Computers’ role in our work and daily life becomes increasingly important day by day. People use computers for their entertainment, productivity, and communication needs. Of course, to do all those we need to install various software on those computers. We need to install software to play music, type documents, chat through the Internet, and more.
This could mean a lot of expenses if you use commercial applications. Equipping your computer with commercial software for productivity (like Microsoft Office), image editing (like Photoshop and Illustrator), and money management (like Quicken) could easily cost you more than a thousand dollars. This is not to mention specific applications (like AutoCAD or Visual Studio) or games. In short, you could spend a lot of money just to fill your computer with the software you need.
Fortunately, there’s a lot of good but free alternatives out there. Instead of installing Microsoft Office, you can use OpenOffice.org or Google Docs. Instead of using Adobe Photoshop, you can use Gimp. Instead of using Quicken, you can use GnuCash or Mint. Instead of using Windows, you can use Linux. All this software won’t cost you a dime (aside from the bandwidth cost which, in my opinion, can be neglected).
So whenever possible you should use these free alternatives over the commercial ones. Just because most people use the commercial application (Photoshop comes to mind) doesn’t mean that the free alternative is bad. In most cases, the free alternatives can already meet all your needs. It’s true that the commercial applications usually have features which the free alternatives lack. But it’s also true that most people never need those features except for some professionals.
Using free software can save you a lot of money. You can then use the money for something else like your investment or education.