Alternatives to installing Gallery2 on your server: use JAlbum, MobaPhoto, or XnView from your PC to upload photos and gallery pages that use HTML, PHP (I think), and/or Flash templates to your server.

joelena

Antivir Antivirus

Free, very good detection engine (scored very high in the tests), updates quickly and often, and that nag-screen that shows up during updates can be gotten rid of. ^__^

Asian Angel

Wow. Now THIS is a Lifehacker article.

I know I give y'all a bunch of stick, but this is the type of good stuff that keeps me reading.
Thanks so much!

I will be trying Virtual Box on my Intel mac Mini this weekend.

William Mize

xara xtreme, very good substitute for adobe illustrator

willycs40

LogMeIn.com is also a great free remote access option. It's very easy to use.

Cornflakes

NeoOffice for MS Office on OS-X.

MrJR

Just installed Mozy. Looks good. Go directly to the MozyHomeFREE sign up link [mozy.com] or you might inadvertently be signing up for the paid subscription.
I almost did ;)

Junkan

Orb instead of Slingbox.

With Orb, I stream TV to computers in my house, work, and my cell phone. It also share movies and videos I have on my hard drive as well. Best of all, it's 100% free.

Adam B.

imgburn instead of nero

curiosity

One of your better articles as of late. Mail2web appears to be a great alternative.

normanm4

NuevaSync instead of MobileMe.

LogMeIn Free instead of VNC (better features and browser based).

Leandro Ardissone

What about Ubuntu for Windows?

imagia

@eeefresh: damn, beat me to the graphic programs

wjh31

and if you're not after to be productive, theres plenty of free games out there of varying quality, including some pretty good ones, to name just two, Driving/racing: TrackMania nations forever and FPS: sauerbraten i believe are top quality and totally free.

and as curiosity mentioned, there are a million different free burning tools in place of commercial ones.

inkscape and gimp in place of photoshop and illustrator

internet radio e.g last.fm in place of paying to own the music if you dont mind doing that.

two last points: 1) theres alot of free software that some sites will wrongly try to charge you for, make sure you dont pay for what is free (unless you are donating to the correct site) and 2) a quick google serach will find you a free version of nearly any software

wjh31

Some great (and free!) graphic design programs:

Gimp instead of Photoshop

Scribus instead of Pagemaker or InDesign

InkScape instead of Illustrator.

While they may not have the features a power user needs, they are good for most run-of-the-mill projects.

eeefresh

No option for a Flickr Pro account ? Picasa , anyone ?

nashix

I'd like a free alternative to Maxivista's display extending feature. There's a software called "ZoneScreen" but it doesn't work on Windows 98 (I plan to use an older laptop as a second...erm fourth monitor).

helldiver

I was using mail2web for push email until yesterday (literally) when I switched to a full hosted Exchange 2007 account with 1&1.com. Now, I can interface my Outlook 2007 with my Exchange account too.

Business Exchange on mail2web would have cost me $15/month, but it's only $7/month with 1&1.com (in case anyone is looking for a cheap provider).

I wish I didn't have to pay anything at all, but I really can't dismiss the convenience of having a full Exchange account.

TendoMentis

7-Zip instead of Winzip, Winrar.
Alt.Binz instead of Grabit, Newsbin.
FastStone Capture instead of SnagIt.
Foxit instead of Adobe Reader.
Paint.Net instead of Photoshop.

bubi73

Free VPN/VNC in place of GoToMyPC ($20/month)
- Why not use logme in free?

www.logmein.com

A nice, simple, slick web based interface, I use this and mesh, and this is far better at VNC than mesh.

bazzlad

PhotoFiltre or Paint.NET for image editing
Anim8or, Blender or CB Model Pro for 3D modeling
Terragen for 3D landscapes
AbiWord or Open Office for word processing / office tools
VirtualDub for video editing
Revo Uninstaller for program removal
Dia for flowcharts and diagrams
Inkscape for vector drawing
ArtRage for painting (this one is AWESOME)
SIB Icons Editor for icons

i could go on...

garbanzo-bean

cclean instead of registry mechanic ($24.95)
pidgin instead of trillian
vmware server instead of esx server for small time virtualization
cryptainer for encrypting files

bsteimel

i've been using doteasy.com for free, ad free simple web hosting for awhile now, and it works great.

