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Cheapskate. Some folks say it with a snarled upper lip and a curt, terse emphasis on the final syllable, like it’s some kind of awful, horrible moral failing. Puh-leeze. More often than not, cheapskates aren’t ripping off anyone. But the cable, satellite, software, and phone companies sure are.
In a day and age when everyone is trying to upsell, premium-ize, and shake us down on a weekly basis—often under the guise of saving us money—we actually view cheapskatism as a sign of higher intelligence and reason. If approached the right way, of course.
Cooling the Piggy PC's ceramic chassis was a little harder than we had anticipated.
Over the next few pages, we’re going to show you how your PC can save you thousands of dollars every year—without compromising the computing lifestyle you’re accustomed to. What you do with all those pennies saved is entirely up to you.
You just dropped a wheelbarrow full of cash upgrading your videocard and CPU, leaving only a little bit of pocket lint leftover for software. Relax, Bobby, it’s going to be fine. The truth is that software is mother-lovin’ expensive. Seven hundred smackers for Photoshop? Pshaw! Thankfully, free and powerful alternatives to the most popular apps abound. Put your PayPal card away and follow along.
GIMP, or GNU Image Manipulation Program if you can’t stand acronyms, is a popular open-source alternative to Photoshop. Don’t let the fact that it’s free fool you; even though it’s not quite as polished or feature-rich as Photoshop, there’s a lot you can do with GIMP beyond just resizing and re-touching. A robust set of integrated tools and an extensive plugin library make it a more-than-capable image manipulator, not just an editor. GIMP is also platform-flexible in that it supports Windows, Mac OS X, and of course, Linux.
Free, www.gimp.org
What started off as Windows Live OneCare eventually morphed into a capable and free antivirus solution known as Microsoft Security Essentials. Surprisingly effective for a relative newcomer, the latest version adds heuristic scanning and improved Firewall integration. Just be sure you’re rocking a legit copy of Windows.
Free, www.bit.ly/9ikpqC
Adobe’s Photoshop Express Organizer is great for managing and editing photos from multiple sites, including Flickr and Facebook.
Don’t need the feature-rich complexity of GIMP? No problem. Most photo-sharing sites, like Flickr and Photobucket, let you make basic changes, but the cool thing about Adobe’s online Photo Express Editor is that it aggregates your photos from those and other portals, including Facebook, and neatly organizes them. You can also upload up to 2GB of photos for free.
Free, www.photoshop.com
Microsoft Security Essentials does an outstanding job at beating back viruses, but sometimes you need an extra bodyguard or two to keep things in line. Unlike antivirus software, which digs deep into your OS, antispyware applications can be run in tandem. Malwarebytes and SuperAntiSpyware provide a potent one-two punch combo, oftentimes catching what the other doesn’t. Combined with Microsoft Security Essentials, you’ll have a three-headed monster that loves to munch on malware.
Free, www.malwarebytes.org and www.superantispyware.com
We love a good Cinderella story, and that’s what we have with LibreOffice. You see, when Oracle took over Sun Microsystems, it created a near-instant rift with the developers of OpenOffice, whose open-source ideology didn’t mesh with Oracle’s proprietary mindset. Several key programmers jumped ship and went on to create LibreOffice, a fork of OpenOffice with the backing of several industry bigwigs, including Canonical, Google, and Red Hat. Ready for the clincher? You can save documents compatible with Microsoft Word (including .docx) sans the heavy price tag!
Free, www.libreoffice.org
Whether you’re rocking a desktop, server rig, or a netbook, there’s a version of Ubuntu designed just for you. Ubuntu is perhaps the easiest of all Linux distros to use, providing a pain-free way of cutting those costly Windows shackles. What about games, you ask? If a title isn’t supported natively, use WineHQ, which lets you run Windows software in Linux.
