Top Quality Free Software

Open Source software which you might find useful – September 2017

There is some very good software out there, Microsoft Office or Photoshop, for example. These are industry standard applications which you would likely use if you are in the workplace or a specialist. However, there are free alternatives for those of us who might be occasional users or who prefer to join the open source movement. You will often see software presented as free when in fact it is designed to extract money from you. You may find your version is a time trial or a cut down version with key features which you have to pay for. Here I have compiled a list of software which, for the most part, is completely free and Open Source. You might think that Open Source software might not be good software. However, the model of world wide communities of volunteers collaboratively creating applications has actually proven to be highly effective. Many open source applications are, in fact, as good if not better than their proprietary counterparts.

Let me know what you think about these powerful free tools for getting the job done

Office Suite – Libre Office https://www.libreoffice.org/

Sound editing – Audacity http://www.audacityteam.org/home/

Video editing – VSDC http://www.videosoftdev.com/

Diagramming tool – Dia http://dia-installer.de/

Mind Mapping tool – Edraw https://www.edrawsoft.com/mindmap/

Image Editing – Gimp https://www.gimp.org/

Lighter image editing – Paint.net https://www.getpaint.net/download.html

Project Management – Gantt Project http://www.ganttproject.biz/

Desktop Publishing – Scribus https://sourceforge.net/projects/scribus/

Accounting/Financial Software – GNUCash https://www.gnucash.org/

Media Player – VLC https://www.videolan.org/vlc/index.en-GB.html