CJF

And for people using Windows XP Pro and Windows Vista "too many versions to write each of them :P): You can use Remote Desktop Connection to replace ANY paid or free remote access software. There's just no better solution than that.

amigokin

DynDNS, open a port in the firewall and Remote Desktop works well for me for remote access.

Second (or whatever) on 7-Zip.

aharris

CDBurner XP instead of Nero & others

Toschi

@m1k3: gimp for linux for mac, and paint.NET for windows.

dman0586

NeoOffice instead of Office on the Mac

transer

@Adam B.: orb still requires a capture card, and as far as I know doesn't support IR blasters for cable boxes. I've also heard it is a complete performance hog. I love my slingbox.

SamburgerHandwich

Does anyone have a suggested free alternative for Corel Draw / Adobe Photoshop?

m1k3

@Cornflakes: LogMeIn.com is the best!

buffalo2001

Pentaho (www.pentaho.org) - if you're a small company or individual looking to do ETL or Business Intelligence for free, this is a great way to do it.

estambar

@bubi73: Winrar is free... as long as you're content to keep dismissing the request to upgrade.

itslittlejohn

CeltX instead of FinalDraft for script writing - perhaps not quite as feature rich, but its a great open source application for developing and writing all sorts of projects.

kristianbrodie

I just recently became aware of Preview's new capabilities: annotation, merging documents, adjusting color, etc. It's enough that, for me, Adobe Professional isn't needed.

Also, thanks to those who pointed out InkScape. I have been wondering what I can use in place of Illustrator for my posters.

MooMe

Ubuntu instead of MS, I have never loaded it and not had all of the drivers and there is software for just about anything you want to do. Also GnuCash to balance my bank account, and there is a portable version so you can take on a thumb drive.

BryanGLP

According to AV-Comparatives, Avira and Eset are still the best antivirus companies. Ya know, just sayin' for something so important as security.

Why wasn't 7-zip mentioned as a replacement for WinRar?

evangelistc01

my fav opensource for commercial software site has always been www.osalt.com

StubleU

Photofiltre gets my nod for graphics editor.
It's small, user friendly, and suitable for
most purposes.

Paint.net requires VB NET which adds size overhead
to the install.

GIMP isn't quite as user friendly by comparison.

I second Faststone Capture and add FireShot
Firefox extension as alternatives to Snagit.

stpurniq

A lot of these programs mentioned are available over at portableapps.com with a menu and everything. The really nice thing is you can load them up on your Ipod or thumbdrive and run them directly off it.

kl0an

@willycs40: xara looks good, but it's not a FREE substitute, is it?

Amygdala28

Dial2do.com instead of Jott. The transcription quality is also better and I like Dial2Do's simple user interface.

MindMeister.com instead of Mind Manager. It is true the MindMeister is web-based, while Mind Manager is a client app, but Mindmeister allows for true collaboration on mindmaps that is hard to do with the MindJet application.

AnchorFree SSL VPN instead of HotSpotVPN or Witopia.net. I actually pay for Witopia, but AnchorFree is totally free and works pretty well. I use it as a back-up if I am having problems with Witopia, but I can see AnchorFree working for me full-time if needed.

lucre

zooomr.com instead of flickr. its free, and has NO limits. plus, you dont need to know how to install anything.

Erzengel

Ubuntu for Windows (it works).

TCWriter

I can give a huge "second" to Avast. I've spent this week disinfecting 3 PCs which were "protected" by a big-name $40/yr subscription anti-virus, which allowed just about everything to take over the systems. Avast caught all but three of the ones that the unnamed "big name" AV missed, and Spybot S&D caught the other three. Result: For zero dollars, all three systems are now virus-free and protected against reinfection.

