My Favorite Free Software

I have a huge budget for software, to run my business and some just for fun.

BUT, it’s always a very nice surprise to find something of great value, that fills a need, and doesn’t cost anything. Over the past year or so, I’ve kept a list of my Top Freebies.

I’d like to share these with you. I have no affiliate relationship with any of them, so this is totally unsolicited information, and I stand to gain nothing by telling you, except the satisfaction of knowing I’ve passed on some great information and possibly made your life easier.

1. Mozilla Firefox – This is my browser of choice. It is a free and open source web browser, and its popularity is gaining rapidly on the incumbent Internet Explorer. For more information, you can visit Mozilla’s website. Just put a dot com after the name. There are also some fantastic plug-ins and add-ons to this browser. It’s worth getting familiar with.
2. Jing – This is my favorite screen capture software. I can hardly believe it’s free because it’s so powerful – quick and easy to use. It will also give you 5 minutes of video capture. You can download it from jingproject.com. It is part of a great family of programs, e.g., it’s the “little brother” of Techsmith’s Camtasia Studio. There’s also SnagIt. Check them all out, but download Jing for sure. The little half-sun sits at the top of your screen, ready for instant use without clicking or searching for it.
3. Skype – This freeware package allows users to make telephone calls to other users of Skype for free. Calls to a regular phone line or a mobile phone can be made for a very small fee, but the basic service is free. This is a great VoIP service used a lot by people living in different countries who are computer savvy enough to also take advantage of the web-cam feature. It also has instant messaging and file transfer features. Definitely worth looking into!
4. Open Office – You can find this software at the open office dot org address. This is the leading open-source office software suite that includes word processing, spreadsheet software, presentation software and also a data base management product. It comes in many different languages and works on all common computers. You can read and write files that are compatible with the more well-known MS Office software. It’s completely free. If I hadn’t already spent my money with Microsoft, I wouldn’t.