All of those programs you use—the ones that annoy you and frustrate you—have alternatives. Quite often, you can find a leaner, meaner alternative program, and often at a 100% reduction in cost. The Internet is filled with programs that have been designed from the ground up by passionate people that aren’t necessarily driven by profit (although a free program can turn a profit, believe it or not).

The one factor when looking for an alternative to what you’re used to is compatibility. If your organization uses specific software for business purposes, you might need to have Adobe Reader at your disposal instead of one of the alternatives. I’d say most alternatives I’m going to list would be easier to try for personal use. A lot of commonly used programs out there can be expensive, but there are quite often free ones that do just as good (and sometimes better) of a job as the pricey ones.

Microsoft Office > OpenOffice
The first thing to bear in mind is that OpenOffice isn’t a “complete” replacement for the programs in Microsoft Office. For instance, there’s no email client, and therefore no alternative in the suite for Microsoft Outlook (but there are other email clients). Nevertheless, this program by Sun Microsystems is free, and has come a long way in terms of compatibility. It actually gives you the ability to save documents in an MS Office format so that you can open them with MS Office if need be. There’s OO Writer, which is the equivalent of MS Word, OO Spreadsheet, which is the alternative to Excel, and OO Presentation, which is the alternative to MS PowerPoint. There are other Programs in the OpenOffice suite, but those are generally the three mostly used programs in Microsoft Office. It’s a little different to use them; but I have found that they have a lot of the same features that work the same way. Since it’s free, it’s worth trying out (http://www.openoffice.org).

Internet Explorer > Mozilla Firefox
The browser market has long been dominated by Internet Explorer. However, Mozilla Firefox (http://www.mozilla.com) has slowly been creeping up in market share, reaching more than 20% for the first time at the end of 2008. Firefox is a very fast, safe, and customizable alternative to IE. It has many of the same features and also has lots of extremely useful and just plain fun add-ons that make it a great browser to use. The best part is that it’s very feasible to simply use both of them, as web browsers aren’t large programs. It’s actually a good idea to use both of them, as there are still a lot of websites that will only function properly on Mozilla Firefox. I have both installed at home and switch between them when needed. Mozilla can import all your favorites from IE, and you can set it to be the default browser for Windows (in other words, links will automatically open in Firefox) or just leave it as IE.

Any instant messaging program > Pidgin
The reason I say “any instant messaging program” is because Pidgin is literally compatible with any IM service out there. It can do AOL Instant Messenger, MSN, ICQ, etc. The list is huge. It’s a small, free program with all the functionality you’d need. You can have multiple accounts all on one ‘buddy list.’ It’s similar to the popular Trillian program, but free (Trillian has a lackluster free version) and has more compatibility (http://pidgin.im)
There’s more! I used those three examples because I have a lot of experience. A few more that are worth checking out:

• Adobe Reader > Foxit (http://www.foxitsoftware.com/pdf/reader/) or PDF XChange Viewer (http://www.docu-track.com/home/prod_user/PDF-XChange_Tools/pdfx_viewer)
• Microsoft Outlook > Mozilla Thunderbird (http://www.mozillamessaging.com/en-US/thunderbird/)
• Windows Media Player > VLC Media Player (http://www.videolan.org/vlc/)
• Windows Copy/Paste > Teracopy (http://www.codesector.com/teracopy.php)

All of those have good reputations and are viable alternatives that I believe are worth considering as alternatives. Just remember to keep any programs you’re currently using until you’re confident you want to switch.

Corey Slack

Remember Netscape? For the real old-schoolers, remember Mosaic? Browsers have come and gone during the relatively brief history of the World Wide Web. This is a round-up of today’s noteworthy browsers.

Internet Explorer 7+, the most common web browser on this list by far, is nicely done by Microsoft and a valuable addition to your software arsenal. Every Windows system produced in the last ten years or so comes with a free copy of IE as its default browser, so it’s no wonder this thing is everywhere! (Update your old version for security, performance, and usability reasons.) This browser, in various incarnations, has been around since 1995. The under-the-hood layout engine for IE is called Trident, and is shared by a number of lesser browser shells, such as AOL Explorer, Avant Browser, MSN Explorer, NeoPlanet, and others.

Mozilla Firefox 3, the second most common web browser on this list, and my personal favorite, is highly customizable and many free add-ons are available from the Mozilla site. Stability and performance are excellent, so this browser is another must-have for your software collection. At home, this browser is my default and I use it for almost everything. Firefox has been around in its various versions since only 2004. The underlying layout engine for Firefox is called Gecko, and is also shared by a few lesser browsers, such as Epiphany and Camino (for Macs).

Google Chrome 1 is the newest addition to this list. It probably wouldn’t be so notable were it not for its maker, Google. This is one fast browser, though, let me tell you. It’s faster rendering a webpage than either IE7 or Firefox. It should work fine for most websites, but may not work for all of them, so you’d need to have access to IE or Firefox just in case. Chrome has only been around since August of 2008, so it’s really new. This browser’s underlying layout engine is called WebKit, and is shared by a few other browsers, notably Apple Safari.

Apple Safari is a Windows web browser from the folks at Apple. Like Google Chrome, it’s fast. The reason why is the underlying layout engine called WebKit, which was developed by Apple (and is used by Google’s browser). I feel about the same for this browser as I do Google Chrome (keep your IE or Firefox handy). Safari has been around since 2003.

Opera is another web browser with a long history. It’s been around since 1996, almost as long as IE! Fairly quick and secure, it’s a decent browser. It’s just that not too many people use it. Its underlying layout engine is called Presto and is shared by a couple lesser browsers you’ve never heard of.

If I missed your favorite browser, chances are it’s a flavor of one of these on the list. Otherwise, it’s just forgettable, sorry. In the end, I’d recommend downloading and installing Firefox as a companion to Internet Explorer. Save the rest for a boring rainy day.

Craig Samson