Free software is fast becoming the standard in quality software. It’s now possible for anyone to find a quality, free replacement for almost any proprietary program. In many cases, the free program is better than its proprietary counterpart.

You may not realize it, but there’s probably a free software replacement for every software program you own: from your word processor to your photo editor to the actual operating system.

There’s probably a free software replacement for every software program you own

Before I get in to the meat and potatoes of finding free alternatives and replacing your current proprietary application, I want to dispel a common myth of free software: free software is not low-quality or code stolen from similar proprietary software. Free software is lovingly made by either a single developer (or a community of developers) who love to code, and want to share their creation with the whole world.

Benefits of using free software

Some of the major benefits of free software are that it is free from cost, has no in-built banner ads and has no spyware in the installer. However, when you see the word “free” in relation to free software, you can be sure it’s “free” as in “freedom”. This is due to the biggest benefit of free software: that it has no restrictive licenses.

Other benefits of free software may not be as immediately apparent. Since free software usually has a larger user base, there are more people reporting bugs on different systems, and depending on whether the source code is available, there may be many developers not involved with the project fixing problems as they see them.

Also, free software usually has more add-ons and templates created for it. You can usually find forums and communities for free software, as well as contributed FAQs and documentation.

You can install it on as many computers as you want and you can be sure your friends and colleagues will be able to get access to that same program

Another benefit of free software is you can install it on as many computers as you want, and you can be sure your friends and colleagues will be able to get access to that same program.

How to find free alternatives

Now down to the crunch—learning to find those free alternatives. There are dozens of ways to find free software, and I’m going to show you how to use a few of these methods.

The primary way to find free software is to do a search via one of many websites (Fresh Meat and L are two primary ones) either by an actual text search, or by narrowing the software list by category.

You can also find free software by looking at various online directories, such as [DMoz](http://dmoz.org)

You can also find free software by looking at various online directories, such as DMoz, or by searching for a free version of that application. As an example you can search Google for “free word processor” or “open source word processor”.

Another way to find a free alternative is to ask, either in an IRC channel (such as the ##mac, #fsf, #gnu or ##linux channels in freenode) or in an online forum. Technical friends and relations may also be able to help you locate that prize freebie.

A final way to find free software should be rather obvious… you’re reading it right now! Other magazines, newsletters and online articles can also show you how to replace various proprietary software currently on your PC.

Of course, finding the program is only half the task; you then have to find out how to install it, and determine whether or not your computer can run it. Occasionally, you may also need additional libraries (which are reusable functions programmers use to save coding time and distribution size) or programs to run the program on your operating system.

Practical steps

The first thing you should check when looking at a piece of free software is whether it is truly free. Freeware isn’t always free software. Some “freeware” programs contain advertisements or spyware programs, so be careful. If in doubt, Google the program name and see what other users think about the program.

Secondly, always read the software’s own website. Usually, download sites leave out important bits of information and almost never contain the latest version. Also, most download sites won’t show screenshots, sample files and documentation related to the program.

Next, hopefully before you download, you should check the system requirements; if your OS (operating system) isn’t listed, and the source code isn’t available, you’re out of luck. If you can get the source code, you may be able to compile the software yourself, with the right tools. Most programs that you can build from source have instructions on how to do so either on the website, or in the source code archive.

The final step, after you’ve got your program, is to decide whether you want to make it your default program, if you haven’t already. Most programs provide an option to take over from any proprietary software on your PC in the “Options” or “Preferences” dialogs.