Software Giant Killers
Think you need to cough up large sums of money for an office suite, security tools, and other essential programs? These free and low-cost alternatives provide power without the high price.
Illustration by Richard Downs
We put some to the test and found that, yes, you really can replace many of your expensive, big-name packages with powerful free or low-cost alternatives. You may have to get multiple programs to accomplish what a single suite would otherwise do. If you don't mind a few rough edges, however, you'll find that the software challengers presented here can hold their own quite well. So read on to see what these packages can do for you.
In This Article:
Move to a New Office
Ready to ditch Microsoft Office and Outlook? OpenOffice and Thunderbird have plenty to offer.
If you need an office suite mainly to edit text documents and to crunch numbers in spreadsheets, OpenOffice.org is a great alternative to Microsoft. It seamlessly handles Word and Excel files, so colleagues will know you're using it only if you buy a new suit with the money you save. Version 2.0 is still in beta, with the final edition due by the time you read this.
You're better off with Microsoft Office ($350) and PowerPoint, though, if you frequently create or view complex presentations. In my tests, OpenOffice had difficulties displaying PowerPoint files that contained complex animations.
OpenOffice mirrors the structure--and in many instances, the look--of today's Office. (The changes Microsoft has in store for the next Office, due in the second half of 2006, will make it look radically different.) In addition to the word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation apps you expect, OpenOffice also includes a database app, a basic Visio-like drawing and diagramming program, and a tool that puts together mathematical formulas.
OpenOffice provides a seemingly infinite array of tweaks, too. For instance, Calc, the spreadsheet application, supplies 33 different toolbars to add to your document window, each with at least a handful of buttons. That many choices can be either wonderful or overwhelming, depending on your perspective.
Sometimes the suite's eagerness to give you plenty of information gets in the way. If your document has many revisions from colleagues, for instance, processing those changes can be a chore. In Microsoft Word, you can right-click a specific revision and choose to accept or reject it. In Writer, the OpenOffice equivalent, you get a pop-up box that lists every change in your document, along with who made it and when. To accept a change, you have to squint and locate it in that long list.
But you'll find some refreshing benefits to escaping Microsoft hegemony. OpenOffice seldom tries to guess what you want it to do, a sometimes annoying habit of Microsoft programs. And you gain security through obscurity: While Office needs regular patching to prevent hacker attacks, OpenOffice--at least for now--seems to be off the bad guys' radar. If more people decide they'd rather spend $350 on something other than Microsoft Office, however, that may change.
No-Nonsense E-Mail
The Thunderbird e-mail program comes from the same open-source developers who brought you Firefox, and the common lineage shows. Like that popular Web browser, Thunderbird is a simple, no-nonsense application that does its job without getting in your way.
Thunderbird has a three-pane layout that will look familiar to users of Outlook ($109) and other major e-mail programs. We do have a minor nit to pick: Thunderbird crams all the information about a message--title, sender, date, and the like--on one line, making that text a little harder to read than in Outlook, which presents the information on two lines.
Searches in Thunderbird really fly. And you can choose to search just about any part of your message in virtually any way you like. The program imports messages from Communicator 4.x, Eudora, Outlook, and Outlook Express.
Our latest testing found that Thunderbird does a top-notch job filtering spam. Without any training, it caught 72 percent of spam messages. The figure rose to 95 percent after we took some time and trained the application by weeding out the spam among 100 messages.
What's missing compared with market champ Outlook? Thunderbird isn't a collaboration tool. The program offers you neither a calendar nor a task manager. But if you're in the market for a solid, speedy e-mail application, Thunderbird shows that there's no need to pull out your wallet to get one.
Move to a New Office
OpenOffice.org 2.0 (public beta), Free
Bottom line: This software package is a money-saver if you work mostly with text documents and spreadsheets.
Thunderbird, Free
Bottom line: Fast searching through your inbox and folders, plus thorough spam protection, make this a great e-mail program.
Edward N. AlbroSecurity Showdown
Can you skip paying for a hefty Internet security suite like Norton? You betcha.
Illustration by Richard Downs
And you can save some time, as well as money, with freeware. It took me several minutes more to install and update Norton Internet Security than to add all three of the stand-alone free products combined. Furthermore, the Norton package requires more reboots during installation and demands a total of nearly 300MB more hard-drive space than the free apps do.
On the other hand, learning to use a suite is often easier than tackling several disparate applications. Maintaining separate tools and keeping each of them up-to-date is typically more difficult as well.
Strong Security Pieces
With antivirus applications, nobody should be penny-wise and pest-foolish. That isn't a concern with AVG--it's both free and secure. In comparing AVG's effectiveness at protecting your computer with that of the Symantec suite's antivirus utility, the principal difference lies in the frequency of virus definition updates, with the advantage going to AVG.
