Free software: downloadable

Selection of free downloadable applications

NOTE: On campus, a large selection of software is provided through the Managed Cluster Service (MSC) (formerly ‘PWF’).

Open source software can be used, studied, and modified without restriction, and copied and redistributed in modified or unmodified form either without restriction, or with minimal restrictions. It is free in the sense of the freedom you have to use and/or modify the software (not just because you do not have to pay for it).

Open source software is distinct from freeware which is proprietary software made available free of charge. Users usually cannot study, modify, or redistribute freeware.

The software is usually released under a licence such as:

• Open Software License http://opensource.org/licenses/osl-2.1.php the most wide ranging license of freedom to do what you want with the software.
• GNU General Public License (GPL) http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html most common type of Open Source sometimes referred to as ‘copyleft’.
• Freeware http://www.catb.org/~esr/jargon/html/F/freeware.html

Other versions include free for educational use, free for non-commercial use, free to use restricted version, and freely distributable.

However, the main thing is it is free to download and use and the much of it is excellent and usable.

Web links may be added in due course – please Google the application name for now.

Page contents

• Web directories of free downloadable software
• Office suites
• Reference management
• Text applications
• Graphics applications
• PDF converters
• Music/audio applications
• Web browsers
• Email clients
• HTML editors
• Portable applications (loaded on USB stick)
• Other

Web directories of free downloadable software

• SourceForge
• OSalt http://www.osalt.com/ Open Source alternatives
• The Free Windows http://www.thefreewindows.com/
• Digital Research Tools (DiRT) http://digitalresearchtools.pbwiki.com/ HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
• Gizmo’s Freeware Reviews http://www.techsupportalert.com/

Office suites

• Open Office http://www.openoffice.org probably the best open source alternative to Microsoft Office; comprises word processor, spreadsheet, database, drawing and presentation applications. Has ‘save as PDF’ option and will read and save Microsoft Office format files.
• NeoOffice (for Apple computers).

Mixed Tools

• Google Pack http://pack.google.com/

Reference management

• Zotero plugin for Firefox browser with online element. Also now available as a standalone ‘beta’ application (independent of Firefox) – see http://www.zotero.org/support/3.0

• Mendeley desktop and online reference management. See how Menedely compares with other reference managers (EndNote, Zotero, RefWorks and Papers).

• Qiqqa http://www.qiqqa.com a new free bibliographic application that boasts more features than the two above and even EndNote.

• JabRef http://www.mr-dlib.org/ A modified version of JabRef which is able to extract metadata from PDFs and create a bibtex entry which links the PDF (similar to Mendeley). You can also drag & drop PDFs directly from SciPlore MindMapping. See this SciPlore Blog entry.

Text applications

• AbiWord http://www.abisource.com/ Open source word processor
• Scribus http://www.scribus.net/ Open source desktop publisher – an amazing application for free
• Notepad++ http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm excellent multi-talented text editor
• DocPad http://www.gammadyne.com/docpad.htm Plain text editing with an arsenal of time-saving tools
• Stanza Desktop http://www.lexcycle.com/stanza desktop ebook reader for ‘epub’ format: ‘read eBooks on your Mac or PC and share with your iPhone, iPod Touch, & Kindle’.

Graphics applications

• GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ (GNU Image Manipulation Program) A powerful image manipulation application often described as an open source alternative to Photoshop. The unusual interface takes a bit of getting used to.
• RealWorld Paint.com http://www.rw-designer.com/image-editor An excellent and intuitive free graphics creating application. Good for diagrams—we have used it to edit and update our floorplan images.
• Actually, the best free drawing application (ie. for diagrams, not for photo editing) I have come across is Open Office Draw, contained in the Open Office suite (listed above under Office Suites). I’m not sure if you can just download the draw package separately.
• Photobie http://www.photobie.com/ photo editor, ‘combines features amateurs can use with advanced tools professionals will appreciate’
• Picasa excellent photo manager to sort out all your pictures with basic imaging editing facilties [owned by Google]
• IrfanView http://www.irfanview.com/ a powerful and popular free image editing and converting application with useful ability to output thumbnails with their associated metadata and many plugins to increase functionality
• Google Sketchup complex 2d and 3d drawing capabilities [owned by Google]
• Paint.net drawing
• Inkscape drawing
• Diagram Designer http://meesoft.logicnet.dk/DiagramDesigner/ Intuitive quick basic drawing tool (Freeware)
• Dia technical drawing
• Archimedes technical drawing
• Tiger CAD technical drawing
• UF Raw handle ‘raw’ digital camera files
• yEd Graph Editor http://www.yworks.com/en/products_yed_about.html ‘powerful diagram editor that can be used to quickly and effectively generate high-quality drawings of diagrams’

