***Good freeware replacements for that bloatware you buy***

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Kaos36

709 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 37968 22-Jul-2009 15:07

Most of yous probably already know some of these ive added.

Just some of the apps ive been trying over the weeks, I no longer use Photoshop, the more they add to photoshop the worse it becomes IMO - thanks to Gimp 2 who needs Photoshop nor do i need MS Office thanks to OpenOffice. They are all legal freeware, all software stated here work well.

Feel free to add any other freeware you might know about. (Im going to make it that every software on my PC is freeware, cause im cheap :D )

Free Download Manager version 3.0 http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/
Great tool for downloading compared to pay to use ones available.

OpenOffice 3.1 http://www.openoffice.org/
Delete your costly Microsoft Office bloatware, open office does some things better and can open MS docs if needed. Wont cost you a cent either!

Gimp 2 http://www.gimp.org/
Delete your Photoshop your paying hundreds for their software where Gimp although slightly harder to learn is free and far superior!

Paint.Net http://www.paint.net/
A good Windows Paint replacement with more tools than you can shake a stick at!.

Gmax http://www.turbosquid.com/gmax
Cut down version of 3dStudio max (graphics editor) which you have to fork out $4k to buy. Gmax will suit you fine.

Comodo Antivirus/firewall http://www.comodo.com/
Good freeware security. Like Avasti and AVG, Comodo also offers there all in one security suite (antivirus/Firewall/Antispyware) free as well.

BurnAware http://www.burnaware.com/
No need for Nero! Burn data/Multimedia or create cd images. Great tool.

Worst Response To A Crisis:
From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

tonyhughes

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# 237916 22-Jul-2009 15:35

OpenOffice 3.1 http://www.openoffice.org/
Delete your costly Microsoft Office bloatware, open office does some things better and can open MS docs if needed. Wont cost you a cent either!

I hate hearing this sort of statement. It's a stupid thing to say.

We have spent a few thousand dollars on MS Office products, and it gives us total compatibility with our partners, clients, dealers etc, hooks into our server really well (Where is OpenOffice's Exchange client if you are saying I should delete it?), and provides a familiar UI, with no learning curve. Also, when things go wrong, our IT integrator of choice can send any of their trained staff on site if I am available. (There is just not enough support for FOSS in our area to get meaningful support without headaches).

We percieve MS products, for our business to be overall a better prospect, better vendor support for our needs, better integrator support, and no headaches between us and the people we deal with, where even minor formatting differences can create huge headaches for us.

I am a longtime user and support of FOSS, and have been using OpenOffice since it was first publicly available a long time ago.

But saying stuff like "Delete your costly Microsoft Office bloatware" is totally counterproductive, and for MANY people, would cause HUGE problems.

Telling people to delete their commercial software when they have already paid for it? A dumb stance to take.

Delete Photoshop? I will make a note to call everyone I know in graphic design, and get them to do just that. I'm sure it will have a postive effect on their productivity and profit.

tonyhughes

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# 237924 22-Jul-2009 15:40

We also love our Exchange Server environment to bits, with Exchange on the server, Outlook on desktops, mobile clients, web access.

And I can hand on heart say that this setup absolutely increases our productivity, and our ability to manage our communications, and that we have definitely hit our payback period.

bazzer

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# 237940 22-Jul-2009 16:06

You use an Exchange server at home? I got the impression that the OP's post was aimed at home enthusiasts rather than anything else.

tonyhughes

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# 237943 22-Jul-2009 16:12

bazzer: You use an Exchange server at home? I got the impression that the OP's post was aimed at home enthusiasts rather than anything else.

Yes I do utilise Exchange from home. I VPN to my office server and connect directly, or use RPC over HTTPS depending on my machine.

bazzer

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# 237951 22-Jul-2009 16:19

I'll assume you're beng deliberately obtuse...

Ragnor

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# 237952 22-Jul-2009 16:19

I use 7zip over WinZip but Beyond Compare over WinMerge... use the best app for the job and take into account total cost of ownership imo!

Kaos36

709 posts

Ultimate Geek

# 237977 22-Jul-2009 17:02

tonyhughes:
OpenOffice 3.1 http://www.openoffice.org/

Delete your costly Microsoft Office bloatware, open office does some things better and can open MS docs if needed. Wont cost you a cent either!

I hate hearing this sort of statement. It's a stupid thing to say.

We have spent a few thousand dollars on MS Office products, and it gives us total compatibility with our partners, clients, dealers etc, hooks into our server really well (Where is OpenOffice's Exchange client if you are saying I should delete it?), and provides a familiar UI, with no learning curve. Also, when things go wrong, our IT integrator of choice can send any of their trained staff on site if I am available. (There is just not enough support for FOSS in our area to get meaningful support without headaches).

