17 must-have free desktop software for your business

Whether you’re a one-person-band, a group of 5 or a company with hundreds of employees and staff, you will always want to cut on costs wherever you can.

Expensive software is something that always bugged me. It’s not that the creators of this software shouldn’t’ be denied payment for their work, but it would be great if it was just more affordable. That’s why I love using free software (legally of course) .

Here’s a list of desktop software (software that needs to be downloaded and installed) that I have used or presently use for business and best of all, it’s free!

1. 7zip – this file compressor/decompressor is by far better than what I used to use (Winzip) and it’s free
2. AbiWord – between AbiWord and OpenOffice’s word processor, who needs MS Word?
3. CamStudio -Records computer screen activity for creating online tutorials & demos so I don’t have to go through procedures over and over again
4. Dia – lets me create flow-charts and process diagrams to help visualise all the processes for my business
5. EssentialPIM – this personal organiser is as its name suggests, Essential. This is a great piece of software to keep track of your calendar, to-do lists, appointments and contacts.
6. FileZilla – great FTP client for transferring files to and from ftp sites
7. FreeMind – this software is great to brainstorm ideas and create mind-maps for your business processes and for product idea creation and general visual brain storming
8. Gnumeric – an excellent stand-alone spreadsheet program
9. LogMeIn Hamachi – great for accessing & connecting multiple computers for a VPN (virtual private network)
10. Mailstore – easily back up and archive ALL your email
11. Mozilla Firefox – Forget the finicky Internet Explorer, I can’t live without my Firefox browser. I also add great plugins to the Firefox to customise it with a bunch of nifty tools. It’s better and more customisable than IE.
12. Mozilla Thunderbird – A great versatile email client and highly customisable
13. OpenOffice – it has word processing, spreadsheets, you can create presentations, everything you really need for document creation. You can open and save in Microsoft Office compatible files too. Who needs MS Office and the ridiculously high-price licenses to go with it?
14. PDFCreator – The best PDF document creator program out there. Unfortunately, since I moved to Vista, I can’t use this anymore =(. It presently only works on Windows XP or lower and a fix for Vista is still yet to be found
15. PrimoPDF – the next best thing to PDFCreator is PrimoPDF
16. SyncBack – great for backing up and synchronising files
17. TrueCrypt - If you have sensitive business files you want to keep safe from prying eyes, this is a great file/drive encryption software. Great for USB drives too.
    

That’s it. Let me know if you have any additions to this list in the comments below. Thanks!

Stay tuned for my list of must-have (use) online software for your business too.