Free Software Townsville

We are sure you have heard of Adobe Premiere Pro and you also have noticed the price tag. Not as powerful, Shotcut isn't all that far behind and with a major update in 2022, Shotcut is second behind Adobe Premier Pro video editing program.

From home movies to editing videos for the internet, it has everything and with 4K support and LEAP motion while adding in dozens of filters, special effects and titles. Completely free of malware, spyware, and adware, this is pure freedom.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Audacity is one of the most popular audio recording and editing applications on the market and is beloved by users who do voice recording for podcasts and similar endeavors but it doesn't stop there.

There are many people out there that have used Audacity to edit particular parts from a song to have as their ringtone so if you are surfing the net to find that perfect ringtone for your phone, just think how they got it.

Audacity has been around a long time and the free software has actually been used on sound sets for big budget movies. If you are into music or sound editing, with the price tag of FREE, you can't let Audacity slip through your fingers.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

eM Client is much more than just a way to keep your emails in order.

As well as managing your messages, it can track your schedules, organize your to-do lists, and help you keep in touch with support for three major messaging services (Google, Facebook and Jabber). There's even a facility for making quick file transfers so you don't have to mess about with sharing links to third-party file-sharing sites.

If you’re moving from another email client, there's a quick migration tool that makes it easy to transfer your messages from Microsoft Outlook, Outlook Express, Windows Mail, Windows Live Mail or Thunderbird. The only drawback is that you can only have 2 email addresses setup for the free version. The paid version allows unlimited email accounts.

Available for Windows and MacOS.

Mozilla has been taking real strides in making its browser a truly modern way to surf from site to site, thanks to efforts like Firefox Quantum and the VR-focused alternative, Firefox Reality.

With faster load up times, the changes that have been made to Firefox goes deeper. Looking into the future for faster CPU's that keep coming out, Firefox is leaps and bounds ahead of the rest as they have prepared for the future. Even though the stats say Chrome is more popular, that is due to Chrome being on all Android phones. That, though, doesn't mean it is the best. For a fast, secure and advert free experience, download Firefox today.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

For many years, GIMP (which stands for “GNU Image Manipulation Program”) has been the favorite image-editing software for proponents of free, open-source programs.

These users appreciated the program’s ability to manipulate GIMP's scripts and code — and the fact that it is free — that they were willing to put up with what was once a slow, limited, often buggy and confusing program. But GIMP has matured, and now has a cleaner, more standard interface; improved performance; and a richer set of competitive features and tools.

As such, it is now a contender among the major photo editing programs. Just be warned that to use Gimp will take time as it is very confusing for the amateur or novice. Once mastered, you will never look at Photoshop again.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Chrome is ubiquitous — and for good reason. With a robust feature set, full Google Account integration, a thriving extension ecosystem, and a reliable suite of mobile apps, it’s easy to see why Chrome is the gold standard for many users.

Chrome even blocks some ads that don’t conform to accepted industry standards. With it's major platform being Android, it integrates itself perfectly into the mobile phone as one password for all apps counts. Fast, free and light duty, it has come a long way in the past 10+ years.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Open source enthusiasts and anyone who wants Office compatibility without actually having to purchase Microsoft Office will find much to love in LibreOffice.

Its cross-platform availability and frequent update schedule make it a reliable choice for individuals and businesses alike. With the latest upgrade to the suite, LibreOffice is now more compatible with all forms of Microsoft Office, including 365. With many changes that have happened, they have made the "Ribbon" interface more accessible by accessing it through View/User-interface and selecting Tabbed. You can even make it look like Microsoft Office.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

If you are one of those people that have thousands of photo's on their computer, organizing them can be an absolute nightmare. In steps DigiKam. Possibly one of the best photo organizers in the market, it's powerful photo management is next to none.

As it is mainly a photo organizer, it does have photo touch-up tools and quite a few basic operations to make those photos perfect. With Auto-Crop, White Balance or “Insert Text” and advanced ones like Channel Mixer, Blur, or Noise Reduction, so much can be accomplished.

The main panel is divided into several blocks, such as Color, Enhance, Transform, Decorate, and Effects but with all that aside it's main power is organzing.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Paint.NET is a powerful, easy-to-use image editor that offers features similar to those that you’ll find in Adobe Photoshop, GIMP and Windows Paint.

Paint.NET features layers, enabling you to edit specific areas of your image, or build up an image from a number of different sections. You can also use Paint.NET to adjust an image's brightness, hue, contrast, curves, saturation and levels, not to mention an array of special effects that can blur, sharpen, distort, emboss and remove that pesky red-eye effect from your photos with a few clicks.

There’s a Gradient tool too, a simple text editor, a powerful zoom function, and even a Clone Stamp tool to help you clean up grainy photos. Best of all, Paint.NET records every change you make in a list that's only limited by the space on your hard drive, and lets you undo and redo as many changes as you want at any time.

Available for Windows only.

If you use more than one email account, as most of us do, the right free email client will really take the hassle out of managing your messages.

