http://www.maximumpc.com|NOV 08 |MAMAMAXIMXIMXIMXIMUUUUMMPPPCC| 07
I
t’s a routine every power user goes through upon building a new rig: install-
ing a host of trusty, must-have applications. I just went through it myself and
was surprised by how many of my favorite apps are free or open source. For
your edification, I now submit my list—and ask you to ponder whether you’re
making as much use of free, open-source software as I am.
Firefox 3. OK, this is a no-brainer. Internet Explorer is usable, and
Opera is nice, but Firefox 3 remains my browser of choice. The 3.0 release actu-
ally fixed many of the memory issues that plagued the previous version, and
the new features significantly upgrade my browsing experience.
http://www.firefox.com
Filezilla. I find myself using FTP on a daily basis. Whether
it’s to exchange files with colleagues outside my office or upload
configuration tweaks to the official Maximum PC Team Fortress 2
server, Filezilla fulfills my FTP needs. http://fi lezilla-project.org
VirtualBox. Sun just purchased this open-source virtual ma-
chine project, which makes it easy to build virtual machines for Win-
dows, Linux, or any other OS. Oh, and it also supports the virtualiza-
tion extensions of modern CPUs. http://www.virtualbox.org
Handbrake. I haven’t talked about this killer app enough. It
makes ripping unencrypted DVDs to H.264 files a snap, and if you
pair it with DVD43, you’ve got a completely free DVD-ripping so-
lution to decrypt and convert DVDs to any format you could want.
http://www.handbrake.fr, http://www.dvd43.com
OpenOffi ce.org. I use Offi ce at work, but I use OpenOffi ce at
home. The few features OpenOffi ce doesn’t support just don’t matter enough for
me to purchase a Microsoft Offi ce license. http://www.openoffi ce.org
WinDirStat. OK, I don’t install this immediately aft er building a machine,
but I install it the moment I run low on disk space. WinDirStat gives me a to-scale
map of my drive’s contents, usually showing that my hard drive is full of pictures
of my dog. http://www.windirstat.info
Pidgin. There are defi nitely prettier multiservice IM clients available—we
really wish the Pidgin dev team would add more skinning support to the app—but
for speed and reliability, it’s tough to beat Pidgin. http://www.pidgin.im
7-Zip. Ever need to create a bz2 archive? What about any of the esoteric for-
mats that WinZip doesn’t support? That’s where 7-Zip comes in. http://www.7-zip.org.
Got a favorite open-source app that I missed? Email me at will@maximumpc.
com. I’ll run the best user-submitted tips online later this year.MAXIMUMPC
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A THING OR TWO ABOUT A THING OR TWO
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WRITE TO WILL Please send comments, questions, and
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CALIENTE!Amazing Things!
page 22Solid-State Drives
page 40Game with Linux
page 68