I think, upgrade options.

Memory Card and Hard Disk File Recovery - Disk Digger and Recovery Manager

Hopefully you won't need this unless something goes wrong. When I lost 200 photos off an SD Card, I found some free trials that were essentially scans that then demanded $US50 to actually recover the photos. I was tempted but knew there would be something free out there. Most of the free and open source software did not scan deeply enough to recover more than about 40% of my missing photos. Until I found Disk Digger. Disk Digger got everything back. It is fairly basic and anything it could not do was easily achieved in Recovery Manager. Recovery Manager was not so good at finding the missing files but it does have some useful features for external cards etc. so more helpful when you haven't actually lost any data. Recuva is another completely free tool and by the same people as CCleaner but I have nothing to test it on at the moment.

Encryption - TrueCrypt

Now this is truly great. You can encrypt part of your hard disk, or USB sticks etc. with encryption that meets US government standards. Assuming you have set it up correctly, if your PC is stolen or you lose your USB stick, and you have stored sensitive data in the encrypted area, there is not a chance on Earth your average thief or finder will be able to get at that data. Even if they passed it onto experts, it would take a hell of a time to crack and is very unlikely to be worth the time and effort required. Note that encryption is illegal in some countries so check out local laws. It's OK in the UK. Completely Open Source, this will never cost you any money. Be warned though, the instructions are pretty poor, the terminology used is not easy to understand, and you need to think about what you are doing. Clear head and take it slowly.

File Shredding - Eraser

Deleted that file? No you didn't, you just deleted the index entry and it is still there - see Disk Digger above. If you accidentally delete a file, it is oh so easy to recover it. And so can someone who has stolen your PC or USB stick. So if you've deleted something sensitive it makes sense to make sure it has really gone. Eraser overwrites the file with random gobbledygook - the electronic equivalent of a paper cross-shredder. Takes some time to do this shredding but worth the effort.

Web Browser - Mozilla Firefox

Please use Firefox instead of Internet Explorer. Or Google Chrome. Or one of the other alternatives to Internet Explorer. Most Internet-savvy amateurs and professionals use Firefox at home even if they are restricted at work. Lots of useful add-ons including the Google toolbar, but allegedly much safer. You can set it to remove obvious traces of where you have been on the Internet when you close the browser. Quite useful if browsing "adult" content at home and share the computer.

Browser Privacy - IE Privacy Keeper

This small utility cleans up your browser remnants at the end (or beginning) of each Windows session. It works with Internet Explorer and Firefox. We used to use this to clean up Internet cafe PCs after each use.

Email Spam Manager - Mailwasher Free

If your email box is regularly crammed with spam, Mailwasher Free allows you to very quickly (even for hundreds of spam emails) view them and delete them before you download into your main email application. It automatically identifies about 90% of spam based on where it has originated. The rest it guesses and lets you confirm but it learns as it goes and the more you use it the better it gets. The free version is limited to a single email account but the setting is very easily changed if you want to check two or three. For more than that you are best off paying for the upgrade but wait until the banner on the application offers you a 50% discount. For 15 quid or so it is worth it.

Project Management - OpenProj

Compatible with MS Project, OpenProj is good enough for professional project managers, and will save you a small fortune over buying the MS product.

PDF File Creator - PDFCreator or CutePDF

Both these free programs will create a PDF file via the normal Print command in other programs, i.e. they set themselves up as printers. Each has its benefits and I use both. Unless you are doing something very specialist such as creating e-Books, where it might take a while to get the page size and security settings right, these will do anything that 99% of users might want. PDFCreator is Open Source so totally free for all time.

Zip File Utilities - Zip Genius and 7-Zip

Winzip used to be the only zip file utility anyone knew about. But you could only use it free for an evaluation period, opening the utility with a countdown became tedious, and it would not open some types of zip files like tar and gz archives (that a lot of web applications are zipped up in). Zip Genius and 7-Zip do a far better job and are completely free. We use both interchangeably.

FTP Utility - Filezilla

Filezilla is extremely easy to use. Transfer files using drag-and-drop, edit and rename files on the server, etc.

PC Cleanup - CCleaner

CCleaner is a small freeware utility that will analyse your computer and suggest files to clean up releasing disk space. It also gives a handy quick access to control all those pesky startup programs that eventually clog your machine and means it takes an hour to boot up completely. Why does Sun Java want to check for updates every day? Who knows, but it is annoying, and dead easy to disable. There are other built in ways of doing what CCleaner does, but I find it a neat alternative.

Defragment Hard Disk Utility - Defraggler

Advanced defrag tool to keep your hard disk at optimum performance and release space. Also seems to help prevent further defragmentation to a degree and advance schedule defrag tasks overnight. One unique feature of this tool is its ability to defrag specific files rather than the whole disk. By the same people as CCleaner.

Image Viewing and Editing - Google Picasa

Just because its from the Google giant doesn't make it a bad product. There are better picture editors if you want to pay for them (though GIMP, below, is free) but as a basic set of tools for the average man or woman, this will do everything you would usually want to do. There is a cool collage creator that I particularly like.

Image Editing - GIMP

Open source and therefore free, GIMP is a high end image manipulation program that has been compared to Photoshop. To be more accurate it could be considered at the high end of the amateur market or low-ish end of the professional market. More sophisticated than Picasa, but then Picasa's simplicity is both its attraction and weakness, plus it is more than an editor. If you are considering Photoshop certainly try this one out first; you have lost nothing if it doesn't work for you but will save a fortune if it does.

Print Screen Utility - Gadwin PrintScreen

Free for personal use, the Gadwin PrintScreen utility enhances the built in Windows screen capture function. See this BBC video for the why and how to use it.

Email Client - Eudora

When I got a new laptop with Windows 7 I could not find a built-in email client. I could have used Outlook from my full copy of MS Office but it is an old version and a bit creaky. After some research I opted for Windows Live Mail from the Microsoft site. It was a bit awkward migrating my Outlook emails to Windows Live Mail but by passing it through MailStore first (Google for the instructions) I eventually managed it. Eudora is, however, highly recommended by others. The reason I didn't go for it was because it was said some advanced features such as spam filtering (and I get a lot of that) are disabled unless you cough up cash. But Eudora are now developing a proper Open Source version that should be completely free. It is in beta stage at the moment but keep an eye out. Click here for other options. Note that as of Aug '10 the Open Source version of Eudora is available in beta versions for you to try out, at your own risk.

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© Evrose Business Consultants Ltd, 2009