by Saurabh Pal

Created on: February 14, 2010   Last Updated: February 15, 2010

There are several free programs available on the internet. We tend to think that when it is a free program then it probably has some malicious virus inside or there must be some ulterior motive behind these programs being freely available.

So here goes the list of commonly used programs that you can use to do all the functions that you need to do on a day-to-day basis –

Firefox Web Browser – is a great web browser and is considered to be even better than Internet Explorer. You can download it from the following site - http://www.getfirefox.com

Google’s Chrome – this is a free browser from the famous Google search provider. You can download it from http://www.google.com/chrome?hl=en&brand=CHMI

Open Office – this is a fantastic product to rival Microsoft’s Office suite of products. It can be obtained from http://www.openoffice.org/

VLC Player – this is a robust video player which plays almost all types of video files.  The website is http://www.videolan.org/

AVG Anti-virus – this is a free anti-virus program to protect your computer against common viruses.  It can be downloaded from  http://free.avg.com Zone Alarm firewall – this is a free firewall program which can be used to ward off unwarranted access to your laptop or computer and can be accessed here http://www.zonealarm.com

File Zilla – this is a free ftp program to transfer files and upload them into a server or a central location for providing others access to these files. You can find it here http://sourceforge.net/projects/filezilla

Nero writing software – nowadays you need a dvd/cd writing software to help cut a dvd of your pictures/backup files or video programs. You can download a trial version of the program at www.nero.com

Winzip – at some point of time you would need to compress/combine one or more files as required. A common place that you can find all these programs is http://www.filehippo.com . Regular upgrades for these software programs are also available here. It is a one place stop for all your software needs

A point to keep in mind is that almost all these softwares have several products available for free. You have options to choose between these programs. You can download more than one at a time, evaluate them and retain the one you like. These are truly free programs which do not cost you anything and yet provide full functionality when compared to their costly rivals. Get started now and save precious dollars

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