Deadhacker

Jing instead of SnagIt and any other screen capture program.

gpzbc

Mediacoder for converting video files. It's open source, and has device specific versions for your Ipod, PSP, 3GP, and MP4 players. It works quite well.

Woden501

Personally I would LOVE to see Lifehacker put together a comprehensive list of Free Software. This article is the tip of the iceberg and imo would be a HUGE benefit to the lifehacker community, especially those who are new to the site and are looking for these kinds of answers. A lifehacker free software alternative wiki maybe...

rpsanders

@imagia: @TCWriter: There's always the issue of software compatibility though. Ubuntu, or any *nix based operating system will never be a full replacement to Windows until either software makers decide to have software natively work for the operating environment, or unless Wine becomes comprehensive enough to cover most products meant for Windows systems.

Keep in mind, that's a tough thing to occur because 90% of users still are on Windows. That means less incentive for makers to adapt to Linux. And I bet that once Wine becomes really good, Windows will slap its makers with a lawsuit.

srinidhiv123

Some more:

DriveImageXML instead of Ghost. For imaging complete hard drives

7Zip instead of WinZip, WinRAR. Handles just about any compression format

felixgolden

Virtual Box works great - configured my nieces new MacBooks with WinXP, as well as running it on my main Vista machine for running various machines for troubleshooting and reference. I've got virtual machines running Ubuntu, WinXP, Win2k, 2003, etc. Actually easier to set up than VMware - just create an empty virtual drive and install your choice of OS as if it were an empty computer.

Audacity for audio editing, multitrack recording, etc.

Super © for converting audio/video formats (if you can find the link to download it!)

Hamachi (from LogMeIn) for easily creating a VPN. No router/firewall configuration necessary. No need to use something like No-IP or DynDNS. Share file/folders as if you are on the same network or use VNC/RDP via the tunnel.

felixgolden

IZarc > WinRAR/Winzip. Also available in 'portable'. Opens more than 7-Zip.

Recuva > Paid for file recovery software. Made by the people behind CCleaner. Also available in 'portable'.

L.Rawlins

I want a Freeware Utility to ... 450+ common problems solved.
[www.econsultant.com]

Open Source Freeware : 400+ free applications and utilities
[www.econsultant.com]

'nuff said.

bubi73

@Amygdala28: xara is free for linux only.

AdamG

Open Office actually has a great formula editor. I've used it extensively for my classes at College. In a blank document, go to [Insert]>[Object]>[Formula], and type away. You can make formula's by both clicking the buttons for various operations, or by typing it in.

Peter200lx

@eeefresh: GIMP is pretty awesome, and you can do a heck of a lot with it for the price.

Human Bomb

yea, i was right, there is a java viewer available.

[www.uvnc.com]

you have to do [remotecomputerip:5800]

curlymeatball38

A few things...

- If you're paying for Rogers' Internet service, you automatically get a free Flickr Pro account. yay!

- BOXSTr instead of Mozy. You get 5gb free, where Mozy only give 2gb. Plus you can hotlink files from BOXSTr.

- OpenOffice SUCKS! There are so many things you can't do with it that Microsoft Office does. There are so many limitations especially in OpenOffice Calc.

btw, who actually uses GoToMyPC ??? RealVNC kicks a$$ !

atomicrabbit

@Leandro Ardissone: you can have a browser based vnc with ultravnc, i believe.

curlymeatball38

ShowMyPC is a very nice free alternative to GoToMyPC.

alexq

Thanks Kevin, Gina, Adam & everyone else in lifehacker for this article. Good useful information.

rapid.fish

I don't believe that Mesh supports Windows Mobile devices yet; going to their site still displays the "coming soon" label.

chiaspod

I like Jing (www.jingproject.com) instead of SnagIt and (in some cases) Camtasia Studio.

Also, I like Bitvise Tunnelier (www.bitvise.com/tunnelier) instead of any paid SSH or SFTP tools.

