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    Freeware substitutes for bloatware

    Discussion in 'Panasonic' started by Shawn, Feb 26, 2010.

  1. Shawn

    Shawn Crackpot Search Ninja and Options Whore

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    In another thread I mentioned freeware or open source replacements for anti virus and Adobe.
    I figured I would start a new thread with the Adobe replacements and see what others here use and suggest for free and open source software.

    PDF software.

    This one opens all pdf files. They have free and pay software.
    PDF-XChange Viewer
    http://www.docu-track.com/product/downloads

    I use this one as a print driver. It works great for most things.

    PDFCreator
    http://www.pdfforge.org/




    Open office by Sun instead of Microsoft Office.
    http://www.openoffice.org/

    GIMP is a GNU Image Manipulation Program. Replaces Photoshop
    http://www.gimp.org/

    Comodo firewall
    http://personalfirewall.comodo.com/free-download.html

    ClamWin Antivirus. (I was using AVG, but it is getting huge)
    http://www.clamwin.com/

    QuickTime Alternative
    http://codecguide.com/about_qt.htm

    Real Player Alternative
    http://www.codecguide.com/about_real.htm

    Gom Video player
    http://www.gomlab.com/eng/GMP_download.html

    Ffdshow is a media decoder and encoder (Codecs)
    http://sourceforge.net/projects/ffdshow-tryout/
    deere245 is online now Add to deere245's Reputation Report Post Edit/Delete Message
     
    Shawn, Feb 26, 2010
    #1
  2. Azrial

    Azrial Notebook Deity

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    I use Foxit to read PDFs.

    Plus it works on Win7.
     
    Azrial, Feb 27, 2010
    #2
  3. Shawn

    Shawn Crackpot Search Ninja and Options Whore

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    ........................
     
    Shawn, Feb 27, 2010
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  4. gray-beard

    gray-beard Notebook Evangelist

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    For anti virus I have been using Free Avast Home Version ever since I got my first CF-28. The IT tech that I got it from had it installed already and after using it for a while I was impressed as to how well it works. There are many different versions of Avast and most of them you need to purchase but the free home version works very well.
    Next free software I use is Open Office for Windows and it works very good.
    If you need a free substitute for Photo Shop try Gimp 2. Not as full featured but for free what do you expect.....

    Bob
     
    gray-beard, Feb 27, 2010
    #4
  5. Knightofoldcode

    Knightofoldcode Notebook Guru

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    FIREFOX!
    http://www.mozilla.com/


    You might want to add Image Burn. It's freeware and I think it's better then nero, or anything else out there, I use it DAILY.

    http://www.imgburn.com/

    Avast AntiVirus:

    http://www.avast.com/

    Free Download Manager: (Works well with bit-torrents too!)
    http://www.freedownloadmanager.org/

    Sun Virtual Box (Freeware open source virtualization software, I prefer it over VMWare!):
    http://www.virtualbox.org/

    Oh yeah, and Launchy! I use it hourly! Pressing the hotkey combination (default is alt and space) will pull up a "run style" command box. Typoe what program you want to load/launch and it will search for it from your start menu bar... my description does it no justice... try it yourself, freeware, and opensource.)
    http://www.launchy.net/

    And... Taskbar Shuffle. Allows you to move around the windows on your task bar, just like in firefox.
    http://nerdcave.webs.com/

    Windows Media Player Classic
    http://mpc-hc.sourceforge.net/



    And.... who could forget the best open source OS replacement available?

    http://fedoraproject.org/ (Or whatever your flavor of linux is...)


    I don't think I have a single piece of software that's not open source on my machine... Other then of course the MS stuff.

    Knight.
     
    Knightofoldcode, Feb 27, 2010
    #5
  6. xboxhaxorz

    xboxhaxorz Notebook Evangelist

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    google chrome
    ccleaner
    malwarebytes
     
    xboxhaxorz, Feb 28, 2010
    #6
  7. KLonsdale

    KLonsdale Notebook Evangelist

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    Opera - web browser

    Stellarium - Star charting software

    XP Codec Pack - DVD Player decoder

    I found my Office 2003 disk, normally I use Open Office
     
    KLonsdale, Feb 28, 2010
    #7
  8. Dr Blood

    Dr Blood Notebook Geek

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    Abiword
    http://www.abisource.com/
    Quicker loading Word Processor than OpenOffice and does everything I need it to do.

    Ashampoo Media Player
    http://www2.ashampoo.com/webcache/html/1/product_2_0014___USD.htm
    Other than VLC Player, this is one of the nicest free media players and it looks cool too.

    Other than the obvious ones for Windows such as WinRar, Paint.NET, DVD Flick, and the last freeware version of Kerio Personal Firewall, I've switched to Ubuntu on most of my computers so everything is free and unbloated (though some may argue that Ubuntu itself is getting pretty big itself).
     
    Dr Blood, Mar 1, 2010
    #8
  9. Les

    Les Not associated with NotebookReview in any way

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    Advance System Care
    AVG
    Adobe Reader
    CCleaner
    CrystalDiskMark
     
    Les, Mar 1, 2010
    #9
  10. ColdMidWest

    ColdMidWest Notebook Enthusiast

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    I know alot of folks here are using AVG.

    If there is one piece of software that I feel I HAVE to purchase, its good quality AV and Firewall.

    I grew up using Norton and run Norton 2010 these days. (I picked up my last copy at a trade show, which is good for a year)

    Anyhow, the rest of the list looks pretty darn good.

    I would only add the following:

    Filezilla
    http://filezilla-project.org/

    7-zip for file compression
    http://www.7-zip.org/

    VLC for playing movie types
    http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

    Audacity for music editing/conversion
    http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
     
    ColdMidWest, Mar 1, 2010
    #10
  11. gothed

    gothed Notebook Consultant

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    gothed, Mar 1, 2010
    #11