Free (as in beer) programs

trinker

trinker

ggplot2orBust
#1
#1
As I'm getting better at various open source or free stuff I am finding that it's been helpful to talk to people here about various open source programs they like (I prefer recommended products). I figured we could start a thread here to generate some buzz around open source programs we use.

Guidelines for sharing
1. name of product
2. briefly what it does
3. link to go get it

Note: The topic of the thread has been altered. Open source isn't necessarily a requirement. The only requirement is that you don't have to pay for the software - Dason
 
trinker

trinker

ggplot2orBust
#2
#2
Re: Open source programs

I'll go first:

1. R; statistical and programming; http://cran.r-project.org/
2. Rstudio; gui for R and nice extension; http://rstudio.org/

3. github; code repo management; 1st go to (http://windows.github.com/ or http://mac.github.com/) and then (https://github.com/ or https://bitbucket.org/)

4. 7zip, unzip zip files; http://www.7-zip.org/

5. Inskape; photoshop for visualizations; http://inkscape.org/

6. pdfXchange viewer; look at and annotate pdf; http://www.tracker-software.com/product/pdf-xchange-viewer

7. wordpress; make a blog easily; http://wordpress.com/

8. dropbox; share files with people(cloud computing); www.dropbox.com

9. Camstudio, like camtasia; http://camstudio.org/

10. MikTex; make LATeX documents; http://miktex.org/
11. Jabref; like endnote but for latex; http://jabref.sourceforge.net/
 
victorxstc

victorxstc

Pirate
#4
#4
Re: Open source programs

PdfXchange is open source? I think it is free, but is not open source, isn't it?

If we should mention only open source, then Zotero is a lovable piece of software.

Notepad++ is just perfect IMHO :) It can highlight syntax of many coding languages, and has great features.

GimpShop is Perfect again

OpenOffice, StarOffice, and their siblings. Being free while being able to provide almost everything provided by Office (and sometimes more).

Miro is perfect too. It can play almost every format of media, even the streamed ones! Very very handy.

If we can recommend freeware programs (regardless of their source availability),

Opera is the absolute leading browser in terms of innovation and features and functionality. Many of the features we see in everyday browsing experience (such as tabbed browsing and many others) are first invented by Opera. It is the fastest browser ever, and can eat all other popular good browsers such as Firefox, Chrome, and Safari for its breakfast. It is extremely compatible with many sites, and passes ACID tests (something Chrome and Firefox and Safari fail to). I think since it is originated in Europe, it is underestimated, and deserves much better attention. Its only weak point was its inability to use extensions. This problem was solved after being requested for hundreds of times by community members, and it is catching up in that matter.

Avira Antivir Free (free but closed source) is just perfect. It is the best free antivirus. It doesn't eat up system resources (CPU/RAM) like does the other bloatware antiviruses (almost all of them), while still providing very strong security measures. I have personally tested it, and it beats every competitor IMHO.

Bit Defender Free is very good too. Its free version has some intense limitations though.

Another Very handy free software which can and should replace the usual image browser of the systems, is FastStone Viewer. I can't describe how it can facilitate your image browsing experience. It has several other features as well.

Although trinker already stated, I would like to remention it. PdfXchange is the best ever PDF reader/writer. I for one give it 100, while giving Adobe Acrobat 70/100, Foxit 50, and Adobe Acrobat Reader 20/100.
 
trinker

trinker

ggplot2orBust
#5
#5
Re: Open source programs

@ victorxstc I misused the term open source. I corrected it in the post. Free's good too :) If a mod wanted to change the thread title to "open source and free programs" that would be awesome.
 
victorxstc

victorxstc

Pirate
#8
#8
Re: Open source programs

A free online service which is very good to work with is VirusTotal.com. One can send their suspicious files to it (or can have it scan suspisious websites). It scans the file with more than 40 antiviruses. It has a weaker competitor which is again useful, but actually I have forgotten that second one because this one is more than enough in terms of speed of scanning and number of antiviruses involved and many other nice features (its competitor used 20 antiviruses the last time I opened it).

