Zero cost software

There are many alternatives when it comes to choosing software or programs for a particular task. Sometimes only a specific application will do but a lot of the time there are freely available alternatives that will do the job as well as, and in some cases better, than the programs people typically use.

Below we have listed some programs that are freely available to download and install categorized into sections covering their uses. Many of these applications are also installed on the computer room PCs so you can open, edit and print your files on-campus.

Note for staff: if you wish to install one of these programs on a Brookes owned computer please check with your IT Support Officer for advice about any potential licensing issues.

  Category Similar to Description In computer
rooms?
Download
  Win OS X
             
  Internet          
Firefox Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari A standards compliant web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation
Safari Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera A web browser developed by Apple (based on Webkit)
chrome Chrome Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, Safari A web browser developed by Google (based on Webkit) no  
Opera Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari A web browser and email client developed by Opera
Sunbird Outlook calendar, iCal A calendaring application developed by the Mozilla Foundation
Thunderbird Eudora, Outlook, Pegasus, Windows Mail An email client developed by the Mozilla Foundation
Pidgin AIM, Trillian, Yahoo Messenger , Windows Live Messenger (MSN) An instant messaging client that can access a range of networks  
Filezilla WS_FTP A FTP client and server for transferring files between computers
Azureus uTorrent A bittorrent p2p application for downloading and seeding torrents
             
  Office          
OpenOffice1 Microsoft Office, iWork An office suite compatible with Microsoft Office documents offering a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, drawing and database suite of applications
NeoOffice/J Microsoft Office, iWork An integrated, native OS X version of OpenOffice. Compatible with Microsoft Office documents  
Abiword Microsoft Word, OpenOffice Writer A light weight word processor originally developed for Linux. Compatible with Word documents
             
  Graphics & Design2          
Amaya Dreamweaver A standards compliant web authoring and publishing application
Blender Maya, 3ds Max, Lightwave A 3d modelling and animation application
Dia Visio A drawing program for creating flow charts, UML and other diagrams  
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint, Paint Shop Pro A graphics editor for photo retouching, image composition and image authoring
Inkscape Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Xara X A vector graphics editor
KompoZer Dreamweaver, Frontpage An unofficial 'bug fix' for NVu while it undergoes rewriting
NVu Dreamweaver, Frontpage A html/css authoring application for composing and publishing web sites
PDFCreator Acrobat Professional A program that can be used like a printer form almost any Windows program to generate PDF file output  
Scribus InDesign, Microsoft Publisher, Quark, Pagemaker A desktop publishing application
             
  Media          
Audacity Cubase, Logic Pro, Pro Tools Digital audio editor
Miro iTunes, Windows Media Player A media, Internet TV and video player based on Mozilla technology
VLC (Video Lan Client) QuickTime, Real Player, Windows Media Player A DVD and video player
             
  Security3          
Clamwin Anti-virus4 McAfee, Sophos, Symantec An anti-virus application supporting scheduled scans, on-demand scanning and automatic updating  
ClamXav5 McAfee, Sophos, Symantec An anti-virus application supporting scheduled scans, on-demand scanning and automatic updating  
AVG (free edition) McAfee, Sophos, Symantec An anti-virus application supporting scheduled scans, on-access scanning, on-demand scanning and automatic updating  
Spybot S & D Windows Defender, Ad-aware Anti-spyware application  
             
  Other          
7-zip Winzip, Power Archiver An archive program to open and create zip, rar, gz, bz2 etc archives  
VirtualBox Parallels, Virtual PC, VMWare A vitalization application that allows you to run other operating systems on the host system
             
  Programming          
Alice   An object-oriented programming environment for controlling the behaviour of 3D objects and characters in a virtual world
context free Context Free   An open source graphical application for editing, rendering, and exploring context-free design grammars (CFDG) no xp osx
Crimson Editor BBEdit, TextPad A text and source code editor  
Eclipse JBuilder, Visual Studio, WebSphere A fully featured IDE for Java and other languages
jEdit BBEdit, TextPad A text and source code editor written in Java
Netbeans JBuilder, Visual Studio, WebSphere A fully featured IDE for Java including a GUI builder
Processing   An innovative programming language and environment for images, animation, and interactions

 

Most of these programs are also available for Linux. Refer to your distributions package manager.

The software listed here is just a small selection. There are many other choices and alternatives available from a wide variety of sources!

For a convenient selection on CD that you can pass to friends and relatives see the OpenDisc or the OpenEducationDisc projects.

  Microsoft DreamSpark
Microsoft have recently announced an initiative called DreamSpark which offers students Microsoft professional developer and design tools at no charge for non-commercial use. Software options currently include Visual Studio 2008 Professional Edition, Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition, SQL Server 2005 Developer Edition, Windows Server 2003 R2, Microsoft Expression Studio, XNA Game Studio 2.
You will need a Windows Live ID and if prompted for your institution simply choose 'Eduserve' and login with your normal Brookes Athens details.

 

 

 

Notes

1 Mac version requires X11 for OS X

2 ArtSoftware.org

3 You can use Sophos Anti-virus for free while you are at Brookes

4 Clamwin does not feature a on-access scanner

5 ClamXav does not feature a on-access scanner but does allow watching of folders or drives for changes

 

Note: we refer to the term 'free' meaning that the software is provided in a version that carries no financial cost. While most of the programs listed here correspond to the definitions of open source and/or free software you should check the licensing terms for further information.

 

If you have any queries or suggestions for other software please contact the Service Desk.