Free Windows Programs
Here some free, open source programs for Windows.
Not all free programs are open source—not all open source programs are free—but the free programs I talk about are free and open-source.
There are two reasons I want to introduce these programs: One, is to demonstrate and spread the value of these programs. Two, is that these programs are common to Linux. I use all of these programs under Linux except MediaCoder.
Once you become accustomed to programs common to GNU/Linux, it will make a move to Linux more natural.
Click on each icon below to go to the product's offical website to learn more.
I've previously discussed two of these programs:
Firefox web browser
Thunderbird e-mail
Here are a few others:
LibreOffice is a full-featured office suite of programs in the same vain as Microsoft Office. It includes: Writer (like Word), Base (database), Calc (like Excel spreadsheet), Impress (like Powerpoint presentation, Draw and Math.
Writer will open Word docs and you can save files out as Word docs. It will open and save most other popular word processing formats. You can export in html and xml(common webpage formats). The same goes for Impress (presentation) and Calc. They will open all major formats (including Palm and pocket word) and save these formats. You can also save any document in any of these programs in PDF format for the web or for print.
GIMP
An image editing program. It will open and save Photoshop files and allow you to manipulate images in a similar form as Adobe's pricy rival. Files can be saved out as eps, psd, and all the non-proprietary formats you'd expect and then some.
Miro
Plays more video types than Windows Media Player. Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch. Search and download from You Tube and more.
Pidgin
Connect to multiple IM accounts at once if you'd like. Use with AOL IM, MSN, and Jabber.
Media Coder
Perfect for ripping CD's and DVD's. Converts many audio and video formats.
Audacity
Sound recording and editing. Use it to record your vinyl and tapes. Remove clicks. Add fade in and out.
Inkscape
Vector graphics application in the vain of Adobe Illustrator. Opens the same Illustrator files and saves them too.
Blender
Blender is the free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License. Model, shade, animate, render, composite, interactive 3d.