Alternatives to 'expensive' software

It is 'heartbreaking' to spend a large amount of money to invest in office applications, security tools and other necessary programs. Why not use free software or other lower cost software but quality

It is "heartbreaking" to spend a large amount of money to invest in office applications, security tools and other necessary programs. Why not use free software or other lower cost software but not inferior quality?

You think: Free software often has a bad, unfriendly interface, often confusing users.Furthermore, they have few features or are limited.But that's just the past!Currently, there are many software that provide full functionality with a nice and friendly interface that is provided free of charge.But can these software beat the leading software in the world today?

Here are the software in many fields that can compete with "giants":

"Transfer" to the new office

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If you need a suite of software to edit documents and calculate data in spreadsheets, OpenOffice.org is a good alternative to Microsoft's leading suite of software.This suite supports well for Word and Excel formats, so you can exchange information with colleagues using Microsoft Office suite easily and quickly.

OpenOffice "maps" almost entirely to the structures of Microsoft's current Office suite. Not only at text editors, spreadsheets and presentation software, OpenOffice includes database applications, Visio-like drawing and charting software, and tools for editing tools. Math formula.

OpenOffice offers many new features. Example: Calc spreadsheet program, provides 33 different toolbars into the program window, with lots of useful buttons. Many features are really attractive and a lot of features that users will have to discover for a long time. However, OpenOffice also has some disadvantages. For example, your document has a lot of revision from colleagues. In Microsoft Word, simply right-click on these revisions and choose to accept or reject these modifications simply. Meanwhile, OpenOffice also has this feature but you will have to work harder. The user will receive a drop-down list containing all the information that the editor has created. To accept changes, users need to scroll and search for appropriate modifications in this long list.

Although it is still not a perfect replacement for Office, OpenOffice provides convenience to users and reduces dependence on Microsoft products. One of the other attractions of OpenOffice lies in objective reasons: Microsoft Office is always the target of hackers, while OpenOffice is just an "outsider."If you can't afford to invest 350USD in Microsoft Office software, Open Office is the perfect choice.OpenOffice 2.0 is available at:http://www.openoffice.org/

Free email program

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Thunderbird's free email program was developed by developers who created Firefox.Like the Web browser has become popular and there are many fans, Thunderbird is a good email program, truly a worthy competitor of Microsoft Outlook.

Thunderbird provides the same interface as the Outlook program (Outlook costs $ 109) and other email programs.Thunderbird can cram all mail information: like titles, dates, senders, and other information into one line of text.However, this feature makes reading information more difficult to use than Outlook - this program provides information into two lines of text.

Finding information, data in Thunderbird is fast and simple.Users can search for information in emails in sections according to the way you like.The program can also import messages from other popular email programs like Communicator 4.x, Eudora, Outlook, and Outlook Express.

Thunderbird's spam filtering is also quite good. Without "training", Thunderbird has filtered out 72% of spam. If "trained" by manually removing about 100 spam messages, Thunderbird's spam-killing ability increases to 95%.

What points are still not convincing users compared to Outlook?Thunderbird is not a collaboration tool.This software does not provide work schedules or job managers.If it's simple, you only need a program to send / receive mail effectively, Thunderbird is always an option.You can download Thunderbird at:http://www.mozilla.com/thunderbird/

Graphic expert

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Adobe Photoshop is the top graphics software.However, spending a few hundred dollars to own this software, you can't afford.Are there any more attractive options?Of course!

Many users are very satisfied withGIMP( GNU Image Manipulation Program ), an open source graphics processing software.GIMP provides many useful tools that Photoshop Element and other image editors do not have.As GIMP allows to use multiple selections, work with layers (layers) and paths as well as the ability to select multiple effects, and use alpha channels (alpha channels) to create transparent images .

