Today is Software Freedom Day 2007, the fourth annual celebration of the free and open source movement. In honor of this, the holiest of Free Software days, I bring you a list of the best free software, to free you from the greed and gluttony of the big software giants.Free and open-source software provides free - as in free speech, as well as free beer – alternatives to commercial software applications. Almost any software need you could possibly imagine has a high-quality open source offering, generally with far better design, compatibility, and support than the commercial offerings.

On my list of free software options are:

• Firefox. Firefox is an alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer. It’s standards-compliant (IE isn’t), it has thousands of extensions to do everything you could ever want to do with a web browser (IE doesn’t), and it’s secure and easy to use out of the box (IE wouldn’t be secure if you installed armed guards).
• Thunderbird . Thunderbird is an alternative to email clients like Microsoft Outlook. Thunderbird is to email as Firefox is to the internet: it has thousands of extensions to meet all your email needs, it’s good at what it does, and it’s secure. It’s the Ferrari to Outlook’s Gremlin.
• OpenOffice. OpenOffice is an alternative to Microsoft Office. OpenOffice includes all the great things MS Office does, and it doesn’t cost a dime (unlike office, which runs several hundred dollars). It’s also fully compatible with all Office documents (.doc, .xls, .ppt, etc).
• The GIMP and Inkscape. The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a raster-graphics editor, an alternative to Adobe Photoshop; Inkscape is a vector-graphics editor, an alternative to Adobe Illustrator. For those of you still using MS Paint because you won’t spring for Photoshop, get The GIMP and do everything you could in Photoshop without having to spend a penny.
• VLC Media Player. VLC is an alternative to Windows Media Player and Real Player. It plays all the standard file types, has a variety of available skins, and most of the other features that you need in a media player.
• UltraVNC. UltraVNC is a Virtual Network Computing application, a program that lets you control another computer remotely. Once UltraVNC’s server is loaded on the destination computer, UltraVNC lets you log in from anywhere – either from home through the UltraVNC Viewer, or from any Java-equipped web browser, just by typing in the IP address of the remote computer and the UltraVNC password. Once you log in, you see exactly what is displayed on the remote computer’s monitor, and you can control it with your mouse and keyboard. UltraVNC is perfect for accessing your work computer from home, accessing your home computer from anywhere, or helping grandma when she calls with a computer question.

And of course, the godfather itself:

Linux

Linux isn’t a program, it’s an operating system, an alternative to Microsoft Windows. Linux scares a lot of Windows users, because they imagine a command-line operating system where everything is done with text commands. That couldn’t be farther from the truth – almost every Linux distribution (there isn’t just one Linux, there are hundreds) comes with a snappy graphical interface, just like Windows. Now, not everyone can switch to Linux – some of you have to use Windows. However, if you’re not tied down, you should really think about giving it a spin.

My favorite flavor of Linux is Ubuntu, and you can order a “Live CD” from Cannonical (the distributor of Ubuntu) that will let you try out Linux without ever having to change anything on your system. You just pop it in your CD drive, start your computer up, and you’re running Linux. When you take it out, your regular Windows system is right there waiting for you, just like it was before! There’s no reason not to give it a try, you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain.

You’re probably asking, why would you want to give up Windows? Well, there are a lot of reasons. whylinuxisbetter.net has a good, if a bit ugly, overview of why Linux beats Windows to a pulp.

So, take some time today to celebrate the the people who volunteer their time to kick corporate butt and provide free alternatives to proprietary software. Send a signal to the software giants that you won’t be subject to their whims, you won’t pay their outrageous prices, and you won’t submit to playing second-fiddle to their bloated bottom lines. Take back your power - download free software.

You can find out more about Software Freedom Day at www.softwarefreedomday.org. You can find free and open source software at the Free Software Directory, a joint project of the Free Software Foundation and UNESCO. And don’t forget to support the volunteers at the Free Software Foundation, the Mozilla Foundation, and all the other developers of great free and open source software.