Geek Tested:

25 Best Open-Source (or Freeware) Alternatives You Need To Download

Posted 10/08/08 at 06:00:00 PM by David Murphy

Economy got you down? No longer able to make those day-long trips to your local computer store of choice for all the latest and greatest software tools? Tired of paying top-dollar for programs that don't quite have the functionality you want? Well put away that wallet. We spent the past week showing you the best (and cheapest) software we've been able to find across different themes: graphics design, system optimization, games, and office/productivity, and have compiled our picks into this comprehensive list.

Photoshop Alternatives

Just because it doesn't come in a box doesn't mean that these titles are any less powerful than their retail counterparts. The graphics category exemplifies that fact, offering programs that are every bit as good as their hundred-dollar Adobe counterparts. But just for good measure, we threw in our favorite free Adobe graphics program too.

Gimpshop

Gimp is often mentioned as one of the top open-source photo editing applications and it's easy to see why. The program offers Photoshop-like functionality at the low-low price of zero. You can accomplish a number of the graphical tricks you're normally used to, as the program includes support for layers and masking, channel coloration adjustments, and a bevy of preset filters. Gimpshop is a variant of Gimp that ups the ante one step further by blending Photoshop's look and feel directly into the program's. It's the perfect tool if you just can't bear the thought of losing "that same ol' interface" you've grown accustomed to. It's a great program for middle-of-the-road users that just need a graphics editing application with more oomph.

Pencil

Consummate Vs! For the artist that focuses solely on the basics--the careful transformation of sketched pencil lines into a finished comic product--Pencil is the perfect application. What it lacks in graphical gusto, it makes up for in its ability to integrate Macromedia Flash-like keyframe functionality into the drawing board. Taking an illustration from the sketching, to the inking, to the coloration phase is as simple as adding in additional layers. When designing an animation, you can even select alternate camera frames and integrate sound directly into the mix. Don't let our crude attempts at art fool you: Pencil is the digital equivalent of an animator's storyboard that's as easy to use as, well, a pencil!

XnView

Feh to Windows Photo Gallery. We would gladly trade the ability to crop photos and correct red eyeballs for what XnView offers: comprehensive access to your photos' behind-the-scenes data and a wide assortment of tools for managing your growing gallery. Not only can you view your photo folders just like a common Windows Explorer thumbnail interface, but XnView lets you tag, rate, and create slideshows (even Web pages) for the photos you select. We love the ability to get tweak our photos by getting elbow-deep into their EXIF data. And like Photoshop, XnView lets you perform batch editing commands using a number of different filters. You can even zoom right to a photo's embedded GPS location via a direct link to Google Maps--way cool.

Picasa 3

Whereas XnView is more for digging deep into folders you specify, Google's Picasa 3 is an all-in-one monitoring service for your photo folders. It offers less overall editing functionality than XnView, but comes packaged in a more elegant interface with additional options for Internet-related tasks. For example, you can add geotags to your photos via Google Earth and then have Picasa 3 automatically upload your shots to a Web album, FTP site, or straight to your Blogger blog. Picasa 3 also interfaces with online shops for easy photo printing, and can turn a batch of your images into collages, movies, and screensavers. Included backup functionality helps keep your precious photographic memories safe from an errant hard drive failure, provided you select an appropriate backup locale. But our favorite feature, by far, is Picasa's ability to search through your photographs by dominant color.

Adobe Photoshop Express

Ok, we couldn't resist Adobe's lure. For the company's Web-based Photoshop (conveniently called Photoshop Express) is a phenomenal tool for touching up your art when you're on the go. Or anywhere, for that matter: the program's comprehensive-yet-simple suite of editing tools offers a wide range of basic functionality. If you want more, you can drill a little bit deeper to unlock tools like color isolation, distortions, and image enhancements. But that's not all. The online application can interface directly with your Facebook, Flickr, Photobucket and Picasa galleries. Make your edits, and Photoshop Express saves your new work directly back to its original location. The time this saves versus downloading the picture, uploading it to Photoshop Express, making the edits, saving it, and re-uploading it to a new content hose is, in a word, epic.

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Gimpshop is a pretty sweet
Submitted by Kimbelly on Sun, 10/25/2009 - 9:00pm

Gimpshop is a pretty sweet Photoshop alternative. I've been using it for a few months now and have really started to love it.

Kim

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Photoshop and Image ready
Submitted by ptp123 on Tue, 10/13/2009 - 1:44am

Photoshop and Image ready is the best selection application for editing in your images...

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Photoshop is a first choice
Submitted by Emad01 on Thu, 10/15/2009 - 7:30am

I think for editing images photoshop is the best software. Because photoshop make the image real after editing you cant say that this image is edited that is a big quality of it. So i think you should use photoshop.
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Your information is mind
Submitted by Emad01 on Thu, 10/08/2009 - 10:18am

Your information is mind blowing. I like it. I will use it. Thanks for giving morw knowledge about this.

