The following programs are some of the most common used by college students and their OSS alternatives or equivalents.
- Open Office---instead of Microsoft office, this alone could save you $200-300. And Open Office has equal if not better features, including a word processor, spreadsheet, multimedia presentation, drawing, database and more.
- Scribus--This desktop publisher can create documents such as term papers, research papers and more, for much less than Quark Xpress which costs $749.
- Maxima--Chances are you'll need some type of math software and for higher math and algebra, and why pay for Mathsoft when Maxima is free?
- BRL-CAD--If you are in an engineering or technical field, you know what TurboCad costs. This software developed by the US military Ballistics Research Laboratory, will cost you nothing.
- ClamWin--Developed to work with Windows, this antivirus program includes automatic downloads and programmable scanning, just like Norton Antivirus which costs $70
- Gimp--For GNU Image Manipulation Program, this program or its newer brother Gimpshop can equal Photoshop which retails at $650.
- SciCraft--For statistics and data analysis, this software rivals SPSS.
- Kompozer--Built on Nvu, this newer version can provide web design features like Dreamweaver which costs $400.
- Banshee--For your music needs, instead of iTunes, why not check out this software with iPod synchronization as well as music players, burners and playlist features?
- Mozilla Seamonkey--Instead of Outlook, this software is an email service and internet browser with Chatzilla features. And you've got to love the name! Now that you know OSS is available, the choices are endless. There are literally hundreds of software programs out there for free or minimal costs. There is even a compilation called "Software for Starving Students" that includes over 40 programs, including games. This software is available for Mac OS X or Windows and includes OpenOffice and Firefox.
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