Free, www.ubuntu.com and www.winehq.com
We still adore Dropbox, we really do. It’s just that SugarSync is a tad more flexible. It offers cloud-based file syncing, just like Dropbox, and you can easily share files between PCs. But SugarSync goes the extra mile by letting you sync multiple folders across multiple systems. We also appreciate its robust mobile platform support (iPad, iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Mobile, and Symbian devices) and remote access from any web browser. You get 5GB for free, and 500MB for every successful referral (if they sign up for a paid plan, you both get an additional 10GB).
Free, https://www.sugarsync.com/
Let Professor Penny Rich and Doctor Deep Pockets debate which is better, Norton Ghost or Acronis True Image. Both are great, but both will set you back at least $50. Sir Save-a-Lot’s solution? Macrium Reflect, a no-cost cloning program that works with XP, Vista, and Windows 7 in both 32-bit and 64-bit form. With it you can create a disk image even while running Windows, a rare trick for free cloning software. There’s a built-in scheduler and you can even image to a network, USB, or FireWire drive, as well as optical media.
Free, www.macrium.com/reflectfree.asp
Easeus packs a surprising amount of functionality into its Partition Master Home Edition program, which is free for non-commercial use.
Microsoft continues to improve upon Windows’ built-in partitioning tool, but sometimes it’s not enough. Easeus Partition Master Home Edition comes to the rescue with a robust partition manager priced at 100 pennies less than a buck. It supports hard disks as small as 2GB and as massive as 4TB, and it also works with removable devices. The list of tricks is long, including the ability to extend a system partition; resize, move, merge, split, and copy partitions; redistribute free space; scan a disk for bad sectors; support hardware RAID; rebuild the MBR; convert FAT to NTFS; convert partition types; secure file deletion; and more.
Free, www.partition-tool.com/personal.htm
Steam
Valve’s digital marketplace has become almost insidiously proficient at coaxing gamers into opening up their wallets. Try resisting the savings-scented aroma of a massive Steam seasonal sale. We dare you. store.steampowered.com
1UP.com’s Free Game Lists
1UP.com has been compiling absurdly large lists of PC gaming’s best freebies for so long that it’s nearly built a compendium. If you’re looking for tons of games for no money, this is the place to start. http://bit.ly/hSmmOQ
Free-to-play MMOs
Sure, MMOs like Champions Online, Lord of the Rings Online, and DnD Online give you the option to spend money, but why would you go and do a silly thing like that? www.champions-online.com, www.lotro.com, www.ddo.com
OnLive
If you absolutely must have high-end games but simply can’t afford a decent rig, there’s always OnLive. You pay for individual games, and the cloud gaming service takes care of the heavy lifting. It has a Netflix-style pricing model as well. www.onlive.com
Quake Live
id Software’s multiplayer classic is roughly two clicks away so long as you have a PC that wasn’t made in 1963. Just go to the URL, hit the big “play now” button, and frag away. www.quakelive.com
Cheap Ass Gamer
Cheap Ass Gamer keeps track of pretty much every gaming-related deal out there—PC or otherwise.
If you love games and hate spending money, this one’s a no-brainer for your bookmark list. www.cheapassgamer.com
Mods
Who needs to break the bank on new games when the Internet’s bursting at the seams with content for your old favorites? Mods are free, generally easy to install, and frequently creative. It’s a win-win-win.
Comments are closed on this article
PCLinuxguy
January 29, 2012 at 1:32pm
What the hell is going on with all these spam accounts anyway? I say the mods should BAN the spammers with their generic posting and tons of links to crap. can't even enjoy useful responses without 30+ spam messages in between.
sunny002
December 12, 2011 at 10:38am
Amazing post buddy. This is the nice ways. Thanks for sharing this article. Unlock Iphone 4S
candybarse
January 02, 2012 at 7:11am
"This is a very good destination! I hope it's far not the last one. Do you follow your special strategy? It's very important, if you want the number of sermons to grow further."
Maki
October 29, 2011 at 2:50pm
Cool tips. This for Photoshop is very useful because I use a lot that program.
melse
October 28, 2011 at 8:47am
I was quite impressed. I noticed it mentioned briefly about gaming. Would it be possible to expand on that idea with a Cheapskate guide featuring the Sony PlayStation 3? template website
PCLinuxguy
October 15, 2011 at 7:37am
It'd be interesting if they did an entire mag about this article and expand on each section with more detail and similar sites to go to, rather than just an article. Having said that I still find this article extremely useful and well done.
