Alternative Software List
DFEY: Digital Freedom in Education and Youth
Even with the best will in the world, and an hour or two on google, sometimes you just can't find good free software alternatives to proprietary software, so we at DFEY have compiled this list to help you find alternatives for all the software that you use on a day-to-day basis and more.
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[edit] Windows Software Alternatives
Windows, although proprietary in its self, can be the first stepping stone on the road to software freedom. By slowly swapping your proprietary windows software for free software, hopefully, you will find that you can do everything that you used to do with proprietary software and more with Free Software alternatives.
[edit] Microsoft Office
Although Microsoft Office is, in many cases, the industry standard, things are changing, and have been doing so. Governments are leaving Microsoft Office in droves due to format support issues, lack of openness and a complete disregard for users wishes. So here are the alternatives.
OpenOffice.org is the major competitor to Microsoft Office, and works with most, if not all of the major Microsoft Office formats with total cross-compatibility, as well as supporting ODF, the Open Document Format, meaning that if your work is saved in this format, even if open office dies a horrible death, your work can still be open and read. The same cannot be said for Microsoft's closed and proprietary file formats. It also has a large number of other features including a fairly advanced maths program.
[edit] Windows Media Player
Windows Media Player, apart from being full of DRM and being closed source, was never a particularly versatile tool and was missing many a good feature.
VLC changes all of that. Its fast, lean, free of DRM and even (shock horror) allows you to fast forward through those irritating anti-piracy clips. After all, you bought the DVD, why should you be forced to listen to why you shouldn't pirate? This amazing player also comes with codecs for almost every audio and video codec known to man, apart from the notable exceptions of DRM laden iTunes music and video, as well as the Real codecs.
[edit] 3DS MAX, Maya and Auto CAD
These Peices of software used to be the cornerstone of 3D design, but due to both their extortionate cost, buggy nature and Autodesk's standard refusal to listen to customers, free and open source 3D programs started to be created by both enthusiasts and industry its self.
Blender is the major player in the open source 3D market, with a huge following and even cross-compatibility with closed and proprietary formats. User support and tutorials are amazing compared with the best Autodesk and its proprietary competitors can come up with,and in many ways this piece of software leaves 3DS MAX and its fellow proprietary software floundering in its wake.
[edit] Photoshop
This well known piece of software has typically been one of the most pirated tools. But it needs to be pirated no more.
GIMP, The Graphical Image Manipulation Program, is in many cases at least as versatile as Adobe's Photoshop, and in many cases has tools that just aren't available in Photoshop, as well as support for a far larger number of file formats.
GIMPshop?
[edit] Internet Explorer, Opera and Safari
Closed source web browsers lead to insecurity, unpatched holes and numerous other problems such as bad interpretation of web standards. With this in mind we think that it is imperative to the continuation of the internet as an open and free medium that the software used to interact with the internet, be that browsers, downloaders and web design tools be Free and open source software.
Firefox is the major force in open web surfing. As well as being the creator of the tabbed browsing system, it has a well designed interface with 'skin' options, add-ons galore and one of the best safety records out there.
[edit] Linux Software Alternatives
[edit] VMWare
A popular piece of software but both due freedom and cost, a large number of server owners and virtualization experts are seeing the light of free software, and not just to their budget, to support as well.
For servers Xen is a major player in the virtualization market, and its low (as in non-existent) cost gives systems administrators time to train up on the new software before switching over, allowing for a smoother transition with less teething troubles.
While on desktops, VirtualBox provides the freedom, speed and features required by those who need to run different operating systems at the click of a mouse.
[edit] Mac Software Alternatives
[edit] Microsoft Office and iWork
Although Microsoft Office is, in many cases, the industry standard, things are changing, and have been doing so, and on the Mac, similar can be said with iWork. Governments are leaving Microsoft Office and iWork in droves due to format support issues, lack of openness and a complete disregard for users wishes. So here are the alternatives.
OpenOffice.org is the major competitor to Microsoft Office and iWork, and works with most, if not all of the major Microsoft Office formats with total cross-compatibility, as well as supporting ODF, the Open Document Format, meaning that if your work is saved in this format, even if open office dies a horrible death, your work can still be open and read. The same cannot be said for Microsoft's closed and proprietary file formats. It also has a large number of other features including a fairly advanced maths program.
