Free Software
Reviews and ratings of quality, hand-picked, websites

Software is pretty expensive these days and if you ha Free Software Cartoon d to actually buy all the graphics, office, web, security (etc etc) progams you need then it would cost literally thousands of pounds - Photoshop alone would set you back around £500! But luckily you don't need to spend all your hard earned money as there is some great free software out there that is comparable to the most expensive commercial packages.

Many of the programs we feature are Open Source programs - this is software where you can view the source code, alter it and redistribute it if you like. All the Open Source programs we list are free. Some programs are just great little programs written by individuals. Some are free programs from commercial software companies, such as AVG, who maybe hope that a certain percentage of satisfied takers will go on to buy their paid for products. We don't mind that - they are giving us free programs, after all!

This is not a definitive list of free programs. We have chosen only what we consider to be the best free software out there on the web. You can see what we think of a particular program by the number of "stars" it has.

We are constantly looking for new programs to add to the list, so watch this space! If you are looking for something specific and cannot find it here, we recommend you try www.download.com.

Please choose a category from the list below.

Miscellaneous and Hobbies
Astronomy Software
Internet & Communications - Free browsers and email clients plus internet telephony, remote control software, FTP and online faxes
Security and Cleaning - Protect your computer from viruses and malware plus programs to keep it clean and running efficiently
Office and Accounting - free word processing software, free accounting software, free payroll, free pdf readers, free desktop publishers and free online faxes.
Graphics - Photo Manipulation, Picture Viewers & Editors, Flash, 3D Modelling & Animation Programs, Vector Graphics, Paint & Drawing, Panorama Stitchers, Landscape Generator, Miscellaneous Graphics Programs
Media - video/music players, audio editing, DV editing, converters, podcast manager, DVD maker and burners
Web Editing - WYSIWYG and text editors
Utilities - Zip programs, PDF readers and Screen Capture utility

Latest Software Reviews

Advanced Effects Maker
• www.effectmaker.com
Program Type: Flash and Javascript Effects
The free edition (there are 2 other paid for options) have 40 free effects that you can use, including scrollers, text effects, slideshows and menus, plus a few other effects such an analogue clock. All the effects are customisable.
This program is fairly easy to get to grips with - just click on the help tab and then the user guide to get started.
Platforms: Windows, Mac

My Paint
• http://mypaint.intilinux.com
Program Type: Paint Program
Really nice, no clutter paint program. The interface is very simple and straighforward (no layers) with a large number of preset brushes to get you going. Plus the program allows you to make your own brushes if you want. Canvas size is unlimited and there is support for pressure sensitive tablets. The simplicity of My Paint means it will only open and save .png files - but you can always use something like Gimp to finish off.
There is a tutorial on the website.
Platforms: Windows, Linux

Evolution Software
We have found two free pieces of virtual gene pool software:
Darwin Pond and Gene Pool.
Darwin Pond and Gene Pool are easy enough to install and run. Darwin Pond is a little more sophisticated but we like Gene Pool in that you have the oportunity of segregating the population into halfs and quarters and seeing what happens.
Platform: Windows
There is also an online applet called the Blind Watchmaker Applet. Just start the applet and leave it running. (You do need to keep the browser window open while the applet is running).

PDF Creator
• www.pdfforge.org/products/pdfcreator
Program Type: Open source PDF Creator
Create PDF documents from any program that is able to print. Also you can create PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS and EPS files. And you can merge multiple files into one folder. Unfortunately (and this is a common problem with free PDF makers) hyperlinks do not work in the generated PDF documents - you can get around this by installing PDF-T-Maker (choose help and search for hyperlink for details). This program installs itself into Word and from the Word toolbar you should be able to create a postscript file (.ps) of your document which will work with PDF Creator.
However, I couldn't get it to work! You have to specify a default postcript printer, in this case PDF Creator, but I just get a runtime error each time I try. C'est la vie.
Even more unfortunately, I could get none of the other free pdf makers to even work! So kudos to this one for at least producing something!
Platform: Windows

Before 3you 3Know It Lite
• www.byki.com
Program Type: Free Language Software
Choose from over 60 different languages. from Spanish to Afrikaans. This is the lite version which means that they are hoping you will buy the deluxe version - but this is not essential. And the lite version is still pretty good.
Platform: Windows, Mac, PocketPC, Palm

