Free software
Free does not have to mean illegal these days. A lot of freeware software is not only free but on a par with the paid for versions. You can upgrade to paid versions in some cases to give you better functionality however most give you the full monty straight out of the box. Lets be honest we are all watching everything we spend so why should we do the same for our software. You will be glad you did.
I gave up using MS Outlook when I ended up with nothing but problems. I now use Thunderbird. You can download it for free and I would recommend that you download the dictionary (British English dictionary) and the calendar feature. It takes a little time to get used to the slightly different interface but other than that it is the most stable email client I have come across.
Browsers
You do not have to stick to the Internet Explorer that you have been left with on your PC or laptop, there are now a number of really good browsers available all for free. My favourite is Firefox but you can have Safari, Opera and Chrome.
Office
You do not have to use Microsoft Office, I now use Open Office. A few more are listed below:
| OpenOffice.org | Complete professional freeware office suite, with professional word processor, spreadsheet, etc. (50 – 70 MB). Versions available for Linux, Windows, Solaris and Max OS X. |
| Portable Open Office | A fully functional edition of OpenOffice.org optimized for use on an external USB drive. More specifically, you can connect the USB drive to another computer (which does not have Open Office installed), and run it directly from the USB drive without needing to install Open Office on that computer. |
| Siag Office | Free office suite for X-Windows (Unix): contains a spreadsheet, a word processor and an animation program. |
| KOffice | Office suite for KDE (K Desktop Environment, Linux). Includes KSpread, KPresenter, KChart, KImage, KIllustrator, KFormula and KWord. |
| Neo Office | A set of office applications (including word processing, spreadsheet, presentation, and drawing programs) for Mac OS X. Freeware, open-source; based on the OpenOffice.org office suite. |
