There seems to be a growing trend in computer software these days - a grass roots movement amongst programmers to give quality, free software to whoever wants to use it. I think this is such an awesome thing, and I search the internet as much as possible to find these golden nuggets. Now we are not talking about bad or sloppy software here. We are talking about high quality, very cool stuff, everything from picture software to entire operating systems.

I hope this newest addition to Noah's World will be helpful to you all in these difficult financial times. So please check out these free programs, download them, and try them out. Everyone of them gets my personal seal of approval. So put your wallet away and get clicking!


-----------------------FREE SOFTWARE-----------------------------

Avast Antivirus - This a great free anti-virus software that I recommend to everyone. I have personally ran this on my computer for the past few years and have never had a single issue with viruses, worms, etc.. It is free, but requires you to register the product after one month of usage. They send you a code, you punch it in and are not bothered for a year. Then, you simply register it again, and viola, it's free for another year, and so on. Highly recommended set it and forget it software!

Picasa - This software from Google is one of the coolest pieces of software I have ever used. This photo management / editing software can link seamlessly to Blogger.com, as well as Picasa's online web albums. You can print, import, and edit your pics till the cows come home on a slick, fast, intuitive interface. Google's tagline for Picasa is, "The software that should have come with your camera!". I would second that. Get this one.

PhotoScape - I just recently found this one. It is purely a photo editing suite, but a powerful one. It has a ton of cool photo effects, vignetting, old photo, glow, frames, as well as boasting a very original user interface. Of course it still has all your basics, color contrast, brightness, etc. PhotoScape is a fresh take on the photo editing suite. I will definitely keep this one around.

OpenOffice.org - Not willing to mortgage your house to buy Microsoft Office? Well, check out this awesome office tools suite. It includes a word processor, spread sheet, power point presentation software as well as a few more. I think this is just great. And hey, did I mention that they are fully compatible with Microsoft Office, and you can even save your files in Microsoft formats.

Firefox Internet Browser - This was one of the first free horses out of the gate. A bunch of programmers  brought together by their disgust of Microsoft Internet Explorer, turned out this gem. It has become so popular that is considered by most as THE alternative to Internet Explorer. It is just a well put together browser, easy to understand, and easy to navigate. I have used it exclusively for years.

RawTherapee - For all you Camera-heads out there shooting in RAW format on your DSLRs. This is a free, open-source RAW converter that is very nifty. It is feature rich and has a lot to offer. For those of you considering Adobe Camera Raw, or Nikon's Capture 2 to process your RAW files, give this one a try and save yourself some money. 

AbiWord - This is a Cool & Free Alternative to Microsoft Word. It is open-source, which means that everyone is free to comment and make suggestions and even work on the program to make it better. It works just like you would expect it to. Check this one out if you are tired of using WordPad! Uggh!

Please check out these free programs, and stay tuned! I will post more as I find them.