Free Studio Manager
• www.dvdvideosoft.com
Program Type: Video Converter
This is a great tool that includes:
YouTube to iPod and PSP Converter
Video Dub
Audio Dub
Video to Flash Converter
YouTube to MP3 Converter
DVD Decrypter
3GP Video Converter
Video Flip and Rotate
YouTube Download
YouTube Uploader
Video to iPod and PSP Converter
Video to iPhone Converter
Video to MP3 Converter
Video to JPG Converter
YouTube to iPhone Converte
Studio Manager
Extract images from video and convert to jpg
All of the above are free tools. Program is easy to install and run.
Platform: Windows, Mac

Web Album Maker
• www.web-album-maker.com
Program Type: Photo Album Generator
Another excellent free photo album maker using Flash or html templates (no Flash experience necessary). In fact it couldn't be easier to use. Just add images from your computer, click next, choose a template and then click make! You can just view or upload it straight to your website. Probably not quite so versatile as JAlbum.
Platforms: Windows

MemoriesOnWeb
• www.codejam.com/slideshow/mow.htm
Program Type: Free Slideshow Software
Very nice, very simple to use and it's completely free! It's developed by the same people who make the paid for software MemoriesOnTV. Drag and drop your images into the main pane, choose music (if you want) and then choose the transition effects you like. All that's left is to generate the video and you can also send it up to YouTube at the same time if you want. The video generated is an avi file. If you don't want it in this form we recommend Free Studio Manager from www.dvdvideosoft.com to convert it.
Platform: Windows

Xenu's Link Sleuth
• http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
Program Type: Free Link Checker
Saves a huge amount of time if you have a lot of links to check. Simply type in the url of your website and the program checks all the outgoing links for you and flags up any broken links. You can choose how you want the results to be sorted.
Platform: Windows only

Volusion Live Chat
• www.volusion.com/livechat_software.asp
Program Type: Live Chat Software
If you would like to add a chat facility to your website. The software is free and fully customisable. This is a free offering from Volusion provide (paid for!) ecommerce solutions for businesses.
Platform: Windows

Soyouthink DHTML Menu Builder Free Version
• www.dhtml-menu-builder.com
Program Type: DHTML Menu Builder
Professional DHTML pop-up menus. Choose your own fonts and colours. Each menu button can be customised separately. Add icon and pictures. The interface is very simple so making a menu is a breeze. The javascript code is generated automatically. Its also search engine friendly. Soyouthink has several free and paid for software products
Platform: Windows

Night Vision
• http://home.att.net
Program Type: Planetarium
This is a very simple and fast Java program that can display the night sky from any location on earth. You can control the look of the display by choosing colours, fonts and which objects to display. You can also run the program at various speeds.
Platform: Windows, Mac, Linux, Other

Screen Hunter 5 Free
• http://wisdom-soft.com/products/screenhunter_free.htm
Program Type: Screen Capture
The makers, Wisdom Soft, offers 3 versions of Screen Hunter. The free version allows you to capture full screen, active window and rectancular area. It will also show the mouse pointer if you want it to.

Cam Studio
• http://camstudio.org
Program Type: Streaming Video Software
Free open source streaming video software that will enable you to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files. It also has a built-in SWF Producer that can turn the AVIs into streaming Flash videos (SWFs).
Use it to create video demos and tutorials or to record problems you might be having with your computer (for the tech support people who, lets face it, think the rest of us are complete idiots and don't believe a word we say!)

Google SketchUp
• http://sketchup.google.com
Program Type: 3D Graphics
Google SketchUp model of Luxor Temple Now here is an interesting idea. Use Google SketchUp to create 3D images and you can upload them to the Google Earth 3D warehouse! You don't have to - you can use the program to make your own models and keep them all to yourself if you like. There is a lot of tutorial help for this program and it is fairly simple to use so you can get going immediately. When we tested it we found the program a little unwieldy to use but that was probably down to unfamiliarity and inexperience. Clearly some people have mastered the program pretty well - you can see that from the model shown above of the Luxor Temple by the Eqyptian Tourist Authority. Indeed there seems to be a large community of SketchUp - ers out there! If you want to join in the fun, download the free (fully funtioning) version of SetchUp or you can pay for the pro version (free 8 hour trial but quite expensive to buy).
Platforms: Mac OS X and Windows.

