Buying a new computer can be expensive enough in itself, however important software can add to that cost. In this post, free alternatives to expensive software will be discussed.
One of the most important things to have on a computer is strong antivirus software, to keep your computer safe. Software such as Norton Antivirus will do this job well, however, it can cost upwards of $40. There are however several free alternatives. Most notable of which are AVG Anti-Virus Free, and Avast free Antivirus. Both are very popular and seem to work well, however Avast seems to have slightly better user reviews.
As discussed in the Students' Guide to Buying a Laptop, there are also good alternatives to Microsoft Office products. Open Office is a good free open source office suite that offers much of what Microsoft Office offers.
When it comes to photo editing software, Photoshop is recognized as being the best. However, costing hundreds of dollars makes it unaffordable to most. A good free alternative is Paint.net, which is relatively easy to use, but is only available on computers running Windows. GIMP is one of the most popular free alternatives to Photoshop, being able to run many platforms, and having most of the features of Photoshop. Although neither of these programs have all of the bells and whistles of Photoshop, they will both likely meet the needs of the average user.
PrimoPDF is a very handy free program that allows you to print to PDF.
Two other usefull free programs that you may want to put on your computer are VLC Media Player, and 7-Zip. VLC Media Player will play just about any video file, even those that will not play on your typical video players. 7-Zip is a free file compression program.
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