PDF Converters

• PDF Creator http://www.pdfforge.org/ Produce good quality PDFs from any file that can be printed.
• CutePDF http://cutepdf.com/Products/CutePDF/writer.asp
• Microsoft Office 2007: Microsoft offers a free PDF converter add-on for Office 2007 which you can download from http://bit.ly/WDUM. In Microsoft Office 2010 a PDF option in ‘File > Save As’ is included by default.
• Open Office (see above under Office Suites) has always had a ’save as PDF’ option.

Music/audio applications

• Audacity http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ ‘A free, easy-to-use and multilingual audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems’.
• Traverso DAW http://traverso-daw.org/ Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) ‘An audio recording and editing program which is very well suited to record a single voice, a band, an ensemble, a whole orchestra or any other source of music’.
• Lilypond http://lilypond.org/ music score notation
• MuseScore http://www.musescore.org/ A free cross platform ‘WYSIWYG’ music notation program

Web browsers – free alternatives to Internet Explorer

• (Google) Chrome web browser http://www.google.com/chrome A fast browser using Webkit layout engine. Growing library of apps.
• (Mozilla) Firefox web browser http://www.mozilla-europe.org/en/firefox/ with lots of ‘add-ins’ or apps. Uses Gecko layout engine.
• Opera another excellent fast web browser http://www.opera.com/
• Safari web browser http://www.apple.com/safari/ Uses webkit. Originally for Apple computers now also in a Windows version
• Seamonkey http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/ A web browser ‘suite’—it includes a whole bunch of other stuff (email, HTML editor, image manager, feed manager etc.). A Mozilla product.
• K-Meleon http://kmeleon.sourceforge.net/ “an extremely fast, customizable, lightweight web browser based on the Gecko layout engine”

Email clients – free alternatives to Outlook

• Mozilla Thunderbird http://www.mozilla.org/en-GB/thunderbird/ email client
• Synovel Spicebird email client (based on Thunderbird)
• Zimbra Desktop http://www.zimbra.com/products/desktop.html (owned by Yahoo!) – NOTE: seems to be a very large application in terms of downloading and installing (and uninstalling).

Web page HTML editors

• Kompozer http://kompozer.net/ Open source HTML editor (further development of Nvu)
• Seamonkey – see above in web browsers, offers an HTML editor as part of its ‘suite’ of software.

Portable applications (versions to load on a USB stick)

• Portable applications - a large number of the free applications listed here (and many more) can be run from a USB memory stick. See, for example, PortableApps at http://www.portableapps.com or App-Stick at http://www.app-stick.com/.

Local server

• WAMPserver local Windows web server built with open source software (Apache, MySQL, PHP, etc) so you can test and run websites ‘locally’ (ie on your own computer). There are similar products for Linux, Mac, etc (LAMP, XAMPP etc).

Mind mapping

• SciPlore http://sciplore.org/software/sciplore_mindmapping/ Are you using mind mapping tools such as MindManager, FreeMind or XMind? And reference management tools such as JabRef, Endnote, or Zotero? And do you sometimes even create bookmark in PDFs? Then you should have a look at SciPlore MindMapping.
• • FreeMind http://freemind.sourceforge.net/
  • Mind42 http://www.mind42.com/

  Personal organizers

• Chandler

Financial and budgeting

• GnuCash

Other

• Rapid Typing typing tutor