If you're paying for your software for your PC, read this first! Anna Powell shows you how to get great software absolutely free.
Back in March, we wrote about how to kit out a PC for free. The suggestion was you could get a free machine from Freecycle, and then install the free operating system Ubuntu Linux.
Now, even as someone who's both a self-proclaimed money-saving fiend and a geek, I think that's pretty hardcore. If you've done it, good on you - Ubuntu is fantastic. In my opinion, it's the first version of Linux that is genuinely easier than Windows to install and use. I run it on my laptop. And it has all the other advantages of Linux, which we won't argue about either here or in the comments (please).
But what if, like most of us, you've already got a decent PC? It probably runs Windows - indeed, it probably came with Windows already installed. And if you're not interested in learning about Linux for its own sake, there's probably no particular reason to switch.
Well, if that's the case, then there are two important things to say. Firstly, you shouldn't need to pay for almost any other software. Secondly, there's all kinds of free software that's worth knowing about. So this article is about the best bits of free software out there for Windows users.
Free as in beer
First, a quick note on what I mean by 'free', to avoid confusion. Geeks make a very important distinction between two kinds of free software: free as in beer, and free as in speech.
The first, obviously, is stuff that doesn't cost anything. The second is software where, broadly, the code is freely available. Free-as-in-speech software is awesome and the future, which is pretty much all you need to know.
However, in this article, I'm looking at software that is free as in beer. That's because the purpose of this article is to save money rather than the world. Some of the software I mention here is open source, and some isn't.
Apart from not costing anything, the only other thing shared by the bits of software mentioned here are that they run on Windows, and that I've used them extensively myself and found them easy and reliable.
Star of the show
My first recommendation is a piece of software that absolutely everyone should have. It's called Dropbox, and it's a way to share your files between computers, and back them up online. And it costs nothing.
It's ludicrously simple to use. You install it on your own computer, then define a particular folder as your 'dropbox'. Anything you save there automatically gets backed up online, with a full version history. And, if you install Dropbox on another computer, you can share your 'dropbox' folder between the two computers. So it's easy to share work - no more carrying USB keys around.
Dropbox is free for up to 2GB of files, which is lots. I can't recommend it enough.
Don't pay for conversion
Probably the most common kind of paid-for software is conversion software, where you need to convert an obscure file format into another obscure file format.
If you use Google to search for conversion software, the first page of results will usually be expensive bits of software with good search engine optimisation, and do just that one thing for about £20. Bah! Look lower down the list. There's usually something free.
The most common conversion problem is Word to PDF. You can pay for the full version of Adobe Acrobat to do this, but I prefer CutePDF, which is free.
Freephone
Do you have Skype yet? If not, it's the granddaddy of free software - it lets you make free phone calls to other Skype users, anywhere in the world. All you need is a headset with a microphone.
A quick way to get Skype, along with lots of other useful free stuff, is to download the Google Pack. You may not want everything on here (personally, I'd be a bit careful about RealPlayer and Google Desktop - I find the first unusable and the latter more memory-hogging than useful), so just remove anything you won't need.
Another day at the office
If you don't already have Microsoft Office, I would recommend Open Office, although with slight caveats for large files (I'll just say, back up your work).
More and more, I've started to use Google Docs. If you have a Google account, you too can use this - the major advantage is that it makes it super-simple to share work with other people. Install Google Gears to work on documents and Gmail offline.
Picture this
IrfanView is simple and great for basic image viewing and editing - it's way better than the free image programs in Windows.
For advanced image editing, I like Gimp (basically a free version of Photoshop), although some people don't. You can do a lot online these days, too - try SplashUp.
Music
We've written about cheap alternatives to iTunes before, but for completely free listening, Spotify is fantastic. Last.fm is genius, too.
And finally...
My favourite small, useful bit of free software is SpaceMonger. It gives you a visual representation of what's filling up your hard drive.
I know I haven't mentioned anti-virus software, but slightly heretically, I don't actually use it myself.
A final note - sometimes, people are put off free software because they think it'll be harder to use. Quite the opposite, in my experience. But if you do get stuck, there's a quick guide to geeks' own technical support methods in this cheat sheet (from XKCD, a web comic that's wildly popular with self-proclaimed nerds). See - nothing magical!
I hope some of this is useful. But what have I missed? Please let us know your own favourite bits of free software in the comments boxes below.
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