Why pay for software when you can get it for free?

There is a free alternative for just about any application you use on your computer, such as Open Office to replace Microsoft Office, GIMP to replace Adobe Photoshop, and even free operating systems to replace your Windows OS on your PC, such as Linux.

Free Software can be mainly put under 3 different headings:

Freeware: Software created and distributed to the public to use at no charge. Usually over the internet.

Open Source: Free software of which the source code, the code used to write the software, is available free to the public to use, modify and redistribute the code how they wish.

Shareware: Generally shareware is not free, but there is a form of shareware which is free for non-commercial use.

Where can all this free software be found?

The internet is flooded with open source software, but a great place to start is SourceForge (sourceforge.net) this is the home of nearly all open source projects on the internet. On the home page there is a section titled Browse Software, you can choose to browse by category here, and it's all free. All software you will find on SourceForge is Open Source.

More hot spots for free software:

• filehippo.com

• brothersoft.com

• freewarefiles.com

• download.com

Next time you need software, instead of buying it in a shop, look online. It will save you time, and money!

Do you use any free software? What do you use, let me know with a comment.