8 must have open source apps for windows!!

8 must have open source apps for windows!!

Open source softwares are available for windows. The benefits of using them are many: apart from helping you to get your work done in an efficient manner, open source products can also save your additional expenses because they are either free or comparatively cheaper than their privately owned counterparts. Here are eight open source softwares/tools that a windows machine must have:

 

Open Source refers to a program/software which can be modified and distributed by anyone freely without having to take anyone else's permission. The source code of open source software can be downloaded and you can contribute to programming the software. They are not just for Linux machines since they are device independent. If you using a smart phone with android OS then there are various open source apps you can use on it. Also for an iPhone user, plenty of these apps are available.

  

Let’s have a look at some of these Apps:

1.    LibreOffice

LibreOffice is of genuine standard when it comes to replacing a proprietary tool with an open source one. Now days, Almost everyone relies on Ms Office for doing day to day jobs, spreadsheets and other related tanks. And this tool will work for you as an image editor, word processor, spreadsheet software, a presentation tool and various other features.It is a fork of the Open Office project (by Oracle, formally handled by Sun Microsystems, two very respectable companies and innovators in the tech field).LibreOffice is open source, and free! , which is its best part. LibreOffice is very compatible with Microsoft Office, and also supports the .odt file format, and has many of the great features of other office suites such as MS Office. It can be downloaded from the website -> http://www.libreoffice.org/ 

If you're wondering whether it will harm your computer or not, I can assure you, it is a safe download, one that you will not be disappointed with. It will take some time to download and install though, depending on your Internet connection and other factors.When it comes to saving some money then using LibreOffice over Microsoft office is not at all a bad idea. You can do the comparison between the two-Comparison between Ms Office and LibreOffice.

2.    Mozilla Firefox


Who doesn’t know about Firefox, it is one of the leading browsers used all over the world. One must have Firefox installed in their devices for browsing as it is fast to use, comes preinstalled with flash player so that you can watch videos and play games on it without much effort whereas In case of Google chrome, you have to install the flash player separately. In case of downloading, it depends on the speed your internet is currently at, and the RAM inside your computer. But Firefox provides a more user friendly interface than Chrome.
From my point of view and experience, Firefox is great since Aside from the fact that Firefox blocks some scripts that could install viruses and steal private information from you, it has a community of add-on developers. Meaning: Free skins, free ad-blocking add-ons, free download managing add-ons, and a multitude of other add-ons to make your browsing safer and more convenient. And the fact is Firefox itself is... Free. It's open source, which means you have hundreds to thousands of developers looking at its code, constantly finding bugs and resolving them. 
It can be downloaded from the website -> www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/

3.    Mozilla Thunderbird

If you are using software such as Ms Outlook for sending your mails, consider giving a Mozilla thunderbird a try. Apart from sending your message, emails effectively, it comes loaded with a plenty of productivity features such as calendar, task management and so on. From my user experience, Thunderbird doesn’t crash as much as outlook, my outlook has crashed several times, thunderbird is also so much faster and easier that’s really all I can say. Take a look at some of its cool features. Thunderbird gives you power and ownership over your email. There are lots of add-ons available for Thunderbird that enables you to extend and customize your email experience.
 All in all, it is Free!  And a great alternative to costly email management tools.
It can be downloaded from the website -> http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/

4. The GIMP

The gimp is an open source free image editing program backed by a loyal community. It runs on various platforms such as Mac, Linux and of course windows. Migrating to this software is a good decision when you are looking for an alternative to Photoshop for image editing and do not want spent anything. GIMP offers photo retouching, image composition and image authoring and is positively compared by users to Adobe's Photoshop and Illustrator applications. Its various tools and add-one will help you to get most out of it.
Take a look at some its silent features at http://www.gimp.org/features/
It can be downloaded from the website -> http://www.gimp.org/downloads/

5. Inkscape

While GIMP tool is for the day to day image editing and authoring, the inkscape tool is for the vector graphics. The open source software is rather powerful and flexible piece of software which gives proprietary and massive vector editors a run for their money!!!
The Key difference between Gimp and Inkscape:

GIMP is used to: 
• Touch up photographs
• Make basic animated GIFs
• Image tweaks
•Create Logos/Advertisements etc.

Inkscape is used for:
•Rasterized printing (If you wanted to print a logo on a T-Shirt vector graphics are often used because vectors are not resolution dependent and therefore can be distended/shrunk without losing any quality)
•Graphics Design - The usefulness and flexibility of vector images make them a very natural canvas to use when creating different forms of graphics such as logos/signs/banners or drawings.
Get Inkscape from http://inkscape.org/ - that's the developer's site and it is safe. Inkscape is good software and probably the nearest free alternative you'll find to Adobe Illustrator.

6. Scribus

Scribus is an open source desktop publishing software program used for creating professional page layouts and press-ready page designs. It has a user friendly layout and is backed by extensive documentation. Some of its great features include colour separation, CMYK, Spot colour, ICC colour management, PDF creation and editing etc.
Download the software from- http://wiki.scribus.net/canvas/Download

7. Audacity

Audacity is a free open source digital audio editor and recording computer software application, available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and other operating systems. What you can do with it:
•    It can be used to record musical instruments and vocals.
•    Record music or any sounds playing on the drive.
•    Record tapes or LPs.
•    Remove vocals from pre-recorded songs. How well depends on the song.
•    Cut a long continuous track such as a concert into separate tracks.
•    Cut and combine clips of multiple songs into a dance mix.
•    Speed up, slow down and change pitch of songs and more.
Download for free if you like it at- http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

8. Peazip

Most of the downloaded files come in form of RAR, ZIP, and ZIPX files and so everybody needs an extractor to unzip/extract these files. The most popular options for working with these archived files are WinZip and WinRar. But if you are looking for a free and capable alternative, Peazip is a worthy contender as you can extract/open and test more than 150 archive formats both from Windows and Unix worlds, ranging from mainstream formats as 7Z, RAR, TAR and ZIP to experimental ones like PAQ/LPAQ family, currently the most powerful compressor available. The windows application even lets you protect, encrypt and authenticate your data. It is entirely open source and explore its many other features to manage your files with ease.
Free Download of the software from- http://peazip.sourceforge.net/