Symantec updates weekly, unless the company deems a new threat to be medium to widespread. In contrast, AVG updates as often as new viruses are found. For example, when several new Bagle worms were discovered during my testing period, AVG updated my protection within hours, but several days later Symantec still had not provided detection. In my tests, I saw no significant protection differences other than the update schedule.
As for firewalls, both Norton's firewall and ZoneAlarm kept my PC virtually invisible on the Internet and protected me from unauthorized intrusions. ZoneAlarm gave me the option of letting it automatically decide what could access the Net, or having it prompt me on a case-by-case basis; Norton made some decisions for me and prompted for others. I also tested both on a spyware-infested PC. With Norton, I was deluged with pop-ups even though my browser was closed. With ZoneAlarm, I received none.
While the Norton Internet Security package offers most of the features you expect in an all-in-one security suite, it currently lacks spyware protection. (However, upcoming 2006 versions of the Norton suite, not ready for this review, will include spyware protection.) For an extra $10 you can purchase Symantec's Antispyware Edition, but my tests show neither it--nor a free spyware scanner--is your best bet. (My pick is Webroot's $30 Spy Sweeper; see November's "Best Defenders."
Of the three free spyware scanners we tried--Ad-Aware SE Personal, Spybot Search & Destroy, and Microsoft's Windows AntiSpyware (downloadable beta version)--Microsoft's tool did best, removing 66 percent of active spyware components, but falling far short of the 90 percent removal rate of Spy Sweeper.
Overall, if you're an experienced computer user willing to put in a little time and effort, constructing your own freeware security suite seems an ideal way to save yourself some money. One caveat: AVG Free Edition does not offer tech support, though you can find several self-help groups online. But even the $70 Norton suite has only limited support--to speak to a live person, you'll dish out $30 per incident.
Security Showdown
AVG Anti-Virus, Free
Bottom line: Capable protector has frequent updates, but no tech support.
ZoneAlarm, Free
Bottom line: App has more flexibility and power than most for-pay firewall products.
Microsoft Windows AntiSpyware (beta), Free
Bottom line: Best free choice we tried still falls far short of Webroot SpySweeper ($30).
Mary LandesmanGraphics Gurus
Tired of emptying your wallet to Adobe for photo management and editing? You have options.
Illustration by Richard Downs
However, the application lacks the unique, sophisticated tools that Adobe's Elements borrows from its pricier $600 sibling, Photoshop Creative Suite 2. While GIMP offers a cloning tool, Elements has that plus two powerful healing brushes, which you can use to correct blemishes and other imperfections quickly. Elements has a great automatic red-eye reducer; GIMP has none, so you have to make a fairly precise selection around the red area of the eye, set a feathering value, and then adjust the hue and saturation to fix the problem. And while GIMP has levels adjustments for lighting, Elements has those plus an effective shadows-and-highlights enhancer.
GIMP's interface is a bit disorganized, as well. The program presents palettes, tools, and images in individual floating windows, and the commands aren't consistent among the windows. (For example, the commands available in different windows' File, Edit, Select, and View menus aren't the same.) Some of the application's shortcuts are inconsistent too: You can press the hyphen (minus) key to zoom out, but you must press the Shift-Plus keys to zoom in.
If you don't want to spend $100 for Elements, though, GIMP is worth a try. The free program offers plenty of usable tools, and if you're willing to make do with the capabilities it has and spend some time learning its quirks, you can get good results. If you want an easier, faster route to better pictures, however, you'll find that Elements delivers. The GIMP, now in version 2.2.8, is available for the Windows, Mac, and Linux platforms.
Able Manager
Google's free Picasa 2 organizer truly rivals the image organizer included in Adobe Photoshop Elements. And Picasa shares one of the popular Web search engine's best qualities: its speed.
Scrolling, searching, and categorizing tasks fly by. For example, search for pictures or videos by typing a word, and the results come up as you type. Elements' organizer feels lethargic by comparison.
Picasa offers many unique features, too: It will send pictures through Microsoft Outlook, Google's Gmail, or Google's Hello photo-sharing application. You can also select pictures to send to Google's free Blogger service. And Picasa lets you make a simple Web page or HTML storybook, or export images to a TiVo box. Elements' organizer can help you create great Web pages and slide shows, but it has no blogging aids.
Elements' main advantage is its tagging system, in which you drag icons that look like luggage tags onto one or more pictures to categorize them. After you tag your images, you can conduct searches by looking for a tag or for a combination of them. Picasa has its own labeling system, but it's nowhere near as attractive.
Photoshop Elements has more features overall, but Picasa has plenty of its own--so many that you'll feel like you're getting away with something by downloading the program for free.
Graphics Gurus
GIMP, Free
Bottom line: The app produces good results, yet requires a bit more time and effort than Photoshop Elements does. Not great for novices, but fine for experienced enthusiasts.
Picasa, Free
Bottom line: This image organizer is so good, it's worth using at any price.
