I
am continually searching for quality Freeware and Open Source
software, for my small network of workstations at home.
Here is a list and descriptions of software which meet or
exceed the quality and features of many commercial offerings.
Mozilla
Web Browser
Since
playing around with Freesco for the past few years and getting
a taste for the Linux operating system and other Open Source
Code, I have made a few changes to my Windows XP Pro workstation,
in particular installing and choosing Mozilla over Internet
Explorer 6 as my Web browser. This is a full featured, standards
compliant, web browser with email client, news groups reader
and IRC chat. Mozilla is available for Win32, Linux, FreeBSD,
MacOS and a number of other operating systems.
I
was pleasantly surprised with the quality, stability and
features of this free open source browser. The Mozilla organisation
actively encourage public users to beta test and offer their
comments and ideas in order to continually improve the product.
Hats off to the development team.
The
features I prefer over Microsoft Internet Explorer are:
The
tabbed browser tool. This allows you to open multiple pages
in one browser frame.
A
useful integrated download manager.
The
user selectable options are a major improvement over IE6;
by selecting options in edit -preferences -advanced -scripts
& plug-ins, you can effectively remove annoying and
increasing common popup's and flash ads.
Also
worth considering is Mozilla Firefox. This is a trimmed
version of the Mozilla browser without the email, newgroups
and IRC features. With the increasing number of 'Net Villains'
who are hell bent on exploiting every security flaw in the
ubiquitous Internet Explorer; Mozilla and Firefox have proved
to more far more robust and secure.
With
the arrival of more slick open source projects such as Mozilla,
Linux/BSD will soon be the primary OS on my desktop.
These
are well worth the download.
Why
You Should Switch to Firefox
mozilla.org
Mozilla
Firefox
7-Zip
is a file compression utility with both a Windows GUI and
a command line.
It will create archives and compress the following formats:
7z, ZIP, GZIP, TAR and BZIP2. 7z is the native compression
format for 7-Zip and has superior compression ratio over
the other formats. 7-Zip will also decompress several other
formats such as RAR, CAB and ARJ. I am currently using V3.13
and have been very satisfied with its performance.
7-Zip
is freeware distributed under GNU Lesser General Public
License, version 2.1.
Kerio
Personal Firewall
This is the personal firewall software I
have installed on our Windows XP workstations.
Some
people many argue that this is not necessary with a network
hardware firewall. Since setting up my Freesco box, I have
not received any intrusion alerts on my Windows workstation.
A personal firewall will however, protect you from Trojan
horse programs, worms and sneaky spyware by preventing unauthorized
outbound information from being sent out. Kerio is free
for use at home and I am quite satisfied with its performance.
www.kerio.com
AVG Anti-Virus
When I changed my workstation OS to Windows
XP Professional, my old anti-virus software would not work
with XP. I searched for XP compatible software adn found
AVG 6 Anti-Virus. This software is free, for now, to North
American and United Kingdom users.
I've
found the program to be bug-free and Grisoft have been quick
to respond to new viruses with timely updates. Grisoft's
DOS Nimda scanner found Nimda-B on my system.
www.grisoft.com
Coolplayer
I
love music, in particular classical, blues and rock. I listen
to CD's and MP3's on my PC and in my car. I was a fan of
Winamp for years but the latest Winamp 5 is needlessly large
for playing music. After a little research I found Coolplayer.
This small audio player uses very little resources on my
PC and has proven to be very stable and well behaved.
coolplayer.sourceforge.net
VNC
VNC
is GUI remote control software. There are several versions
of VNC available for several operation systems and hardware
platforms. I have implemented UltraVNC in an industrial
process monitoring and data acquisition system. My mill
boxes run Windows NT 4.0 or Windows 2000 (I prefer NT
but new hardware is presenting compatibility issues with
drivers). With a VNC server installed as a service on
the remote system, I can connect to it with dial up networking
(DUN) and from my desktop. I can manipulate the Desktop
on the remote system and download data files.
This
has replaced the costly and hardware demanding PCanyWhere
remote control software. PCanyWhere is a good product,
but I do not need most of the added features and functions.
The real beauty of VNC is the ability to connect with
different operating systems. For instance, your Linux
system at home could connect to the Windows XP desktop
in your office at work. You could run an Excel spreadsheet
remotely and download the file.
The
VNC client/server software is available for Linux(x86),
MacOS X, Netware, QNX, Solaris, and Windows(x86).
UltraVNC
is written for Windows 9x/Me/NT4/2000/XP.
RealVNC
has packages for Linux(x86), Solaris 2.5(SPARC), and Windows.
TightVNC
has packages for Linux, Unix, and Windows.
eSVNC
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