We percieve MS products, for our business to be overall a better prospect, better vendor support for our needs, better integrator support, and no headaches between us and the people we deal with, where even minor formatting differences can create huge headaches for us.

I am a longtime user and support of FOSS, and have been using OpenOffice since it was first publicly available a long time ago.

But saying stuff like "Delete your costly Microsoft Office bloatware" is totally counterproductive, and for MANY people, would cause HUGE problems.

Telling people to delete their commercial software when they have already paid for it? A dumb stance to take.

Delete Photoshop? I will make a note to call everyone I know in graphic design, and get them to do just that. I'm sure it will have a postive effect on their productivity and profit.

Calm down mate i didn't mean to offend. :D OF course if you want to use MS & PS go right ahead. Just letting others know there is other software out there thats free and can do just what these overpriced apps like MS Office, Photoshop can do and in some cases much better. Ive been using MSOffice since 'Office 97' and been using Photoshop since v5.

Only software i will probably stick with when it comes to MS is their Windows although i would love to delete it and throw on Ubuntu but windows wins cause its a platform for most games. Running XP pro, didn't like Vista, but pretty keen with the Windows 7 due out.

@ Ragnor

Yes 7zip is a goodie, I also use Winrar over Winzip.

Worst Response To A Crisis:
From a readers' Q and A column in TV GUIDE: "If we get involved in a nuclear war, would the electromagnetic pulses from exploding bombs damage my videotapes?"

vixflix

1 post

Wannabe Geek

# 237994 22-Jul-2009 17:36

Hi ..

I agree we have a choice of open source and Free Software alternatives over M$ and Ad0be over priced products, but their are people out their like me who gets M$ office in the office and during work from time we use the same line of producs be it over VPN of offline.

1. Problem is when you have PSTs you cant even think of switching.

2.
a. Gimp may be superior over Pshop but is definately not intutive like it.
b. lack of third party plugins filters specialy the ones provided by OnOne.

Please let me know if you have any alternatives to OnOne's plugins or a permanent work around for PSTs, These 2 things are my major hurdles in switchin to Ubuntu over M$ vistas, Xps and 7s.

--------------
http://theprotel.com

d3Xt3r

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# 238288 23-Jul-2009 14:41

> ImgBurn over BurnAware/Nero/etc if all you want to do is burn some files, create a cd-image or burn an image.

> Comodo AntiVirus is horrible. I highly recommend Avira instead of Comodo. But their firewall is the best you can get in freeware.

> Go-oo instead of OO.o, because Go-oo has better MSO compatibility and better performance.

> IOBit Smart Defrag + Sysinternals PageDefrag + JKDefrag + UltraDefrag over Diskeeper/PerfectDisk, to get Set-it-and-forget-it, file layout optimization, MFT/Metadata and Offline defragmentation.

> toonel.net and/or Opera Turbo over Onspeed/Propel/Artera

> DriverMax instead of Driver Magician/Driver Genuis/etc

carlsberg

4 posts

Wannabe Geek

# 238795 25-Jul-2009 00:25

If you are in a university, you can actually get very decent discounts on software. I got my copy of CS3 bundled together with my laptop that was purchased from the Univ computer store. XP, Vista AND Office 2007 came with it for free. No reason for me to discard any of them :P

For entertainment, freeware/open source is perfectly acceptable...but for work, I would not give up known and trusted utilities.

Photoshop CS3- I prefer this over the GIMP any day of the week; I especially don't like the latter's UI. There is a huge knowledgebase available for everything to do with Photoshop. And Photoshop is very very powerful.... I've been using it for 2-3 years now, and i feel as if I've only scratched the surface. And ofcourse, I can never give up Camera Raw.

MS Office- Again, the universally accepted format in most commercial environments. I really like Word and Powerpoint (Excel, less so, hehe), they meet my needs just fine. All scientific journals (atleast in my field) accept .doc files without a problem. In fact, they prefer .doc.

Defragmenter- yes there are freeware utilities out there, but Diskeeper has always been safe, and has features like system files defrag, multiple drive simultaneous defrag, automatic defrag etc that freeware utilities lack. With DK2009, just install and forget..that's all you need to do. If some utility gets to have access to all the data on my disk, it has to be reliable.

Anti-virus- it's a tough call, and I've found that Avira's Antivir Free edition actually works better than the commercial version of McAffee and Norton, but maybe not as good as Kaspersky. So all payware is not necessarily good :P

Firewall: Comodo is decent, but I just use the Windows built-in.

Burner; I do like Nero...seems to be able to handle anything you throw at it, and it's usually bundled free with the DVDRW drive. Otherwise, IMGburn or CDBurnerXP are good options to replace Nero