Aditi007
September 09, 2011 at 3:01am
Matt Drudge does not operate or maintain DrudgeReportArchive.com. We're just long-time fans. Drudge Report archive collects Drudge Report Stories throughout the day and organizes them by date and topic for quick search. All times are US Eastern. drudge report
mewarmo990
June 16, 2011 at 7:05pm
Hmm. I have not been able to find the Seasonic S12 620w at the price ($70) mentioned in this article.
ledrudge
May 08, 2011 at 5:27am
Best ever article that put into one the free & the cheap essentials for your PCs software and hardware. This is a very good article that i couldn't pass a comment...
Athlonite
May 01, 2011 at 6:47am
the fans in the HIS HD5770 graphics card pictured are crap mine didn't even last a year before it was dead and there's no way to relubericate it as it's an sealed unit can i buy another fan for it pffft NO HIS refuse to sell me just a fan they want me to RMA the entire card Fuck that so I ghetto modded an old PSU fan to fit and if you think it's just my bad luck the second HIS HD5770 I have is also displaying problems with it's fan aswell 2 different HSF's same shitty chinese fans
Trooper_One
March 24, 2011 at 12:51pm
First, Steam is like a crack for me, but with $5-$20 specials, it's hard to resist. Me thinks I have over 150 games from them, countless dollars. I think 10% of my pay goes to them (and computing in general).
Last week, I upgraded my g/f comp:
Over time, I purchased the 4x2GB which would be about $70 these days, NZXT Gamma case ($9 after mail-in rebate), Antec 600W Power ($40), and PowerColor All-in-Wonder ATI 3650 ($35)
... just got the MSI 870 MB + AMD Black Phenom II bundle for $140 (after $15 mail-in rebate) and I got a Win7 Pro Academic/Student version for $100 (I also had another Win7 Home for $60 when it first came out or I could've violated some rules and used a WinXP Pro OEM instead for free).
All in all, it wasn't a bad mash up of parts and believe it or not, it can run BlackOps just fine (just not max detail). Good enough for her for emails and facebook crappy zinga games.
ImaginedTruth
March 19, 2011 at 3:16am
I recently purchased the magazine and read the featured article. I was quite impressed. I noticed it mentioned briefly about gaming. Would it be possible to expand on that idea with a Cheapskate guide featuring the Sony PlayStation 3? This could not only mention games, but also media playback and streaming.
Dragnar
March 17, 2011 at 7:12pm
you guys who use firefox and last.fm should know by now what fire.fm is.
For those that don't its afirefox addon that skips the last.fm commercials and "listener check"
and plays while you are browsing through a toolbar not a webpage.
http://firefm.sourceforge.net/
bingojubes
March 16, 2011 at 4:55pm
there is another site called http://www.stereomood.com/ - i like this one, because you can choose an emotion, and it sometimes is pretty accurate with which songs it plays.
d3v
March 16, 2011 at 6:21am
This post is too long. You guys should have split it up into multiple pages.
ABouman
March 16, 2011 at 5:05pm
....it is multiple pages. Did you mean that we should have split it more, like into more than three pages?
xpermental
March 16, 2011 at 3:25am
grooveshark.com is a site that also allows you to build a playlist of music you like, has a kinda social-network element to it and has a larger selection of music to choose from, and its all free
you can upgrade to a plus account to remove ads(that i have yet to run accross) for $6/month or or for $9/month you can upgrade to anywhere which enables you to listen to your music on a mobile device and it also removes ads
Omnimis
March 15, 2011 at 2:35pm
I get all my games through Steam. My folder is up to 535GB in size.
Phantom-e
March 15, 2011 at 6:18pm
Steam is like crack for gamers, with their handfuls of nickle and dimebag game selections. Thanks Steam, thanks alot.