OptimizedHome

You can create a VMWare image of an actual working installation for free with VMWare converter or install a new one with VMWare Workstation evaluation version and then run it for free with VMWare player or server.

torspo

How about Badongo for photo storage? It also works for other file types as well

williedog

Avoid Mozy. It's been impossible for me to recover any of the near 20GB of files I had backed up to the service after a system failure.

ckshort

OpenOffice.org has wonderful support for formulas. It may not be compatible with the formula editor in MS Word, but I find OpenOffice.org's implementation far superior. Word doesn't allow you to naturally type equations, edit fonts, type styles and sizes and insert a multitude of symbols. Don't bash their formula support until you've given it an honest try.

QuantRuga

Starting with the more obvious...
Mozilla Firefox for Internet browsing
Mozilla Thunderbird for email
GMail for email
AusLogics for disk defragging
Photo Story 3 for making fairly impressive slide shows
Google SketchUp for making less impressive, but functional technical drawings
Karen's Power Tools for some utilities
Irfanview for viewing and minor editing of images
Musicbrainz to help organize a music collection
VLC for viewing video
ClocX for a desktop analog clock
CamStudio for recording desktop activities (training video)
Foldershare for sharing folders in group projects
Griffith Media Organizer for managing movies and DVD
Locate32 for instantly finding files on the computer
Windows Movie Maker for cutting commercials out of recorded TV (glitchy sometimes)
Windows DVD Maker for making DVDs with an actual introduction menu
Yawcam for motion detection on my webcam

Free Internet services I use almost every day
[maps.google.com] Google Maps (work related)
[www.pipl.com] People finder to find missing persons (work related)
[ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com] Social Security Death Index to find dead people (work related)
[www.google.com] Google Patents for free access to every US patent ever issued
[lifehacker.com] to find stuff like this
[www.titantv.com] for a local TV schedule (I travel a lot)
[www.google.com] Regular Google to convert units (for example type in "3 gallons per acre in ounces per 1,000 square feet" without the quotes and see what Google returns)

Free fun stuff
[labs.wanokoto.jp] for making pictures look old
[salescircular.com] to plan your weekend shopping for specials
[www.bulwer-lytton.com] if you haven't laughed in a few hours
[bighugelabs.com] for all your semi professional badge needs
[vidtomp3.com] to convert YouTube audio to MP3 format
[www.instructables.com] to get DIY ideas
[finance.yahoo.com] to track the market

Many of these were found by reading Lifehacker daily. Thanks.

dchall8

+1 for LogMeIn.com for remote access. The free account works great. Of TeamViewer for remote access as well.

xxdesmus

*gets up and claps*

THIS is the type of article that attracted me to Lifehacker to begin with. Great advice, useful services.

About to we return to our roots.

fishlips20

I want to hug this post and all the comments too. Man, I love quality freeware.

Open24Hours

For a low-system-draw Internet radio player (you can add your own stations as well), I've been having fun with Screamer radio. It's portable, and I dodge IT lockdown.

Uh, can I post my Weblog review of this thing, or is that a violation?

Stormbringer

So, apparently, www.softwarefor.org, the now defunct host/developer for Software for Starving Students is, well, defunct. Sad.

In it's place or as a possible alternative, there is TheOpenDisk as well as the education/student/school-focused OpenEducationDisk.

Mdmrptr

@gpzbc: mwsnap is also good, but does not support multiple monitors.

qrius

@dchall8: uh, are your some private investigator?

qrius

the worse is when your dad asks you to help you with his computer but you can't use something like vnc or crossloop since the problems is that his internet is down!

qrius

Regarding VirtualBox, it's great that it's free, but to me the drawback is that it cannot use the Windows installed in BootCamp Partition. Any solution for that? I really don't want to install Windows and its applications programs again or remove the BootCamp partition.

wildeny

[www.adrive.com]
- 50gig free

anecdotal

FastStone Capture is no longer freeware, unfortunately. You can still find several of the older free version around though, including the portable one.

