I recently ran into a dilemma when helping a friend buy a new computer. She had bought a computer, on my recommendations, and all it came with was an OEM version of Windows XP. Obviously, I was obligated to hook everything up, and install all the necessary software. Normally, I would recommend a few commercial products which I would then buy and install, but in this case, budget was tight and so I had to resort to using only free software.
To my surprise, what I found was that there are so many free alternatives to good software that there is really very little need to spend a huge amount of money (or any money) and still get a secure and fully functional computer.
This guide will recommend some free software for your computer (not just dealing with digital video) that might just help you save thousands of dollars on commercial software, or at the very least prevent you from becoming a terrorist by using pirated software, so you can concentrate on being a terrorist in Counter-Strike instead. Only freeware and open source software will be listed, no shareware, trialware and whenever possible, no ad-ware either.
Of course, the ultimate method to get a computer that only uses free software is to go Linux, but this guide will cover Windows XP only (and in some extent, Vista) as this is still the OS that most people use and are familiar with. Oh, and to play games and stuff.
What are you waiting on??? Go
here and get started!
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