free software programs - Internet Freebies

Now for the big gun of commercial software: a free replacement for the mighty Microsoft Office. Unlikely, you think? Check out OpenOffice 2 (http://openoffice.org), an office suite with all the extra features. It has the familiar look of Microsoft Office and is compatible with all your Office documents.

The OpenOffice 2 suite includes word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, database and drawing programs. Each of these applications has just about every tool you use every day in Microsoft Office.

We're not knocking Microsoft Office: it's an amazing program that can outgun OpenOffice in almost every department, and the latest Office 2007 is undoubtedly the best Office suite yet. But most home users will probably find that OpenOffice 2 does just about everything they want. For bonus points, OpenOffice is available for Windows, Mac and Linux PCs, with 100 per cent document compatibility between those systems - something Microsoft has yet to achieve.

Ask at any software store about how to turn documents, spreadsheets, presentations, newsletters and brochures into PDF files so anyone can read them but no one can edit or change them. You will almost certainly be told that you need Adobe Acrobat Professional and about $700.

Instead of reaching for your credit card, click to http://primopdf.com and download the free Primo PDF 3.0. This saves any document as a standard PDF but without the promotional footers or watermarks of some other free PDF converters.

Primo PDF is also much less demanding on your PC than the Adobe package yet has a surprising number of features, with the ability to optimise the PDF file for print, screen or ebook resolution and even commercial prepress output.

That's two behemoths felled by the freeware brigade. Now we'll tackle the graphics Goliath, Adobe Photoshop, with two fabulous freebies. Paint.NET 3 (from http://getpaint.net) owes its heritage to Microsoft, which mentored the team that developed the software at Washington State University.

Your second choice is GIMP 2.2 (http://gimp.org), a popular open-source powerhouse that is available for Windows, Mac and Linux systems. Many users compare GIMP to Photoshop, although it lacks a few must-have features for professionals (such as support for the Pantone colour-matching system, spot colour and Photoshop plug-ins). But GIMP isn't intended for professional designers - it's "Photoshop for the rest of us".

If your graphics needs are more modest and focus mainly on working with digital photos, try Picasa (http://picasa.google.com). It's another goodie from Google and is designed to help you find, organise, edit and share your photos. Picasa's strengths are most noticeable in editing, organising your snaps into albums and sharing images as screensavers or photoshow CDs - or uploading them to free online galleries called Web Albums.

Got a yearning to do some burning? Windows will burn a data or music CD but for anything fancier, most PC users reach for the musclebound Nero. At $199, it's reasonable value but on a pure "bang-for-buck" basis there's no going past the free CDBurnerXP Pro 3 (from http://cdburnerxp.se) for the essentials.

CDBurnerXP Pro 3 writes to CDs and DVDs, creates bootable discs, handles data image files (which are complete byte-perfect replicas of a disc), rips audio CDs and can print simple case and sleeve covers for audio and data discs.

If you wanted to create a newsletter, brochure or flyer for your local church, sporting club or community group, you would probably head for the local PC store and pick up a copy of Microsoft Publisher.

We like Publisher, but we also suggest that you first get your DTP (desktop publishing) feet wet with Serif PagePlus SE, one of several free programs available at http://freeserifsoftware.com. PagePlus SE ticks almost every box on the DTP checklist - more than 500 preset templates, document layouts and designs, plus automated shapes and tables. There are also dozens of free "design packs" available for download, each containing scores of themed templates and dozens of document types.

FOR slapping down spyware, we suggest Microsoft's own Windows Defenderr (at http://microsoft.com/defender). Windows Defender keeps a constant watch on your PC to protect against spyware. It's easy to use, doesn't hog memory and automatically updates itself to keep ahead of the latest threats. Note that Windows Defender requires a check that you've got a legitimate copy of XP (not a pirated version) before it can be downloaded.

The third part of the PC software troika is a firewall, which is intended to keep out hackers as well as blocking attempts by sneaky spyware to report on your activities. Windows XP (specifically, versions running the Service Pack 2 update) has a halfway decent firewall. That "halfway" reference is almost literal, because the Windows Firewall watches only incoming traffic - not programs trying to communicate from your PC to the outside world.

We're giving our vote to ZoneAlarm Basic (http://zonelabs.com). It monitors both incoming and outgoing traffic on your PC and includes several video tutorials to demystify how firewalls work and how to use ZoneAlarm.