I don't care what AvComparatives says, evangelistc01, I tried Avira for a while and it returned so many false positives that it drove me nuts. I know they were all false positives because I googled them. And the upgrade ad it displayed every single time it updated was extremely annoying to boot. I'd class it as nagware just for that. It's my opinion that Avira is no better than Avast, but presents the illusion of greater security because of all the false positives. You see it alerting you about these files that some other AV didn't and you think "wow, this is better, it's catching stuff my other AV didn't!", but if you did an internet search you'd find that it is probably a false positive; not only that, but suddenly you'd also have some apps weren't behaving correctly because Avira removed some of their files.

mistshadow2k4

@Asian Angel: I agree AntiVir is the best freeware AntiVirus software (I've tried AVG and Avast and found that they don't detect much and let a lot slip by), but I've yet to figure out how to get rid of its nag screen, despite many claims that it's possible. How do you do it?

equazcion

AVG and other free antiviruses just don't cut it. I get computers all the time infected with fake antiviruses with names like "Antivirus XP 2008" which the free antiviruses don't catch.

nitrous9200

Actually, some time back, I have covered a vast list of few free alternatives on my blog at [vkvraju.blogspot.com] and [vkvraju.wordpress.com]

vkv.raju

@nitrous9200: Pity there's no anti-virus for stupidity!

Mr.Sparkle

@Toschi: I personally like InfraRecorder better than CDBurnerXP.. burns DVD movies more reliably

(legal backups, of course :-D)

masskonfuzion

IDrive.com has worked much better than mozy for me. I have subscriptions to both.

IDrive has the same free 2GB, larger paid, it does versioning(!), has a better UI, more powerful filtering, the space can be shared by multiple systems(!), file recovery is easy by web or attached drive letter, and the speed puts Mozy to shame.

8abhive

Avidemux to convert videos (linux afaik)
VirtualDub to edit videos and apply several cool filters (Windows afaik)
K3B instead of Nero (linux afaik)
Inkscape instead of whatever you use for vectors (Win and Lin afaik)
Gimp (everywhere) or GimpShop (Win and Macs... maybe Lin but haven't seen the newer version out yet) instead of Photoshop
QCAD (Linux) instead of Autocad
Blender (everywhere?) instead of 3D studio max
OpenArena (linux afaik maybe windows) instead of Quake or the likes of it.

whiskey

@Asian Angel: Antivir is indeed a wonderful application, but I cannot figure out how to disable the nag screen.

By the way, www.freewaregenius.com is a great freeware reference site [].

promitheas

now someone collect all the stuff from comments and make a proper list :)

perke

Inkscape in place of Illustrator.

Rolcol

@garbanzo-bean: Most of the best stuff in ArtRage is available only in the paid version. Fully half of the painting tools, for example, and virtually all of the other interesting stuff. This post is supposed to be about freeware, and ArtRage certainly isn't that.

Counterglow

@nitrous9200: Actually, the XP Antivirus thing is not a virus per se, it's vicious malware or spyware. Although you were tricked into it, you probably initiated the download, too.

And, since others can do it, so can I: I wrote an article in my Weblog about this bad dog, and have some other useful links, including how to remove it.

Stormbringer

I switched from Flickr to www.23hq.com

Its not totally free, but it doesn't have the most annoying limits of Flickr. You can upload 30 pics a month on the free version, and there are no other limits...

..so if you decide to go pro for a year then your pics aren't held hostage in the future like on flickr. Highly recommended.

Also recommend Sandboxie (instead of whatever paid sandbox software there might be) (has a nag screen though.

And Avast antivirus.

Never got on with inkscape, it never worked well enough.. haven't tried it in a long time though.

Aptana Stupio is a reasonable replacement for things like Dreamweaver.. though i find it a bit resource heavy. I wish some of the lighterweight web editors from Macs were available for PCs.

soul_grind

Linux for Windows - exactly what I wanted to write and some of you beat me to it :-)
The rest will come (openoffice; gimp etc.). I agree it is not for everybody, but trust me: compilation and terminal on linux are myth that goes back to 80's. Some of us prefer terminal though :-)
It really works with modern distros - you can make the switch. Try dualboot first and later on when you realise you don't boot to Windows anymore you are ready to switch completely.

