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

Games

The difficulty in this list stems from the fact that there are a ton of excellent games in the independent scene right now. We frequently profile these as much as possible on the Maximum PC monthly CD, but even then, it's tough to pick five examples of top-quality games--we could fill an article with five hundred. Your favorite open-source game might not have made our list this time around, but feel free to leave comments about other awesome alternatives you've sampled!

Now that the disclaimer's out of the way, cancel your appointments and throw up your away message. It's time to game, and it's time to game for free!

a game about bouncing

We're starting off with a puzzle game. But before you conjure images of another Tetris or Bejeweled clone, know that "a game about bouncing" is a fun romp through an iTunes visualizer. At least, that's what the simple beauty of the game's vibrant backdrops brings to mind. The game's premise is simple: grab onto shapes to collect them while avoiding "tails" that follow you around. Only, the shapes you're grabbing also serve as pinball-style bumpers, sending you careening around an endless map every time you snag a new shape. Replace the bumpers with buildings and you'll have a minimalistic Spider Man on your hands. Our only reservation? The game doesn't come with a built-in screensaver mode. How cool would that look?

Tremulous

There are more open-source and freeware first-person shooters in existence than strippers in Duke Nukem 3D. But rather than sift through 30 different games to find one that barely squeaks by the others, we've decided to place a genre mainstay into our top 5 list. Tremulous is frequently cited as one of the first-person shooters to play and it's easy to see why. The game's graphics are vaguely reminiscent of the Quake shooters of old. Only this time around, you can play as the good guys or the evil aliens, with each race operating under a unique leveling style. Regardless, you're rewarded for killing the enemy with new weapons and upgrades--making this first-person shooter a fun hybrid of mini-RPG and shoot'em-up gameplay.

Glest

We enjoy the fantasy setting of the real-time strategy title Glest as much as we enjoy the game's polish. In fact, we dare say it looks better than some of the earlier RTS offerings of now-established companies (here's looking at you, Warcraft). Pick one of the game's two factions--Tech or Magic--and slug it out on the battlefield using all sorts of arcane powers and plain ol' ass-kickery. You can even fire up Glest over local multiplayer if you want to pour a bucket of open-source ownage all over your unsuspecting friends. If you're of the programming mindset, you can also grab a number of tools for modifying the game straight off of Glest's official site.

COMMENTS:16

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COMMENTS

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

Maternity Tights

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wastewater treatment
Submitted by coagulant on Wed, 11/18/2009 - 12:01am

wastewater treatment flocculant water treatment coagulant tungsten steel tungsten metal tungsten carbide zirconium zirconium oxide YSZ grinding media

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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.

<a href="http://ifreemp3download.com">English Songs</a><br>

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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

I digg liteweight, I digg bloatfree, and I digg FREE!

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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

Thanks

http://enokiathemes.com

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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.

MPC is my home page

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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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