Community poll forum: Which type of free application do you find most valuable?

The free PDF printer from PDF995.com is the best free tool I use. I liked it so much that I paid the $9.95 to avoid the pesky advertising pop up. While I use it to share unchangeable Office docs, I've found it especially useful for saving and sharing Quicken reports.

As for system sw, I think Spybot is great, too.

If they have a donation page and I like their stuff, I give some donation, because these guys work their butt off for our computer's health.

Good practice, because this keeps the "good guys" going.

I am really sold on FireFox, although I keep MSIE since some sites require it. I also like AntiVir - it's the best anti-virus software I know of, whether free or paid.

I have been buying Norton Antivirus for the past 6 years. I think this will be the last year. It costs too much and does less each year. I'm open to suggestions for free antivirus software. I have heard AVG (?) is good.

How do you get the updates to the free version? I cannot get updates. The message keeps telling me I have not updated for 93 days.

Wadda

I have been a Norton Anti-Virus user for many years until my subordinates at my current job found out. They were surprised to know that I used Norton. They emphatically suggested that I try AVG. I thought, why not, what have I got to lose! I went home and uninstalled Norton and went into the internet and installed AVG (free version). As soon as I finished installing AVG, I was prompted to do one manual update. From then on, I watched as AVG scanned my PC and discovered 134 trojans in my PC!!!! I was in total SHOCK! I thought Norton had been taking care of my PC all these years!! I am now a devoute AVG user and want nothing else (Norton) but AVG. It now updates all by itself. When I had Norton, I had to manually thru "Liveupdate" had to do the updates. My computer now runs faster and there's no more delays when I have serious useage of my PC when at home over the weekend. Thank you AVG!!!

Wally P.
Tbilisi - Georgia

I use Avast to and I'd advise that over any other any day.

I had the same result. AVG has saved my butt more than once.

I recommend Trend to you. I get at least one update every day.

I like it too, I use Trillian now though. It has all the same features except it works with Yahoo, MSN, AOL, and ICQ. Even IRC.

If its long distance talking with friends thats important, you cant beat SKYPE. Its got the best quality voice of any of them, plus group conversations. Its a bandwidth hog though.

bitpim is an open-source free program to add pics, ringtones, etc to your phone and backup the same plus your phonebook. buy a cable, download and have fun. i use it mostly to put ringtones i make on my phone. I also use firefox for net.

I hate buying things. I hate giving up my money. The solution? No, not stealing, that is illegal and although it may work, it'll catch up to you. My solution is simple. Freeware! Almost anything that you can think of or need is avalible onm the internet as a free program. Not that 10 day trial shareware, but free software that works very well. I have Spybot 1.4, Ad-Aware SE, CWS Shredder, Anti-Vir, PC Cleaner, Open Office, Mozilla Thunderbird, Opear 8.01, Mozilla Firefox, Netscape Navigator, dbPowerAmp, Winamp, iTunes, Cheeta Audio Converter, Wavepad, and the list goses on and on. Usually I'l find a program that I need in about an hour of internet surfing and program testing. Of course some of it takes alot longer, Open Office took about 1 and a half, but the rewards? Free software that works at par with retail software.

If I can't find the program and it is simple enough, like a calculator or something, I'll make it. Obviousely I can't make a program like Microsoft Office by myself, so I look for the eqivalent of that online. Simple stuff I make, RTF Editors and such, but I don't buy it. Free legitamate software.

Never buy something when you can find it for free. It may take some looking, but it is and always will be out there and you can find it. (Thank god for google)

OpenOffice.org (OOo) is a free Office suite that is as good as MS Office, it can do the same things (exept for visual basic, which you likely don't use) and even more.
Especially the current beta of 2.0 is very good: is faster than 1.1.4 and it can do a lot more.
I really recomend this piece of software to everyone, it'll save you loats of money and still gives you high quality software.

I have set up the computer lab at my church's Christian Academy with Open Office. I have free access to MS Office because of my job but when I retire I will probably switch to the latest version of Open Office.

I also use Spybot and Adaware. I load AVG for my friends and when my Norton subscription runs out I will switch to it as well.