Getting Free Software
Computer solutions for Australia's rural and remote communities.
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Once you have your computer, you need software to make it useful.
Most of the programs you want for your computer are available for free on the Internet.
The hard part is knowing what the good free programs are and where to find them.
Office
Open Office
provides an excellent office package which reads all the standard Microsoft Office file formats.
It includes not only a word processor and spreadsheet,
but also an image editor and a presentation program.
602
Pro PC Suite is a similar office package, but is better suited to older slower computers.
Image Editing
IrFanView is currently one of the popular downloads on the Internet.
It is an excellent image viewer, supports a large variety
of image formats and can interconvert between them. It can decrease the
colour depth of an image (to any custom setting), and can even act as a slide show viewer.
Be sure to also pick up the plugins, which extend the capabilities of IrfanView.
Utilities
Ultimate Zip
is an excellent tool for working with
archive files (e.g. ZIP, CAB, TAR, and many more).
Archive files are a popular way of transferring multiple
files as a single file.
They can also be used to span large files across multiple floppy disks.
Some of the applications in this list are stored in
ZIP files, and require a tool like Ultimate Zip to extract them.
Acrobat is a program to read
Adobe's
PDF (Portable Document Format) files, which is a popular platform independent
format for sharing documents. Many documents on the Internet are
provided in PDF format, as is the documentation for many popular applications.
Email
Eudora (by
Qualcomm
) is a mail
package that contains features not available in most packages, such as
skipping large mail messages (if you need a quick mail download) and storing
attachments separately (so you can delete the attachment and keep the mail
message). It even allows you to delete a mail message from the server,
without even downloading it.
Browsing The Internet
Mozilla was created by the
Mozilla
group to be a customisable browser,
and is used as the basis of the most recent versions of Netscape.
It allows more detailed control over features such as cookies and images than other browsers.
As a result, it can prevent unwanted pop-ups, and reduce advertising content.
It also supports the tabbed style interface.
Protection from Internet Nasties
Anti Virus
Every computer on the Internet needs protection from viruses.
AVG
and
Avast both provide free antivirus software.
Look at our virus page for more ideas about protecting your computer from viruses.
Anti Spyware
Spybot Search & Destroy
will search your computer for assorted nasty programs, and can also remove them.
It looks for programs like Gator that cause annoying pop-up ads, and dialers
that secretly redial to 900 number and run up your phone bill.
Firewalls
Kerio and
Zone Labs
both provide firewalls that detect and prevent Internet hackers from accessing your computer, and
control which programs on your computer have access to the Internet. Firewall programs can be an inconvenience, but
provide a high level of security while you are on the Internet.
Internet Troubleshooting
3D Traceroute
is a comprehensive but easy to use and understand network analysis tool.
In addition to standard Ping, Lookup, and Trace functions,
it can also trace the path of email messages, do port and IP scans, and even match the time on your computer to an atomic clock.
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