Free Software

Portals

Unesco free software portal  http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=12034&URL
_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html   info about and links to free software.

Download.com   http://www.download.com/windows/   Find lots of stuff here. You can search for many of the software listed here, and see how popular or well rated they are.

The Free Software Foundation   http://www.fsf.org/    The directory   http://directory.fsf.org/   has lots of software, but probably lots of technical stuff. The GNU project   http://www.gnu.org/   also links to the same directory.

Open Source Alternatives   http://www.osalt.com/   lists open source alternatives to commercial software.

Idealware   http://www.idealware.org/   provides candid Consumer-Reports-style reviews and articles about software of interest to nonprofits.

International Open Source Network,  http://www.iosn.net/   stuff about open source. See FOSS general, then software. I think the portal to software is here   http://www.iosn.net/foss/software/  

International Free and Open Source Software Foundation    http://www.ifossf.org/    actually, I'm not sure what this is, whether it has software or not. But it seems like an interesting organization.

101 Fantastic Freebies   http://www.pcworld.com/article/143642/101_fantastic_freebies.html   March 2008  lists a lot of downloads, some of which are listed here, like AbiWord

Best free software   http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2260070,00.asp   from Feb 2008.  Briefly mentions many software, like Lotus Symphony and others.
and Best free software 2009   http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338803,00.asp   from Jan 2009

Free Country   http://www.thefreecountry.com/   has pages for word processors and office suites   http://www.thefreecountry.com/utilities/wordprocessors.shtml   and free security stuff, and all sorts of free stuff.
   Freecountry.com is listed here
   http://www.fsa.gov.uk/Pages/Doing/Regulated/Returns/mtr/trs/faq/index.shtml    
   http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/Resc/netres.html  

Office suites, word processors,


This recent Earthlink newsletter   http://www.earthlink.net/elink/issue121/home.html   lists some free suites and stand alones, includin OpenOffice, NeoOffice, ThinkFree, Google Docs and Spreadsheets, AbiWord, Ajax13 and others.

Abiword   http://www.abisource.com/    free word processor, good for basic stuff, according to reviews in pc world and msnbc. These reviews are linked to from the abiword site. Abiword also runs on any platform, e.g., windows, linux, mac, etc.
    Abiword is from Gnome Office  http://live.gnome.org/GnomeOffice  which also has Gnumeric  http://projects.gnome.org/gnumeric/   mentioned below in the spreadsheet section.

IBM® Lotus® Symphony^tm   http://symphony.lotus.com/software/lotus/symphony/home.nsf/home   documents, presentations, spreadsheets. Based on open office.
   Announced here   http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22326.wss   and
   reviewed here   http://news.cnet.com/8301-10784_3-9780362-7.html    a C|Net story posted on Sept 18, 2007
   and here   http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338820,00.asp   best free software of 2009

NeoOffice   http://www.neooffice.org/neojava/en/index.php   a fully-featured set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X
   listed here    http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2338820,00.asp   best free software of 2009

OpenOffice   http://www.openoffice.org/   OpenOffice is another office suite.  Based on staroffice. OpenOffice 2.3 is now (sept 2007) available. Pretty good, almost comparable to MS Office suite. One main advantate (besides being free) is you can save to pdf.  Get more info on the support page,   http://support.openoffice.org/index.html   with forums, faqs, tutorials, etc.
    Hmmm, Open Office 2.3 was posted to download.com on Sept 18. On Sept 21, there had been 880,000 downloads. Popular! Five stars rating from downlaod.com, and 4 1/2 stars from users/reviewers.
    StarOffice is no longer available for free from Sun, but it is from twocows.com.

Open Office has a good review here  http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2332502,00.asp   from pcmag

The Open Office forum is here   http://www.oooforum.org/   I have a lot of trouble copying data from calc to impress, but one person said how to do it here      http://www.oooforum.org/forum/viewtopic.phtml?t=69087&highlight=impress+copy+paste   

Open Office add on stuff   http://www.ooomacros.org/   includes stuff for the writers, spreadsheet, etc. Some of this is statistical analysis.
Open Office tutorial   http://www.learnopenoffice.org/tutorials.htm   brief tutorials of many topics in OO

OxygenOffice Professional   http://sourceforge.net/projects/ooop   This "is an enhanced version of free OpenOffice.org what is a multi-platform office productivity suite. OxygenOffice Professional contains more extras like templates, cliparts, samples, fonts and VBA support."

