# Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy  and Their Open Source Alternatives



## lotuseclat79 (Sep 12, 2003)

The Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy - and Their Open Source Alternatives.

Note: Read the comments for more info.

-- Tom


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## Blackmirror (Dec 5, 2006)

Thank you a handy link there


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## middigit (Feb 3, 2008)

nice link cheers


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## caraewilton (Nov 7, 2007)

Interesting options, although some of them are not pure open source applications. Some of the suggestions are also for the more advanced user as they don't all come with easy to install options.


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## middigit (Feb 3, 2008)

There is a debate about how certain companies use the "open source" tag - open source usually mean free to public use and open to development in my opinion, a few of those options listed are examples of where the company is selling the product yes. They should make a decision as to whether it's open source or commercial software and market it as such not mislead potential users.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

middigit said:


> There is a debate about how certain companies use the "open source" tag - open source usually mean free to public use and open to development in my opinion, a few of those options listed are examples of where the company is selling the product yes. They should make a decision as to whether it's open source or commercial software and market it as such not mislead potential users.


Maybe they/you should read the definition. It doesn't leave much room for debate.
"*Open source is a set of principles and practices on how to write software*, the most important of which is that the *source code is openly available*."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source
Where does it say anything about free? Opinions on definitions don't count. May as well do away with the dictionary. We'll just go by opinions on what it means and hopefully your opinion is the same as mine, so we understand one another.

"Some of the suggestions are also for the more advanced user as they don't all come with easy to install options. "

From article linked already in this thread:
"Why deal with it when Ubuntu has become so easy to use that even the most computer illiterate can jump into this operating system with very little time spent on a learning curve?"

PCLinuxOS is even easier, in my opinion, than Ubuntu. (I tried Ubuntu first)

Open package manager, enter root password, search "program name", mark for installation, mark all dependencies, apply. My software is installed.

How do you install programs? Your first step is to find it isn't it? Where is it?
Or do you mean it is hard to install things in MS?

Just another reason to switch.

Some one posts a useful link to save people some money, or to show that it really is easy to replace MS with Linux, MSers' feel threatened. The more you pay for it, the more loyal you will be. (To a point)

Linux is free, so it must be worthless
The great Canadian who invented insulin sold the rights for a dollar(or a penny and the light bulb was a dollar), insulin must be useless. Light bulbs too!

You provide excellent links Tom, please keep it up.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

Until a decent voice recognition program runs on Linux, Linux is not useful to me 
If you know of one, RootbeaR, please point it out.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> Until a decent voice recognition program runs on Linux, Linux is not useful to me
> If you know of one, RootbeaR, please point it out.


Linux can be very useful to you.
Just do what thousands of others do.
Dual boot.
Or do what thousands of others do.
LiveCD for internet.

This makes MS very useful because you can use it "unplugged." No need to update, scan, or diddlysquat. My XP runs flawlessly this way. Can't remember the last time I updated and yet I am very safe online. I didn't purchase acronis, nor another harddrive, and I have much more time now.

Then use Linux for the internet. Then for more and more as you come to realize just how well it handles things, such as capturing video.

Couple of pics to show you how easy everything is.

Edit: The liveCd can be used to fix _your_ mbr as well, after clicking it, it will ask you which drive/partition you wish to restore the mbr from.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> Linux can be very useful to you.
> Just do what thousands of others do.
> Dual boot.
> Or do what thousands of others do.
> ...





> Linux can be very useful to you.
> Just do what thousands of others do.
> Dual boot.


That would be too inconvenient, having to boot to Windows to write a lengthy reply then passed under Linux which would have to be rebooted..
I know of no other person using voice recognition doing that.



> Or do what thousands of others do.
> LiveCD for internet.


Same issue concerning voice recognition.
I do follow Slax, though, out of curiosity.
It was useful several times in the distant past when I had hardware and software conflicts back in my 98se days and needed to go online to find a solution.
Good for emergencies.
Slax 6 is supposed to be out soon.



> This makes MS very useful because you can use it "unplugged." No need to update, scan, or diddlysquat. My XP runs flawlessly this way. Can't remember the last time I updated and yet I am very safe online. I didn't purchase acronis, nor another harddrive, and I have much more time now.


That's nice for you, but really doesn't address my situation with voice recognition.
The last ( and only, as I remember) vr that ran on Linux was Via Voice 8. A port from Windows........and it didn't run well under Windows. It was commercial, got bad reviews in the Linux version so I never tried it.



> I didn't purchase acronis, nor another harddrive, and I have much more time now.


BTW....there is a free version of Acronis that comes with DiskWizard for Maxtor/Seagate hard drive owners.



> Edit: The liveCd can be used to fix _your_ mbr as well, after clicking it, it will ask you which drive/partition you wish to restore the mbr from.