Rastislav Stana

Softmaker office currently has version 2006 as a free download, which is a far better option than openoffice, and maybe even better than MS Office in many ways. Do some searching for yourself. But I think in my last post I have a download link. Click on my profile and you'll be able to find it there.

philosopher_dog

@srinidhiv123: I guess that's the reason I haven't logged into my Windows partition in over three months on my laptop that I dual boot with Windows and PCLinuxOS. You are so far off the mark! And since I've installed a copy of my Windows installation in a VirtualBox virtual machine, I now have even LESS reason to boot into Windows. Instead, I can even more easily run any Windows program simply by installing it in my copy of WinXP that runs in a window on PCLinuxOS. And I can run it better, as WinXP runs faster in the virtual machine on VirtualBox than it ever did natively installed on the hard drive! Yet most of the programs that I used to run in Windows have equivalents in PCLinuxOS that are just as capable, and often more capable, than the Windows based programs that I had become accustomed to. It's the self-limitation of those without a vision or the know-how, such as yourself, who keep limiting capable computer users and keep them locked into a world with no clear choice other than to accept the multi-billion dollar slop fed to us out of Redmond, WA.

parnote

@equazcion:, @promitheas: Here is the link for getting rid of the nag screen. ^__^

Disable Antivir Nag Screen (Windows 2000, XP, Vista)

The person who figured this out is wonderful! ^__^

Asian Angel

@willycs40: I second Xara Xtreme. Even though a lot of features are still not yet developed, it's definitely a great application that renders hella-faster than any other vector illustrator.

CITguy

@garbanzo-bean: +1:Dia
@bsteimel: +1:Pidgin
@Erzengel: Never heard of zooomr.com until now. I think I'll check it out.
@Amygdala28: Xara is only free for Linux (currently). I am looking into a Windows port of xaralx (the free version).
@srinidhiv123: No offense, but wine is covered under the GPL. There's no proprietary code. It was developed entirely from scratch. So there's no way (AFAIK) that they could be sued.
@dchall8: +1:VLC is, by far, the best video player available.
@anecdotal: +1:adrive.com - I just created an account. :)

[Notepad++] (Windows Only) instead of Notepad. This application saved my butt when I had a project to complete.

CITguy

@Asian Angel: Thanks!!

equazcion

K7.net. Free. Sends voice notes to your email as a sound file. Also incoming faxes to email. Check v.mail & faxes at K7 or in your email. You're assigned your own phone number but it's not toll-free.

Fitwit

I m going to apply for a job at Sun to sell VirtualBox. (Oh, thats right, its free).
I´ve got a problemo with my XP installation so I went back to my dual boot Ubuntu. Found VirtualBox on offer - doubt set in (I´ve failed at every other virtualization I´ve tried) installed it, read some easy documentation, installed XP in VirtualBox - all up all took about 1 hour! - BEEEutiffulll. Seamless, fast, perfect XP installation - installed some proggies I couldn´t live without. Wine can do a lot - but this can do everything (that I need).
(lost interest in fixing that primary windows installation - loving Ubuntu again)
@CITguy: VLC is GUI hell - try GOM

idodialog

I used Gallery2 for a couple of years. It's very good, and totally programmable, but I found the upload and organizing interface very cumbersome. Worse, because of the rather strict security settings at my hosting service, I had to make some directories writable by anybody for the program to work. (A subroutine used by Gallery2 wasn't allowed because it can be a security hole, so the only way to run it is to make an even bigger hole :-( .) And then--seriously annoying-- it would take ownership of certain directories, so if I needed to make changes to my site, I'd have to ask my hosting service to handle those dirs!

So, anyway, what with one thing and another, I moved to phpWebGallery. (Free and open source.) Makes it easy to use and administer sites, I think it looks nice, and it has a search function, tree view folders in a side bar, and other neat features. (One example: my site.) It's not easy enough for point-and-clickers, but if you can do Gallery2, you're plenty geek enough to do phpWebGallery.

quixote

@Asian Angel: I AGREE.

dekay46