Siag Office - A Free Office Package for Unix   http://siag.nu/   I found this through the Unesco free software portal. Spreadsheet, word processor, file manager, etc, for unix.

GoBeProductive   http://www.gobe.com/index.html    not free but $50, so cheap. Mentioned here   http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-136136.html   along with others.

EditPad    http://www.editpadpro.com/    text editor.  Listed as editpad lite on the site.  Easy to use.



Web based suites or word processors/spreadsheets stuff

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9007884
Review of zoho, ajax, google and thinkfree, from 2007.
http://www.pcworld.com/article/128248-2/the_webs_most_useful_sites.html
reviews several, including thinkfree and zoho.
http://reviews.zdnet.co.uk/software/productivity/0,1000001108,39284895,00.htm
review of google docs, zoho and thinkfree


Ajax13  http://us.ajax13.com/en/index.jsp   web based office suite.
   Listed here   http://statelibrary.alabama.gov/Content/News/TheBestofWeb2.ppt   which lists other programs too.


google suite   http://docs.google.com   docs and spreadsheets.

Peepel home office   http://www.peepel.com/   docs and spreadsheets. Not many reviews from major sites yet.
    one review here   http://opendocumentfellowship.com/applications/Peepel    from 2007 though.


ThinkFree   http://www.thinkfree.com/    free office suite, MS compatible.
   Listed here   http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=4451   positive review
   and here   http://ux.brookdalecc.edu/fac/tlc/fac/tlc_blog_post.php?id=11   along with google docs
   and here  http://training.tamu.edu/tips/index.php?tipId=78   as a computer tip.
   and here   http://statelibrary.alabama.gov/Content/News/TheBestofWeb2.ppt  


Zoho   http://www.zoho.com/   also office suite.
    Listed here   http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/web_office_update_aug06.php   .
    Listed here   http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=4451   positive review


Web browsers, ftp, etc

Lesser knows webtools   http://www.pcworld.com/article/130009-2/discover_these_lesserknown_web_and_email_tools.html   story about browsers. Mentions Mozilla, Avant, Maxthon, others.

http://www.thefreecountry.com/webmaster/htmleditors.shtml    lists free html wysiwyg editors. Freecountry is listed at these sites
Kent State   http://literacy.kent.edu/Oasis/Resc/netres.html   resources page
U Hawai'i 's   http://www.hawaii.edu/askus/706   Info Tech page

Web Dwarf   http://www.virtualmechanics.com/products/dwarf/   free program for web page, wysiwgy web editor. Over 400,000 downloads at download.com and good user reviews.   http://www.download.com/Web-Dwarf/3000-10248_4-10068166.html   


Maxthon browser   http://www.maxthon.com/    free. mentioned here
     http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/02/28/maxthon-the-browser-that-rocks/  
     http://www.download.com/Maxthon/3000-2356_4-10681895.html   high ratings
     http://www.memphis.edu/itd/webdev/resources/software/browsers.htm   University of Memphis web developers page


Avant  home page is here   http://www.avantbrowser.com/   Also free, and can be found at download.com, here   http://www.download.com/avant-browser/   rated very high and over 20 million downloads.

Opera   http://www.opera.com/   also free download and rating here   http://www.download.com/Opera/3000-2356_4-10005498.html   rated very high, over 7 million downloads.


Google chrome   http://www.google.com/chrome/   the newest, from google.


ws_ftp le   search  http://www.download.com    for fpt. (at download.com, more than 8 million downloads, 92% approval.)  The free version isn't available at the source any more.
 

IZArc  http://www.izarc.org/   create and read compressed files of various formats. This program is rated very well at http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Reviews/r676.html and  http://www.snapfiles.com/get/izarc.html.
 

Mozilla   http://www.mozilla.org/start/     Mozilla is no longer being developed, the new all in one application is seamonkey    http://www.seamonkey-project.org/     which has browser, email, html editing, and so forth. Mozilla also has firefox  http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/   a free browser, pop up blocker, other stuff.    