This is particularly true for Thunderbird as it not only makes adding an email easy, it features one click address book and the attachment reminder. For those who are not sure, the attachment reminder is a feature that when you type the word "attachment", it picks this up and suggests you insert the attachment.

Other features include, tabbed emails, filter toolbar and smart folders.

As of April 2022, Thunderbird Beta is in testing stage for the rebuilding of the app. That is a good sign that development is in full swing but not so good as bugs may appear. We have added it into our list as our tests have shown that there are no issue with the beta version.

You can still download the stable releases below.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

If you're still using music players that don't cut the chase, you're missing out.

A true stalwart of the media playing software world, VLC Media Player's reputation is unrivaled. Forgetting about it's looks on first opening, the team at VLC have concentrated on more recent software updates which makes this program focus on getting the job done, and doing it well.

The looks, though, may be plain but by downloading the 'Skins' pack, you can have it looking truly awesome. Using VLC can be as simple as loading up a music or video files, or you can use it to play discs, streams and more while taking advantage of options such as subtitles, audio and video syncing and picture and sound filters.

VLC Media Player was also the first free media player to support 360-degree video. With the ability to play 99% of music and video formats, it is the worlds best media player and it's free.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

PhotoScape is an all-in-one photo editing solution engineered by a Korean-based company called MOOII Tech.

The program is expertly crafted to enable users to easily edit their photos taken from smartphones and digital cameras. It provides a wide array of features for fixing and enhancing photos. Some of the key tools include: editor, viewer, page, batch editor, animated GIF, print, combine, print, screen capture, splitter and more.

Don't be fooled by it's basic UI, as it has the power do to what you want. As with a lot of people out there, they like to have their favourite program to open images but also like to have Photoscape ready to do editing but not as the default program. If you are running Windows 10 or Windows 11, then you will find it in the "Open with..." option when you right click the image and in Windows 10, it doesn't allow that as you also have to click on "Choose another app".

This is actually solved by downloading "Photoscape X" from the app store. Still free to use and from the same company which makes it even more enticing to use. They have a pro version for the price of AU$59.95 but we aren't too sure if this is a yearly license or a one off payment so it might be wise to email them.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux. N.B Linux users will have to use Wine to install it

Being mainly an online photo editor, you can still download the Windows version for "Off Line Editing".

No where near as powerful as Photoshop, it is far more enticing for the amateur or home user for it's ease of use interface. For the free version, it does have limitations such as several of the filters tools are disabled but the basics are there and everything can be saved with no watermark making it perfect for everybody.

If you love the program so much, Denlyn Computers recommends paying for the pro version and unlocking all the features and at the same time, giving you professional support.

Available for Windows and MacOS.

If you are into web editing and designing, Bluefish would have to be the best website editor around. For a very long time, we promoted MS Expression4 to the beginner which gave them the understanding of creating a website but as time has moved on and the younger generation is learning more each day, we have opted for Bluefish. Not a WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get), Bluefish is a code view only meaning you can't visualize what you see. You can, though, open the index file in browsers like Edge, Firefox or opera to see see what you have typed and what the images look like. Unless you know how to open PHP files from a local directory, you would be better off implementing HTML as your webpage to start off.

All though it is a learning curve, the ease of use is tempting and unlike MS Expressions, it fully supports HTML5 and dozens of other web languages like Ada ASP, .NET, VBS, C/C++, CSS, CFML, Clojure, D, gettext PO, Google Go, HTML, XHTML, HTML5, Java, JSP, JavaScript, jQuery, Lua, Octave/MATLAB, MediaWiki, NSIS, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, R, Ruby, SASS, Shell, Scheme, SQL, SVG, Vala, Wordpress and XML.

As there are other editors out there like Visual Studio and Visual Studio Code, Bluefish would have to be easier and you don't have to sign up for it. Bluefish is not only powerful but extremely lightweight.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

With a lot of free antivirus programs out there, they have now crossed the line to being portrayed as actual malware.

The free program you want protecting you, is in most cases doing more damage. The best out there is Kaspersky free which gives you the main core protection from phishing, malware and malicious websites and it's free. The only 2 drawbacks we could find was, it came with no support so if you have a friend or are willing to browse their forums, help wouldn't be too far away and no email protection. We were going to promote Malwarebytes but it has changed it's style and basically does scans below par where Kaspersky Free gives much better protection.

For any form of virus protection, Denlyn Computers recommends the paid versions in the likes of Kaspersky, Norton etc.

Available for Windows, MacOS and Linux.

Linux is a whole world of free operating systems and free software.

Threatening Windows stance of popularity, many sites like Statcounter don't truly show the world usage and popularity of Linux. This is true as Linux is free and you don't have to register the OS like Windows forces you to do. Registering Windows tells the world how popular it is, but is it more popular than Linux? We would like to say no. But if you have never heard of Linux before, then look at Android, the apps on your smart TV or even your car radio. There are millions more examples to go with those few but they are all Linux.

To see Linux in action, phone us today to make an appointment or
view our web page dedicated to Linux.