GnuCash
• www.gnucash.org
Program Type: Accounting
Gnu Cash is an open source finance/accounting program. Although this is a nice, easy to use program, we advise starting up some ficticious accounts and then spending time getting used to the way the program works. You can operate as many sets of accounts as you like and there are several templates to choose from, although these can be altered later. The way the program works is fairly simple and operates on the double entry principle - you can edit an account (eg expenses, income etc) and the program will prompt you to enter the equivalent double entry - for example, if you want to enter a payment you have made, you are asked to specify what kind of expense it is. The program has several usefull features such as an online banking connection, budgetting, account reconciliation, recurring transaction and good reporting. Businesses can also use this program as you can enter vendors and customers plus it will generate aging summaries as well as a number of other features useful for business acounts. However, if you do have a business we reckon it is probably better to spend the £100 or so on a program like Sage Instant Accounting which handles things like VAT much more easily.
Platforms: GNU/Linux, BSD, Solaris, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows. Also available in several languages.

Povray
Povray • www.povray.org
Program Type: Raytracing
Not for the faint hearted! This is a very powerfull 3D modeller and renderer but with this program there is no possibility of creating/inserting 3D objects and moving them around, which is what you get with many Povray other packages. All the modelling is done by code (you work on what are called .pov files) but the quality of the ensuing graphics is superb. The image on the left (a demo that comes with the program) gives an idea of the quality that can be achieved. Beginners will almost certainly want assistance and although there are help screens that come with the program, the best thing to do first, after downloading and installing the program, is to head off Mike's Povray Page where, in addition to his own set of tutorials, you can also find links to the best beginner Povray tutorials on the web and links to Povray tools such as the tree generator POV-Tree. You can also peruse the image galleries there to get inspiration. There is also a pretty impressive insert menu add on to the standard program that you can get from Friedrich Lohhmuller (this link is also on Mike's website). There are several files to download but it is definitely worth it.
Platforms: Windows, Mac and Linux.

Autostitch
• www.cs.ubc.ca/~mbrown/autostitch
Program Type: Panorama Photo Stitcher
Wow!!! I looked at this program after using Hugin (see below) - which is great - but this is so easy and does a brilliant job. It's completely automatic. All you do is load in the pictures you want to stitch together and in no time at all you have a perfectly stitched together panorama without any input (other than selecting the images) on your part at all! It's an amazing piece of software. See how Autostitch dealt with 5 images taken from Crickley Hill near Cheltenham - the result of about 2 minutes work - and then have a look at what we produced with Hugin after considerably more effort.
Although on the website you download a "demo" of Autostitch this is actually the full strength program. What companies can pay extra for is the chance to develop further products using Autostitch. Otherwise it is free to use - if your demo expires just download the lastest version from the website. We are not sure if this means that in the future we may have to pay for Autostitch, but if that day comes then we will definitely be getting out our credit cards!

Hugin
• http://hugin.sourceforge.net
Program Type: Panorama Photo Stitcher Hugin Screenshot
By far the easiest way to get going with this program is to follow the beginner's tutorial which can be found on the website.
The only problem I had was when asked to save the file as a tiff - it didn't work! Heaven knows why. However I did manage to save the file as a jpeg. Take a look here at five photos taken from the top of Crickley Hill (nr Cheltenham) that I was able to stitch together - after only the one tutorial! This really is a very easy program to get to grips with straight away but has more than enough capability for the kind of tweaking that advanced users will want. Excellent.
Platforms: Linux, Windows, MacOSX and many Unix systems.

Plant Studio
• www.kurtz-fernhout.com
Program Type: Plant Creator
Another small program but quite delightfull. With this program you can make plant models. Here is one we made just using the basic plant wizard and the "breed" option. The program will, however, do more than we have attempted so far. The program is completely free and has a help screen plus there is additional support on the website.
Platform: Windows

Deep Paint
• www.photo-freeware.net/deep-paint.php
Program Type: Paint Program
This is the free offering from Right Hemisphere (who also produce pay for graphics software). And its good! There are a huge number of preset paint brushes and if that's not enough you can make your own custom brushes. The image on the right was made just messing aroung with the preset brushes - no painting involved (which is good news for me!). Plus there are many clone brushes which allow you to duplicate parts of an image and clone (either straight or artistic) onto another location or canvas. The program also supports layers. When you install you can plug it directly into photoshop and also save projects as psd files. The interface is fairly simple (you can always check the help screens which are very good) so you can be up and running with this program in no time at all. Excellent.
Platforms: Windows

Color Cop
• http://colorcop.net
Program Type: Colour Picker
Love it! You can use the colour picker (eyedropper) on any part of your screen irrespective of what program is open. And it will also 'stay on top' when you click onto another program, unless you minimize it. Features include a magnifier, auto-copy to the clipboard, multiple output options, colour options, mouse wheel support and more. Click top left to bring up all the available options.
Platform: Windows

Free Software Reviews and ratings of quality, hand-picked, websites

Free Software
Reviews and ratings of quality, hand-picked, websites