Flashpeak   http://www.flashpeak.com/   has many freeware programs, such as slimbrowser, blazeftp and intelliEdit.  Slimbrowser has a good review here  http://www.download.com/SlimBrowser/3000-2356_4-10101563.html   from cnet, and a good user and editor rating.


Operating Systems

cnet reviews   http://reviews.cnet.com/operating-systems/   lists OS systems, prices, brief reviews. Ubuntu has a good review, but it's not for everyone.

http://www.tech-faq.com/download-unix.shtml  describes bunch of OS systems, including Ubuntu, which says it's for laptops, desktops.

Freebyte's Guide to... Free and non-free Operating Systems   http://www.freebyte.com/operatingsystems/   lists a bunch with brief technical descriptions.  I, a non techie, don't understand a lot of it.

pcmap   http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,2806,2362,00.asp   brief reviews, mostly windows and commercial stuff, but also ubuntu

review   http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9124087   December 2008 review of Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE.  Says all are easy to install. Ubuntu is the best for beginners.

PC world   http://www.pcworld.com/article/146400/desktop_linux_faceoff_ubuntu_804_vs_fedora_9.html   review of Ubuntu and Fedora, from June 2008.  Both good, Ubuntu better.

Guide to linux   http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/158059/dont_fear_the_penguin_a_newbies_guide_to_linux.html   using Ubuntu as an example. Jan 2009.

Running linux in windows   http://www.pcreview.co.uk/articles/Windows/Run_Linux_in_Windows/   how to.



Ubuntu   http://www.ubuntu.com/    "Ubuntu is a community developed, Linux-based operating system that is perfect for laptops, desktops and servers. It contains all the applications you need - a web browser, presentation, document and spreadsheet software, instant messaging and much more."

Easy Instalation guide to Ubuntu.   http://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/155517/ubuntu_linux_the_easy_installation_guide.html   from December 2008

How To Install Ubuntu On Any PC   http://www.pcworld.com/article/164927/how_to_install_ubuntu_on_any_pc.html   "In this walkthrough, senior editor Robert Strohmeyer walks you through the steps needed to install Ubuntu--a popular distribution of the Linux OS--on a PC. This fast, simple operating system runs well on limited system resources, boots quickly, and is very easy to operate."


Fedora   http://fedoraproject.org/   another free linux based OS.



Misc


Scribus   http://www.scribus.net/   opensource professional page layout, desktop publishing.
  Scribus is listed as part of a class, introduction to linux, at the National Cancer Institute at Frederick, here   http://css.ncifcrf.gov/training/catalog.asp  
  and listed in this presentation from the Nebraska Department of Economic Development. Social networking and other new technologies. See the Feb 2008 minutes  http://www.nitc.ne.gov/cc/meetings/  


J    http://www.jsoftware.com/   "a modern, high-level, general-purpose, high-performance programming language. ... J is particularly strong in the mathematical, statistical, and logical analysis of data. "   (I'm not exactly sure what it is, but I've seen it mentioned many times.)
    This page   http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~smillie/Jpage/Jpage.html   has some tutorials.


Project managers

GanttProject   http://ganttproject.biz/    project management


Open Workbench   http://www.openworkbench.org/index.php   is an open source Windows-based desktop application that provides robust project scheduling and management functionality and is free to distribute throughout the enterprise.


PHProjekt   http://phprojekt.com/   is a modular application for the coordination of group activities and to share informations and document via the web.


OpenProj   http://sourceforge.net/projects/openproj/   desktop replacement of Microsoft Project.


Saving files on line

There are a whole bunch of sites to which you can upload and save files.  Some examples are

Mozy   http://mozy.com/home   up to 2 gig free
Mediafire   http://www.mediafire.com/   free to upload and save files.  But they say this is meant to share, not save.
Idrive  http://www.idrive.com/  

One review is here   http://www.pcworld.com/article/125729/store_it_on_the_web.html    with useful info


gspace, described here   https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/1593   lets you use your gmail account to upload and save files. I've used this. Seems pretty easy to use. Large files look funny on the gmail accounts, broken into several parts. Get a seperate gmail account just to back up stuff so it won't interfere with your regular email.

last verified 2/11/09