The Pixelthinker.com blog

How to find Reliable, Useful FREE Computer Programs On the Internet

When you get on the Internet, you may often see advertisements for cool computer programs that claim they’re “FREE!” Then, when you download and use these programs, they either want to charge money after several days of use, or, they place unwanted ads that might hurt your computer. It seem like there is no such thing as a free lunch on the Internet.

However, if you know where to look, you can get impressive computer programs which do great things for your computer and your life, for no charge. Really. You just need to know “the secret geek phrase.”

The secret phrase? “Open source”.

What is open source?

Normally, computer programs are created by for-profit companies to make money. Popular programs such as Microsoft Word or Adobe Photoshop are created by hired programmers to raise the company’s bottom line.

Several years ago, a new “community-based” philosophy for creating software began to spread among many computer programmers. Instead of a normal for-profit company that’s in charge of the project, computer programmers joined as volunteers to create programs for free. Their “pay” is the pure love of creating good work to help others.

As part of the process, programmers who develop “open source” software make the “innards” of the program open for anyone to improve upon. Anyone with the talent is allowed to get “under the hood” of the software and tweak it’s components. Then when the program is ready, they proudly offer the program to the rest of the world for free.

You too can download these programs free. The programs have no requirements to pay anything, and there are no sneaky, secret components or pop-up adverts that can hurt your computer.

Where can you download good open source programs free?

THE mother lode of open source programs can be found at www.sourceforge.net. Just type “sourceforge” into Google and see what you can get. Chances are you’ll be surprised by the many delightful offerings ready for you to download, created just for you by these worldwide, hardworking volunteer programmers. There are some great, free games available, too.

Open source software is your friend. Don’t be intimidated by the geek speak you may find on Sourceforge that discuss open source software. The more you learn, the more you can save on what would normally cost thousands of dollars of software!