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Best free softwares

Find here a list of most popular free softwares. These are the ones we recommand because they are reliables, essentials and useful.

Some of these softwares are not available for all operating systems, therefore it is useful to know your operating system.

Web

Adobe Flash Player : Open some web sites. Often necessary for games, stylish websites and to play online videos. Even if it tends to be replaced, it is still very commonly used on the web.


Google Chrome Surfing the Internet. Lightning fast browser, easy to use, ergonomic, compatible with the latest web standards, secure, flexible and stable. We highly recommend for your web browsing.


Firefox : Surfing the Internet. Another excellent browser, efficient, modern, simple, full of options and regularly updated. The openness and neutrality of the web that we know today has been won largely through the involvement of the Mozilla foundation that is behind Firefox.

Communication

Skype  : Communication webcam / phone. Very simple and popular software to communicate online with someone from a microphone or a webcam. Also a nice software to call phones around the world to very low cost.


Windows Live Messenger  : Instant communication. Like Skype, popular software for online communications. This one is more used for chat (instant text conversation) but using a webcam is also possible. compatible with Windows and Mac.


Empathy : Instant communication. It can be used to chat or communicate with a microphone or webcam. A very convenient feature is that this software allows you to connect multiple networks simultaneously, Windows Live, Google Talk, Yahoo, etc.. Compatible with Ubuntu only.

Thunderbird  : Managing emails. Equivalent to Outlook Express.. that has been replaced by Windows Mail, then finally abandoned in Windows. This is an excellent software very flexible, feature rich and useful for your email management, whoever is your email service provider.

Bitcoin : Decentralized cryptographic currency. Bitcoin is a software that allows exchange, payment and receipt of money through the Internet. No transaction fees for the most part and impossible to control by the banks. Bitcoin gives you back control over your money.

Office

Adobe Reader : Open PDF documents. These are very common today. This format is used both on serious publications like government documents and on any website that contains documents you can download and print. Necessary on Windows only, Mac and Ubuntu have equivalent software pre-installed.

LibreOffice Writer : Word processing. Once OpenOffice. 
Complete  and free equivalence to Microsoft Word, 
can read and write a multitude of document formats including those recorded by Microsoft Word in addition to export to PDF. Already included in Ubuntu.

LibreOffice Calc : Spreadsheets. Once OpenOffice. Complete and free equivalence to Microsoft Excel, can read and write a multitude of document formats including those saved by Microsoft Excel and more to export to PDF. Already included in Ubuntu.

Gnucash : Accounting. Little known software that is yet very simple, flexible and enjoyable for family and small businesses. It can import transactions from your bank, print detailed reports and manage customers, suppliers and invoices.


Multimedia

Picasa : Photo management. An excellent software to manage a library of photos for both organizing them and to perform common tasks (image improvement, email, print, save, upload photos etc. ..).


GIMP : Image editing. You probably know Photoshop for its reputation. GIMP is a free equivalent very flexible and convenient to edit photos. His palette of options and tools is broad enough to cover advanced needs.


VLC : Playing videos. There are (too) many formats of video and most software can not read them all. VLC for its part is known to be able to read any format of video, useful! So much useful in many circumstances.


iTunes : Music library. Another music player, very popular because it comes with the iPod and iPhone with whom he is one. Probably the easiest software to buy music online and a good one for most tasks related to music. However, very limited to Apple products. Windows and Mac only.

Banshee : Music library. Like iTunes for Mac and Windows Media Player for Windows, excellent software to manage a music library, extract music, burn CDs and use a digital music player (iPod and others), show album art and more.. Already installed and only compatible with Ubuntu.

Windows Media Player : Music library. Convenient software to manage and listen to a music library, make playlists, burn CDs or extract music and manage a digital music player (iPod). Pretty simple and fast. Already installed and only compatible with Windows.

CDBurnerXP : Burn CDs. Very friendly and simple software to burn documents, music, movies on CDs and DVDs. Despite its title, it can be installed on any version of Windows from XP to 7. Windows only.


Remote access

Logmein  : Remote Access. A software that let you control your computer remotely, or allow a friend to do so (to help you achieve certain things for example). It also provides remote access to documents and more. Windows and Mac only.


Dropbox Sync documents. Allows you to have a shared folder between multiple computers and available online. Extremely convenient to have a backup of your important documents or to work your documents in several different places.


Protection and cleaning

Avast Antivirus 
: Protect your computer. Excellent free antivirus with very good basic protection equivalent to several other good antivirus, so you can avoid problems without paying a fee. Windows only.


Kaspersky Antivirus 
: (Not free) Protecting your computer. Another antivirus, the best we know and recommend. Not to be confused with Kaspersky Internet Security from the same publisher, which seems too full and paranoid. Protection of the software is solid. Windows only.

Superantispyware 
: Cleaning Your Computer. This tool allows to clean all parasites from your computer. If your PC was infected and that cleaning is effective, it can have a positive impact on performance. Windows only.


MalwareBytes Antimalware 
: Cleaning Your Computer. Same as SuperAntiSpyware, it works sometime better, than 
SuperAntiSpyware, sometimes SuperAntiSpyware wins. The use of both increases your chances of successfully disinfect your computer. Windows only.

Ccleaner 
leaning Your Computer. This tool allows for a deep cleaning of unnecessary files from your computer. Run once every year, it can allow you to release a substantial amount of space. Windows only.


Compatibility


7zip : Open compressed documents. This is not every day that we receive compressed documents, however, very convenient to have software installed that can open them in these situations. 7zip can open up an impressive list of formats. Only necessary on Windows

Wine : Compatibility. Once installed on your system, you can install and run some software designed for Windows only on Ubuntu. All software do not work perfectly but still pretty useful in some situations. Ubuntu only.


ubuntu-restricted-extras : Compatibility. This package installs enough to allow ubuntu to open a good list of non-free formats (music, videos, documents). It also installs flash player for web sites that use it work. Ubuntu only.


Web services

Google : Google needs no introduction, but it deserves a mention. Regardless of the information, the reflex of millions of users worldwide is the same, type a question on Google and you get to the immense wealth of knowledge that is the web. Google also offer a broad ranges of services outside of web search.

Gmail : Webmail. Gmail is a free online email service, like hotmail and yahoo, but that remains efficient, simple and effective while being extremely rich in options. You can use it as an online email service with your mobile. Its SPAM filter is very effective, a pleasure to use.

Facebook : Social Network. Newborn in the face of the web, if you want to share with friends and family or promote your business, facebook has become a social phenomenon, and even addictive for some, in which people share and display their colors.

Twitter : Microblogging. Another new very popular service, Twitter combines well with a recent mobile phone, because its purpose is to allow you to follow the news of friends or organization you want in seconds and to also keep your listeners follow you by sharing your activities with short sentences.

Paypal : Online payments. This service allows you to have a "virtual" bank account linked to a real bank account through which you can shop online securely, and also receive payments from other members of the same cards and paypal credit.