However, GIMP is no match for powerful and powerful software like Photoshop Creative Suite 2. But compared to Photoshop Elements, GIMP offers more powerful capabilities.However, the red-eye removal feature in Elements is faster and more convenient.In addition, GIMP's interface is a bit confusing.The palette windows, tools, and images are all separate windows, and the commands are not identical.Some of the shortcuts are also heterogeneous between tools, which is often confusing.

Although GIMP is a bit difficult to use, it is still an attractive software package.Provide many useful tools, bring many effects for beautiful images.GIMP is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux operating systems.

Security software

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Security is always a matter of gaining the attention of many users.Do you need to buy a "premium" software suite like Norton Internet Security?

This great set of tools provides everything you need from antivirus, firewall, and anti-spyware tools . However, the price is not cheap at all, The price for the set is priced from 70USD.Spending a lot of money to buy Norton Internet Security is not easy.Not only that, the toolkit requires a long time to install and also "consumes" 300 MB of hard disk.Which basically users can use the free software alone to have similar features.

You can use individual, free software while ensuring safety:

A heavyweight competitor allows the virus to be powerful, fast and effective as Norton Antivirus isAVG'sfree antivirus software.If Symantec updates virus samples weekly, AVG will update new virus samples as soon as they are released.For example, when the Bagle worm was discovered, AVG was immediately recognized after several hours of updates, and Symantec provided it the next day.

About the firewall, both Norton's firewall and ZoneAlarm keep the computer "invisible" when surfing the Net and protecting the computer from intrusion. ZoneAlarm offers an option to automatically decide which programs are allowed to access the Internet, and only requires users to decide when needed. When tested on a virus-infected device, Norton's firewall still does not control pop-up windows, and advertising activities still go out and ZoneAlarm's firewall does not happen.

About anti-spyware software, free software such as Ad-Aware SE Personal, Spybot Search & Destroy . is also a good choice.If you have aspare, you can also useSpy Sweeperfor about $ 30 and allow 14-day trial.This is the most effective anti-spyware program among spyware removal programs.

CD / DVD burning program

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Speaking of CD / DVD burning software, it is impossible not to mention names such as Nero and Roxio.But software suites are always market leaders, always offering exciting new features and improvements.But to meet the needs of normal burning, free software can also meet.

To record digital music, you can use music players such as Musicmatch Jukebox 10, or Windows Media Player can also allow you to record your favorite music instantly, quickly and in good quality. Good though slower than other commercial software.

To burn data to CDs and DVDs, you can use DeepBurner 1.7 . DeepBurner is simple and easy to use. This software burns data CD and DVD very well, also brings high quality as when burning CD / DVD in ISO format. The program also has the ability to burn CD music discs from MP3, .ogg files and .wav files.

The software converts to PDF format

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Very few users create PDF files using Adobe Acrobat 7 software (costing $ 299).Although, Acrobat is a "born" person in PDF format.Adobe also offers a service that allows you to create free PDF files without spending a dime.This service limits each PDF file to only 100 MB and up to 50 pages to upload and will only process each file for 10 minutes at a time.This limit will greatly affect your work with complex files and high resolution images.

To be more flexible and powerful, try Acro Software's CutePDF for $ 50. With this tool, users can create PDF files that combine lots of text, images and edit existing files. You can also easily merge PDF files, extract from certain PDF files, add backgrounds, add titles and input forms . About information protection, CutePDF provides password protection and embed digital signature. But CutePDF lacks the ability to integrate into Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, print management capabilities .

A more expensive software that offers much better features and integration capabilities is Global Graphics Software's Jaws PDF Creator ($ 84). This software contains printer drivers, as well as desktop icons for drag and drop to convert documents into a simple PDF format, while providing the ability to install additional toolbars. PDF tools in Word, Excel and PowerPoint.Jaws PDF Creator also encrypts 128 bits files that provide printing and editing capabilities.

Download and try out the software packages introduced above to get your best judgment.Hopefully these tools will be really helpful in your work.

Minh Phuc