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Open Source Software

• Mozilla Firefox -- Internet Browser -> By now it is a well known fact that Microsoft's Internet Explorer is insecure and prone to viruses. I would recommend to anyone that spend time on the Internet to replace their Internet Explorer immediately and Mozilla Firefox is a good as it get.  Not only will you get a more secure Internet Browser but it has a couple of extra features like blocking pop-ups and tabbed browsing.
  
• Mozilla Thunderbird -- E-mail client -> The same argument that is true for Microsoft Internet Explorer holds true for Microsoft Outlook Express and to a lessor extent to Microsoft Outlook.  So if you need a great e-mail client that is not prone to all the viruses out there then switch to Mozilla Thunderbird.  And you will also get with it a very good SPAM filter and powerful message filtering.  Also if you have more than one e-mail account then Thunderbird will handle them very good by keeping them separate and not dump all your mail in one Inbox.
  
• Mozilla Sunbird -- Diary and Calendar -> For those that need a Calendar and Diary ... here is one from the folk at Mozilla.  It has all the standard things to organize you life.  It is very new so it does not have any capabilities to synchronize with your PDA or Cellphone but I am sure it will be coming soon.
  
• OpenOffice -- Word processor, Spreadsheet etc ->  The same as Microsoft Office but free.  It can read all your .doc and .xls documents and even save to them so you would not have any problems sharing your documents with people using MS Office.  But why use Microsoft's proprietary formats when you can save your documents to PDF format and with OpenOffice you can do it.  It also comes with a drawing program, a program to create presentations and a database program.
  
• GIMP -- Graphics Program ->  Ever wanted to do interesting things with you digital photos but bid not want to spend thousands of Rands for Adobe Photoshop.  You can use GIMP to do exactly the same.  Let the artist in you come out and create graphics to your hearts content with this program.
  
• Nvu -- Web page development program -> Like Frontpage or Dreamweaver but Free and Open Source.  Create Web pages with this WYSIWYG editor.  It is still rough around the edges but it is one of the best Open Source one's around and it is based on the stable Mozilla code base.
  
• PDFCreator -- PDF Printer driver ->  Ever wanter to create PDF documents from any off your software programs.  Well with PDFCreator it is as easy a printing, just select PDFCreator as you printer and give the file a name and whoola --- you have a PDF document that anybody can read.
  

Free Software

• AVG -- Virus checker -> found it to be one of the best around and it gets updated frequently.  A virus checker is a must so either spend the money and buy one or use AVG.
• ZoneAlarm-- Firewall ->  if you are on the Internet frequently and your time on the net is more than a couple of minutes at a time get a firewall.  Yes I know Service Pack 2 of Windows XP has an updated firewall but do not depend on it.  It is not very good.  Disable it and get ZoneAlarm. If you cannot get ZoneAlarm then at least enable Windows XP's firewall -- it might just save you in the long run.
  

Conclusion

About the author:

Marius Bock is the owner of Henriska Technology, a small company that specializes in consulting on the use of Open Source Software and the Internet. He has over 20 years experience in the ICT industry and worked at major companies in South Africa. He can be contacted on [marius At henriska DOT co DOT za]

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