Some Helpful / Recommended Software
Type
GNU/Linux *
Windows
Office Productivity Suite
webopedia info: LibreOffice
LibreOffice is a FREE comprehensive Office Suite - for Linux, Windows, even Apple (NeoOffice)! (OpenOffice is the Oracle/Apache version used by many businesses.)
Abiword is an elegantly simple Word Processor; and Gnumeric is a powerful and easy to use Spreadsheet from GNOME Office.
KOffice (part of KDE) is maturing as well.
There are Windows versions of LibreOffice, OpenOffice, and Abiword. There is even a project to bring KOffice (and the whole KDE Desktop!) to Windows (KDE on Windows).
Web Browser
Mozilla Firefox
Firefox blows IE away! ... tabbed browsing and intutive control of cookies, etc. There are versions for Linux, Windows, Apple, and others!
Chrome and Chromium
Opera has a different style, but you might like it.
Firefox, Chrome, and Opera are also available for Windows.
Email Client
Mozilla Thunderbird
Mozilla Thunderbird
attractive interface with spam filters and GPG
Kmail (part of KDE's Kontact PIM)
great GPG integration
Sylpheed – fast, light Win32 version too)
Evolution | Evolution (GNOME) | openSUSE link– PIM (in distros) Outlook and Groupwise protocols support
Thunderbird is recommended
Sylpheed is available,
and Kmail/Kontact may be on the way.
Remember Eudora? It is coming back as Open Source Eudora OSE | Penelope project.
Instant Messaging client
kopete (KDE)
Psi (neat, cross platform!!)
Pidgin amazing cross platform, multiprotocol client (GNOME)
Psi is excellent.
Pidgin has come a long way since gaim superseded "AOL Instant Messenger."
Newsreader
Use Thunderbird (see above)
PDF Reader
Adobe Acrobat Reader)
For linux, there are many other utilities, including: KDE Okular, GNOME Evince, Ghostview (ggv), kghostview, gpdf, kpdf, and xpdf. These may do additional things and/or be faster.
use Acrobat Reader, or search other options - incl Evince
To make PDFs
This functionality is built in to KDE printing, Libre/Open Office, Abiword, etc.!
other methods include using Ghostscript.
ps2pdf is an online (platform agnostic) front-end for Ghostscript
CUPS-PDF is another nifty utility.
Built in to Libre/Open Office!
Also may try printer driver type utilities: doPDF, PDFCreator, BullZip PDF Printer, ...
Commercial products: Click2PDF,
PDF995,
Adobe Acrobat (see price!).
Graphics
Gimp is the Swiss Army knife of bitmap graphics programs, with the functionality of Adobe Photoshop.
For linux, there are various other bitmap and vector drawing programs. Vector programs include LibeOffice.org's LO Draw |
OpenOffice.org's OO Draw,
as well as Inkscape
and Krita (KDE).
Archiver / Zip utils
Ark, File Roller, etc. usually come right in the standard distribution installation.
Firewall
built-in tools with most Linux distributions. Other graphical options include Firestarter.
ZoneAlarm - highly configurable (free version)
Windows firewall has minimal functionality.
Antivirus
Less need for it ... but we sometimes do need to protect our Windows-using neighbors, lest we inadvertently pass one on.
See ClamAV
or Avira Free Antivirus, or AVG Anti-Virus (Free edition)
ClamAV, Avira Free Antivirus, or AVG Anti-Virus (Free edition)
See also: Freebyte's Guide to Free Anti-Virus Software
Anti-Spam
Very intuitive "trainable" Junk Mail filters are now built into the Mozilla Thunderbird mail program!
SpamAssassin is a really smart program: a little tricky to configure, but it can integrate easily with Kmail or other mail programs!
best to just use Mozilla Thunderbird's built in trainable "junk mail" filters.
Anti-Spyware / Anti-Malware
Don't need it, unless you run "root" (administrative user) all the time and use no discretion for installing code! ...
Ad-Aware's free edition, Spybot ...
Note to Windows users:
Do not ... Do not! ... DO NOT!! run always as administrative user!