Alan StaffordFinancial Finesse
Feel like ditching Intuit's Quicken? Your finances may be well managed by Moneydance.
Illustration by Richard Downs
In addition to expected basic expense tracking features, Moneydance offers budgeting and basic investment tools, support for international currencies, a range of report options including graphs, and bill reminders. Moneydance also includes online banking by way of support for.qif file imports--something Intuit has dropped, angering many longtime Quicken users.
If you like, add more functionality by downloading extensions to the program; I installed a credit card payoff calculator. Reilly and others can create extensions (there are only a few of them right now) using a free software developer's kit.
What does Moneydance lack compared with Quicken Basic? It doesn't approach the polish of Quicken's highly customizable interface, honed by years of consumer research. And it doesn't transform strange downloaded payee names (the ones that come in with additional numbers denoting accounts or store branches) into plain English.
Compared with the higher-end versions of Quicken (Deluxe for $50, Premier for $70, Premier Home & Business for $80), Moneydance is missing the calculators and some of the investment planning, tax, and accounting tools you'll find in those more expensive packages.
Also, Moneydance doesn't allow you to attach digital images of related documents--like checks or invoices--to transaction entries and accounts, a feature the three high-end versions of Quicken offer.
Moneydance's tech support isn't fancy, either: You can consult the support page's FAQ or e-mail a question to the company (with no promise of when you'll hear back). Additionally, you can access community resources, including a mailing list and a Yahoo-based user group that's independent of Moneydance itself. But there's no phone tech support.
Still, one of Moneydance's biggest selling points may be something else the program doesn't do: It doesn't install desktop shortcuts for two or three of its marketing partners, a longstanding Quicken practice. In fact, for readers who've written recently to tell us they've crossed swords with Intuit over shoddy tech support or over policies such as ending download support for older versions of the program, Moneydance gets points simply for not being Quicken.
Financial Finesse
Moneydance, $30
Bottom line: This program is a worthy option for budgeting and banking, if you've had it with Intuit software and services.
Yardena ArarMedia Mavens
You don't need Roxio or Nero to rip and burn your tunes. Two free programs can do the job.
Illustration by Richard Downs
For handling music files, I settled on the free version of Musicmatch Jukebox 10: It rips audio-CD tracks to WMA, MP3, and MP3 Pro and burns them back to CD. (Windows Media Player, a freebie that's probably already on your Windows system, lacks MP3 Pro support.) One caveat: Musicmatch Jukebox 10 works more slowly than commercial software.
For burning your data onto a CD or DVD, my pick is DeepBurner 1.6. DeepBurner is simple to learn and use. It writes both data CDs and DVDs with aplomb, as well as CD or DVD ISO images (one large file containing all the data on a disc). It even writes audio CDs from MP3,.ogg, or.wav files. I found no dedicated, free data backup programs that support optical drives; if you're organized enough, you can use DeepBurner for that.
Life without Nero and Roxio can be good--within limits. Some people should still shell out for one of the suites, since freeware can't match Nero's or Roxio's DVD authoring, video editing and output, LP/tape restoration, and sound-editing capabilities. But if you lead a simple life, give the freeware a try.
Media Mavens
DeepBurner Free 1.6, Free
Bottom line: This freeware program ably burns data to CD and DVD, but lacks DVD authoring and related tools.
Musicmatch Jukebox 10, Free
Bottom line: It's not lightning fast, but this app capably rips audio and burns to CD.
Jon L. JacobiPDFs for Less
No need to spend hundreds on Adobe Acrobat. Low-cost alternatives can serve you well.
Illustration by Richard Downs
Note that the free service limits each PDF to 100MB and 50 uploaded pages, and it times out after 10 minutes of processing per file, a limiting factor if you work with complicated files containing high-resolution images.
For more flexibility and power, try Acro Software's $50 CutePDF 3. With it you can create a PDF by combining various text and image files, or edit an existing one. You can also combine or extract PDFs, and add backgrounds, letterheads, and forms to them. Basic security options include password protection and watermarks. CutePDF lacks many of Acrobat's advanced tools, such as integration with Microsoft Word, print and copy controls, and a "Send to PDF" option for your right-click menu. To "Print to PDF," you must download a free companion utility, CutePDF Writer. Still, you score plenty of power for a fraction of Acrobat's cost.
More expensive, but with more features and better integration, is Global Graphics Software's $84 Jaws PDF Creator 3.6. It has the PDF printer driver, as well as a desktop icon where you can drag and drop files to convert them to PDFs. It also installs a PDF toolbar in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, à la Acrobat (though not to the other Office apps that Acrobat supports.) Jaws PDF Creator adds 128-bit encryption of the files and provides some control over printing and editing.
PDFs for Less
CutePDF 3, $50Bottom line: Affordable tool creates PDFs and has good basic security, but it lacks Microsoft Office integration.
Dennis O'Reilly