Because I don't dual boot my XP or win2k machines, I don't need to repair a mbr that I might screw up.
Yes, I have dual booted in the distant past with 98se and Mandrake and Redhat......
fdisk /mbr was my friend 

Seriously, if you see a decent vr for Linux, please drop me a line on it.
I would give it a try.

Jack


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Where there is a will there is a way. VMWare or whatever they call it.
I have never tried it, nor want to.

Edit: I remember a year ago everyone scrambling for 98 boot discs to boot Vista, not from people dual booting either.
The command line in Vista wasn't working.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

If you don't want to buy VMWARE, try http://www.virtualbox.org/

Works with Linux, Unix, Windows, Mac. etc.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> ..............
> 
> Edit: I remember a year ago everyone scrambling for 98 boot discs to boot Vista, not from people dual booting either.
> The command line in Vista wasn't working.


I didn't know a 9x boot disk could read a NTFS file system.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

JohnWill said:


> If you don't want to buy VMWARE, try http://www.virtualbox.org/
> 
> Works with Linux, Unix, Windows, Mac. etc.


Too complicated for me ............................
I just want to use my computer 

XP........it just works ..................


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## ferrija1 (Apr 11, 2006)

I personally don't care what I'm using and whether it's open source or not, I just want to get something done, but that said, it's looks better than the usual "Top" applications list. :up:


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## buf (Nov 4, 2001)

Yes Tom, a great listing. Thanks for passing it on for everyone to make use of according to their needs/desires.


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## caraewilton (Nov 7, 2007)

caraewilton said:


> Interesting options, although some of them are not pure open source applications. Some of the suggestions are also for the more advanced user as they don't all come with easy to install options.


I am a bit sorry I made this comment as it has perpetuated some sort of linux, windows debate, which was not intended.

Just so we are clear: It is a great list.

The generally accepted definition of open source can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source

So on reflection all suggestions in the list, claiming to be open source technically fall within the specifications of the definition. Just know that some, specifically the database suggestion is not free, unless you are a programmer of note as the source code is free for download.



caraewilton said:


> Some of the suggestions are also for the more advanced user as they don't all come with easy to install options.


Over the past couple of years I guess I have just got lazy and am used to clicking on the exe file which conveniently loads everything. As a couple of these programmes are still in development, especially for the windows platform, a little more is required, in terms of first running scripts etc... 
I was just making a note of something for other peoples information.

All platforms have positives and negatives.

Linux is a stable system preferred by programmers and often used for servers and so on.
Over the past couple of years it has become more accessible to the average computer user.

Operating systems like Ubuntu have been designed with education in mind. This is a system that can be run on a "light" machine offering the basics. Thanks to openoffice.org and mozilla to name two, the cost of supplying a machine can be reduced to only having to buy the hardware. The intention was to be able to supply people in impoverished circumstances the opportunity to have access to new technology.

RedHat is a fantastic operating system running on the linux platform. Although not entirely free.

Apple mac remains the holy grail of computers. The truth is they are expensive, at least in my country and the truth be told, their operating systems, especially the latest cat, is not problem free.

No point is mentioning other lesser known systems.

So that brings me to microsoft. No, it is not free. Yes it has problems. But it has made computing accessible to the average user. Their GUI has had many problems over the years. Windows ver1 crashed and burned before it even got off the testing bench. Infact the first successful offering of a gui was windwos ver 3.1 back in the 90's. Since then microsoft have provided the average user with average ability the opportunity to use a computer with out having to take a course first. The fact that we have to pay for this may upset some people, but such is life.

Just for the record, a win 98 boot disk or even win 95 boot disk can be used to start up any pc and will allow one options to format the hard drive and so on. This is because they include a mini dos operating system, if you will (simplified explanation but hay I need to go to work now).

In conclusion, as someone has already mentioned. It is a super list. Everyone has the option to choose what is of use to them. It would be nice if certain users would stop implying that they are greater as they use linux. Personally I feel that it is a juvenile form of "my computer is better than yours, I know more than you ... "


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

caraewilton said:


> ............................
> Just for the record, a win 98 boot disk or even win 95 boot disk can be used to start up any pc and will allow one options to format the hard drive and so on. This is because they include a mini dos operating system, if you will (simplified explanation but hay I need to go to work now).
> ............................


Could you provide a link for that.
I've always been under the impression a 9x boot disk will not recognize a NTFS partition.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> Could you provide a link for that.
> I've always been under the impression a 9x boot disk will not recognize a NTFS partition.


http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/542886-i-want-remove-vista-my.html
Will this one do?

Edit: Thanks JohnWill. Didn't realize that was a paid one. But I knew it could be done for free.
Then there is wine which is free and Cedega, I think it is called, but it is to be paid for.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

caraewilton said:


> It would be nice if certain users would stop implying that they are greater as they use linux. Personally I feel that it is a juvenile form of "my computer is better than yours, I know more than you ... "


Some one posts a useful link to save people some money, *or to show* that it really is easy to replace MS with Linux, MSers' feel threatened.