It tells the user when this file was scanned for the first time, and when the last time. The perfect point which is not disclosed on their website (but is true according to its administrator) is that it then submits automatically the suspicious file to virus labs of those 40+ antivirus companies. It can be a leap in anti-malware war. In usual, one must bear some difficulties while submitting a malicious code or suspicious software to only ONE antivirus lab for analysis. Since different labs' submission routes and protocols differ, it is more difficult when someone wants to send a malicious code to more than one lab. Now imagine that VirusTotal first checks which antiviruses returned "Safe", so that it can send every suspicious file to 40+ software companies (the ones which are not reporting it as malicious yet) for further analysis. So users of all these companies will benefit at the same time. I don't know if that competitor has it or not.
 
Dason

Dason

Ambassador to the humans
#10
#10
Re: Open source programs

lorb said:
And how is that Open Source?
Click to expand...
It seems trinker (and the rest of the thread) have switched more to just recommending free software (as in gratis, not libre). Which is fine but I might end up changing the thread title to reflect that since I don't think I've seen any open source software that is recommended that isn't also free as in beer.
 
trinker

trinker

ggplot2orBust
#11
#11
Re: Open source programs

yeah Dason I asked you above to do that so it's not confusing. I misappropriated the term open source. I like free beer the best but free beer and free speech is even better (R, latex etc).
 
L

lorb

New Member
#12
#12
Re: Open source programs

Dason said:
It seems trinker (and the rest of the thread) have switched more to just recommending free software (as in gratis, not libre). Which is fine but I might end up changing the thread title to reflect that since I don't think I've seen any open source software that is recommended that isn't also free as in beer.
Click to expand...
Whoops. My bad in that case.

On Topic: I don't think open-source but not-gratis can exist because if the source is open anyone can (legally) just take and compile it for a free program.
 
L

lorb

New Member
#14
#14
Re: Open source programs

Dason said:
It can and does exist. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Hat_Enterprise_Linux
Click to expand...
Have you actually read the article you linked? Red Hat (the company) freely provides the source code of it's operating system (as they are legally obliged to). The only thing they have control over is the logo which is trademarked. They make their money by selling support, not by selling the operating system. I still doubt it is actually possible to have a non-gratis open source program. Relevant quote from wikipedia:
Red Hat freely provides the source code for the distribution's software [...] As a result, several distributors have created re-branded and/or community-supported re-builds of Red Hat Enterprise Linux that can legally be made available, without official support from Red Hat.
[...some paragraphs]
Since Red Hat Enterprise Linux is based completely on free and open source software, Red Hat makes available the complete source code to its enterprise distribution through its FTP site to anybody who wants it. Accordingly, several groups have taken this source code and compiled their own versions of Red Hat Enterprise Linux, typically with the only changes being the removal of any references to Red Hat's trademarks and pointing the update systems to non-Red Hat servers
Click to expand...
edit: yes, it is of course possible to make money from open source code, even by just selling the compiled binaries, but it does not stop anyone who wants to from obtaining the program free of cost
 
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victorxstc

victorxstc

Pirate
#15
#15
Re: Open source programs

lorb said:
And how is that Open Source?
Click to expand...
lol, it was just a very good experience I had, and I wanted to share it with you regardless of its nature :) especially the fact that it submits the virus samples to multiple labs.

Dason said:
It seems trinker (and the rest of the thread) have switched more to just recommending free software (as in gratis, not libre). Which is fine but I might end up changing the thread title to reflect that since I don't think I've seen any open source software that is recommended that isn't also free as in beer.
Click to expand...
The five first programs I suggested were free 'as in "free speech" and also as in "free beer"'. The rest were free of charge but not open source.
 
bryangoodrich

bryangoodrich

Probably A Mammal
#16
#16
I'm most interested in freely available data analytic tools and resources (tutorials) to make sure I know how to use them effectively!

So to list something: Python. Enough said ;)
 
bryangoodrich

bryangoodrich

Probably A Mammal
#19
#19
Back to analytics

GeoDa -- A stand-alone executable tool that can be used for exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) and spatial modeling (spatial lag and spatial error models). I'm not sure if there's an equivalent package in R to do some of these commands or if the tools are just available in the various spatial packages in R. In any case, useful tool and worth exploring for anyone considering spatial data analysis. I recommend searching for tutorials to get an idea of its functionality.
 
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