A Few Good Open Source Programs

What is Open Source is the question most of you would like to ask. Open Source softwares are free softwares available for download and customisation. The source code of the program is open to all. This is a boon to programmers as it allows them to change anything about the program.

Here are a few Open source programs i find most useful in my daily computing life.

(1) Launchy: It is an open source program that indexes the programs in your start menu and other folders. You can also specify the folders to be indexed. Also, you have to specify the type of files to be indexed. For eg: if you wanna index only executable files in a particular folder you must type “.exe” in the specified field.

You can launch the indexed files with just a few keystrokes.

Tech Tip: If you wanna index all files type “.*” in the specified field.

Site: http://www.launchy.net/

(2) Audacity: It is a free, open source cross-platform [multi-OS] sound recorder/editor. It is recommended for advanced users.

Site: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

(3) Feedreader: It is a desktop rss feed aggregator. It automatically downoads updates from your favourite websites, so that you dont have to check them all manually.

Site: http://www.feedreader.com/

(4) GIMP: It is short for GNU Image Manipulation Program. It is a photoshop-like tool for editing pictures. Has a lot of features so dont waste your time and hard disk space on photoshop when you have GIMP.

Site: http://www.gimp.org/

(5) Juice: Here is a good open source, free podcast receiver. Download your favourite podcasts to your pc and listen to them. you can also schedule the podcast and juice will let you know when the new podcast is available.

Site: http://juicereceiver.sourceforge.net/

(6) OpenOffice.org: Finally! something to compete against Microsoft’s Office Suite. This li’l package is available on all platforms. Needless to say it is a collection of applications similar to microsoft word, excel, access, powerpoint etc.

Site: http://www.openoffice.org/

(7) VLC Media Player: VLC Media Player is an open source media player from VideoLan project team. If you want nothing but compatibility then dude/gal this is for you.

It plays almost any audio/video file format without the need of any codecs or anything else. I suggest you keep a copy of this player in your PC along with your favourite player no matter what.

Site: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

(8) 7-zip: This is a file archiver program for windows. It supports packing and unpacking of 7z, ZIP, GZIP, BZIP2, and TAR format files and supports only unpacking of RAR, CAB, ISO, ARJ, LZH, CHM, Z, CPIO, RPM, DEB and NSIS.

It provides better compression ratio than WinZip for ZIP and GZIP formats.

Site: http://www.7-zip.org/

(9) Thunderbird: The email client alternative for outlook from mozilla foundation. It has everything you need to keep control over your mails. Organize, secure and customize your mails with ease. It has a pretty simple interface too.

Site: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/thunderbird/

(10) Firefox: The Best cross platform browser available to a person. And the best part – Its Free! It is safer, better than any other web browser. It has a huge add-ons, skins, extensions database to make it the best and the most powerful browser.

I Recommend this browser for those who still use Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Site: http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/

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