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XNView Broken Link
Submitted by Zoandar on Mon, 08/31/2009 - 7:14pm

Clicking on the XNView heading of the above article takes me to the following french website, where I don't see anything about XNView:

http://pages.perso.orange.fr/client/php/pwpErreur.php?action=403

When I tried to dowload XNView from another site it triggered a security warning from the Web of Trust Firefox Plug-In, indicating that the site cannot be trusted. Where is the best place to get a malware-clean copy of XNView?

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reply
Submitted by alexa on Wed, 05/06/2009 - 7:46am

I have to agree that Notepad++ is good, its become the bread and butter for my web coding. Aptana seems to be pretty popular lately, might have to try that one out and if it generates nice clean code, all the better!
acnee

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Is there an open-source
Submitted by sdcat on Mon, 10/27/2008 - 9:57am

Is there an open-source (free) video editor like adobe premiere (element)?

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Some helpful software
Submitted by d4n31sh on Tue, 11/04/2008 - 1:51pm

If you go to wikipedia and search Ubuntu Studio, they have a small list of video software. I have never actually used any of it, but hopefully it may be able to help you. Cheers,

-Dane

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Wow!
Submitted by b00tpwnz4ll on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 2:40pm

You guys just saved me from replacing an aging test bench's mouse and keyboard! Synergy is so full of win I can't even express it in words! Gone is the frustration of hooking into a KVM or worse yet, moving my mouse and keyboard from my main system to the latest "my computer doesn't work, can you fix it" project.

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95%
Submitted by kleinkinstein on Fri, 10/10/2008 - 6:05am

I'm nearly 95% opensource and freeware. My favs are:

7-Zip 4.60

Audacity 1.3.5

AVG Antivirus Free 8.173.a1373

Belarc Advisor 7.2.24.8

CCleaner 2.12.660

CDBurnerXP 4.2.2.984

ClamWin 0.94

Comodo Firewall 3/0.25.378

DAEMON Tools 4.30.1

DVD Decrypter 3.5.4.0

DVD Shrink 3.2.0.15

EverNote 3.0.0.842

Exact Audio Copy 0.99 beta 4

FileZilla 3.1.4

Firebird 2.1.1

Flac 1.2.1b

Foobar2000 0.9.5.6

Foxit Reader 2.3.3309

GimpShop

Gmail Drive 1.0.13

Hamachi 1.0.3.0

HandBrake 0.9.2

jk-Defrag 3.36

Keepass 1.11

Lame 3.98.2

Lexun Backup 2.1

Lexun RegScrubXP 3.25

MediaMonkey 3.05.1187

Microsoft Defender 1.1.1593

Miro 1.2.7

Money Manage Ex 0.9.2.0

Mozilla Firefox 3.03

Mozilla Thunderbird 2.0.0.17

nLite 1.4.9.1

NovaPDF 5.5.271

Ogg Vorbis 2.85

OpenContacts 5.1.1.566

OpenOffice 3.0.0

Parted Magic 3.0

Pidgin 2.5.1

Recuva 1.19.350

Revo Uninstaller 1.75

RipIt4Me 1.7.1.0

RivaTuner 2.11

Save2PC 3.37

Skype 4.0.0.166

SpeedFac 4.35

Stellarium 0.10.0

SyncBack 3.2.19

The Gimp 2.6.0

ThreatFire 3.5.0.21

TreedbNotes 3.36.005

VLC Media Player 0.9.4

vLite 1.2

WinRAR 3.80

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The greatest post .. :), I
Submitted by enokiathemes on Tue, 09/01/2009 - 6:30pm

The greatest post .. :), I always preffer freewares or open source

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Virtual BOX
Submitted by DiRTDOG on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 6:46am

Just tried virtual box and it doesnt support 64bit OS. I wish I could find one that works...

thanks for the list though.

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Many thanks
Submitted by wk on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 6:29am

Excellent article. keep up the good work.

Open source softwares represent the good will in this world.

Good job to add revo uninstaller to the list, i think its a must have software for every PC.

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Software
Submitted by xbarnes on Thu, 10/09/2008 - 3:42am

This is some good stuff. Why isn't it on the Max PC CD?

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Well Played.
Submitted by Snoman on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 6:03pm

Nice. Grabbed 3 from the list that fit exactly what I needed. Thanks guys

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It's a wide field...
Submitted by Cache on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 5:12pm

There's a ton of choices, and in general I can understand missing a few golden nuggets when you have to start calling numbers. CCleaner is a 'must have' no matter what kind of PC is running.

However, not including any DVD-writing programs is just plain mean. Unless, of course, you spend the majority of your time burning CD backups because you don't believe in large ...er... media files. A nice FLV player would have helped too, since it's easier to save the ones we love rather than assume that YouTube will always be a repository for our favorite opening songs of antiquated 1970's cartoons...

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Great list!
Submitted by CTskifreak on Wed, 10/08/2008 - 4:39pm

I love CCleaner. I forgot how I found it, but it works wonders. I've had it for a while now. Only program I would have added would be Unlocker. I had this truly stubborn file on Vista that wouldn't delete, and it worked it's magic and it was able to be deleted.

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