Since I find a Photoshop license to be expensive I use software like Gimp or Inkscape for my graphic design needs. They perform almost the same and you can even save your files in a format that's understood by the Adobe line of software. This is needed since most clients need the source files in the adobe formats. Another example would be software like OpenOffice. It works well for my needs and I don't need to purchase Microsoft Office. What other free or cheap software can you recommend?
I can recommend you 7Zip or Winrar instead of Winzip, they are free and they do pretty much the same thing. As for anti-virus, in my opinion the best one is free, it's Microsoft Security Essentials.
Adobe offers several lower cost options with their products depending on your situation. A subscription to Photoshop alone is only like $10 per month, or something like that. Alternately you can still buy Adobe Photoshop Elements for about $100, and you don't need to deal with their "Creative Cloud" crap either, it's a standalone product I believe. They also offer a discounted Creative Cloud plan for students and teachers, I think it's the full suite of products for like $20 per month. It's not as good of a deal as they used to give to college students, but it's still cheaper than shelling out thousands of dollars up front. Microsoft Office can be licensed for free now, if you are a student and your instructor uses it. The instructors are permitted to issue free licenses to their students while they are enrolled. Also, when you download Office from Microsoft to run as a trial, I believe it's rather long too, like 60 days, or maybe even longer. So you can get some "free" use out of it for a while at least. If you are a little more savvy with things, there are even ways to extend this trial period even further - instructions on how to do so are all over the place online.
I use almost exclusively free software nowadays. I do understand why companies want to make you pay, but for most of the software the price you pay is not worth the difference between this product and a free one. Open Office vs MS office is a good example... why on earth would I pay for MS office when I can get open office for free? Most anti-virus and anti-spyware programs are the same. They offer you a whole package for a price, but you can collect a similar one by using free products. That being said, I think the only paid software on my computer (apart from games) is the operating system... and even that came free because I bought a laptop.
Yes. I use software like that all the time. I never buy those expensive software programs, because there is always a free alternative. It is the same way with Android apps. I do not know why people waste their money on that stuff.
I could not agree more. I use to be one of those people. I was shocked to find out that people actually make free alternatives for the sole purpose of creating alternative to expensive software. I haven't bought one of those programs in 3 years.
I never buy my softwares because I can find them for free on torrent sites. Sometimes the softwares are overly priced and luckily someone has already made a crack of it and placed it torrent sites. but be careful which software you download as some of the softwares might have viruses that can damage your computer. Read the reviews on the site first.
In large part, most of these alternative software are not as good as the software they try to emulate. I'm not saying they are not good. Take VLC media player for example. It's far much better than most commercial media players. If you can afford to buy commercial software then go for it because they're on average better than their free alternatives but if you want don't have the money or just want to save it, then I'm sure you can find virtually any software that can work just like software you'd buy. All you need to do is search: XXXX (software name) free alternatives.
I can't say much about free alternatives to Adobe products, but they do offer low cost solutions like chap monthly subscriptions and all that. Yes, there's always GIMP and other free alternative. But if you're looking for free software's that does really well, I recommend you check out Autodesk products and get a Student license, they offer free software's for use up to 3 years. I think they have a Photoshop-like alternative there also, but I'm not sure. The only catch is you can't use them for commercial use. But my stand is, if you're making a decent amount of money using free software, then I guess they deserve a little credit. Or you can just sail the seven seas and search for free alternatives.
Ubunto is what I'm using to replace Windows XP for one computer. The linux OS itself is bundled with a lot of free packages to turn your desktop into a fully productive computer. I used to have a student license for Microsoft Visual Studio 8.0 ages ago but that's long superseded by newer versions. Also, Microsoft has a free Express version now. For web development, I used to use Ultraedit (paid) but then customised JEdit (free) to look like Ultraedit. I also use Flash Develop as an IDE which is free. I've heard good things about GIMP for images but I'm too stuck in my old ways with Photoshop. Saw a lot of people using Fraps to record game footage but noticed that cost money; instead I use Open Broadcaster. I've always used AVG (free) as my main antivirus as well.
Well, Ubuntu would be something ideal ghostwheel, but I am under the impression that it's just for advanced users, not to mention the compatibility issues with most other users that use "regular" software. I would love to learn Linux though!
Ubuntu is similar to using a Mac and Linux Mint is similar to using Windows, so these are easy to use. I still use Windows though because I'm familiar with it but those Linux distros are very nice too. For 3D modeling Blender is very good. I use GIMP but some things about it annoy me and I would rather use Photoshop. I don't think I've ever had to pay any programs since there are so many free versions now.
Open Office or Libre Office are good alternatives for the Microsoft Office Suite. Gimp, as you stated, is a fairly useful alternative for photoshop. If you are looking for a specific alternative, I am sure you can find a good open source replacement.
