WebUser – 21 August 2019

Some of th

e most popu

lar ‘free’ progr

ams areno

t

really free

at all. Wa

yne Williams

explains

why you

should mo

ve from

dated propr

ietary soft

ware to

superior op

en-source

alternativ

CO es

VER

FEAT

URE

DITCH

SWITCH

4040 21 Aug - 3 Sept 201921 Aug - 3 Sept 2019

OVERRATED

YOU

MU

ST ST

OP

US

ING!

T

here’s no shortageofbrilliant freesoftware

availabletodownloadthese days, which is

goodnewsfor thoseofuswho resentpaying

for it. However, some programsare more‘free’than

others,and wedon’t justmean full programsrather

thanfreetrialsordemos.

Big companies control many ofthe mostpopular free

tools, whichmeans theycanuse themtopromote their

other products, abandon orsell themata whim, and

releaseupdates,securitypatches and bug fixes only when

theyfeellikeit – if atall. This selfish,locked-down

approach hasled many developersand PCusers toswitch

toopen-sourcesoftware, whichoffers greater freedom,

securityand stability,aswell as manyother benefits.

Inthis feature,weround upthe best free, open-source

alternatives toproprietary programsand apps thatseem

out ofdateand overratedincomparison. Wealsoanswer

yourquestionsabout open-sourcesoftware, including

whatthe differencesare between‘open-source’, ‘Free

Software’ and ‘freeware’.