Rereading the thread, I can't seem to see who you could be talking about but me.
I responded to your negative comments.

See the underlined part? If you were using Linux, that wouldn't pertain to you.
The switching part is mentioned more as an afterthought. You can do all these things with Linux.

I claim to know more than very few people, especially when it comes to computers.
I can sometimes read though and figure things out.

Speaking of juvenile, you have corrected a few things from your original post.
Is that what you mean by juvenile, just posting negative things that you don;t even know?
Because you feel your OS is threatened? Then I have to agree with you, that is pretty juvenile.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> http://forums.techguy.org/windows-vista/542886-i-want-remove-vista-my.html
> Will this one do?
> 
> Edit: Thanks JohnWill. Didn't realize that was a paid one. But I knew it could be done for free.
> Then there is wine which is free and Cedega, I think it is called, but it is to be paid for.


Thanks...but all it did was prove my point:

http://forums.techguy.org/4438043-post7.html


Elvandil said:


> Vista is installed in an NTFS partition. DOS can not ordinarily "see" such disks since NTFS came out long after DOS. Fdisk can "see" the partitions, but you can't use "format" since "format" sees no drive and it won't do an NTFS format, anyway. So just remove the partitions and XP setup will do the partitioning and formatting, with options to make any changes you like, such as multiple partitions. Choose NTFS and do a full format if you go the manual route during XP setup.


(edit)fdisk can 'see' the partition but dos can't read or format to a ntfs file system.
Apparently it can wipe out a ntfs partition........that I didn't know. Doesn't help if you need to make a NTFS partition or start a computer in an NT os, though.
I do remember a special version of dos that allows NTFS to be read under dos:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NTFSDOS


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> Some one posts a useful link to save people some money, *or to show* that it really is easy to replace MS with Linux, MSers' feel threatened.
> ............................


Threatened?
Me?......... not at all RootbeaR.
I'm always interested in what works best for me.
I use open source and freeware when it benefits me.

Posting from Firefox as we 'speak'................


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> Thanks...but all it did was prove my point:
> 
> http://forums.techguy.org/4438043-post7.html
> 
> ...


They were using it to fix mbr, or to at least get it to boot so that mbr could be fixed from Vista.
Don't recall saying it was to format and only remember vaguely these threads because I thought it was funny since my PC didn't even come with a floppy and it is only 3 1/2 yrs old now. How were people with brand new PCs' to do this? Install a floppy drive first? lol

P.S. I recommend keeping a LiveCD handy. They have all sorts of useful features including data recovery. Can be used extensively to help with MS, not just Linux.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> They were using it to fix mbr, or to at least get it to boot so that mbr could be fixed from Vista.
> Don't recall saying it was to format and only remember vaguely these threads because I thought it was funny since my PC didn't even come with a floppy and it is only 3 1/2 yrs old now. How were people with brand new PCs' to do this? Install a floppy drive first? lol
> 
> P.S. I recommend keeping a LiveCD handy. They have all sorts of useful features including data recovery. Can be used extensively to help with MS, not just Linux.


I reread that thread and got the impression all the thread starter wanted to do was remove Vista.
I didn't see anything pertaining to the mbr which a 9x boot floppy wouldn't access anyway if the file system is NTFS.

I do keep several Linux LiveCDs around for emergencies.......mostly to be able to get on the internet and search for solutions. Slax is my favorite.
For any 'repairs', though.....I have a Barts PE set up and ready to go so that I can facilitate a repair in a Windows NTFS environment. Never had to use it, though. (edit: knock on wood  )


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> I reread that thread and got the impression all the thread starter wanted to do was remove Vista.
> I didn't see anything pertaining to the mbr which a 9x boot floppy wouldn't access anyway if the file system is NTFS.
> 
> I do keep several Linux LiveCDs in Linux around for emergencies.......mostly to be able to get on the internet and search for solutions. Slax is my favorite.
> For any 'repairs', though.....I have a Barts PE set up and ready to go so that I can facilitate a repair in a Windows NTFS environment. Never had to use it, though.


Sorry, when I said they, I meant in general, not that thread in particular.

"98 boot disc" was quite popular for a couple of months after Vistas' release. I even considered putting my disc up for auction.
Was one of the reasons I even started to look at Linux. Especially when I didn't have a floppy drive. lol

"I do keep several Linux LiveCDs in Linux around for emergencies.......mostly to be able to get on the internet and search for solutions."
Then you are already doing what I suggested but you posted back was to inconvenient to do.


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## Stoner (Oct 26, 2002)

RootbeaR said:


> ...........................
> Then you are already doing what I suggested but you posted back was to inconvenient to do.


No.....I posted it was inconvenient to be booting from one os to another just to be using voice recognition in MS Windows and then posting or using..... that text in a Linux scenario.

Just because I have several Linux Live CDs gathering dust on a shelf, it doesn't mean there is that same inconvenience of having to boot back and forth all day long when I use Dragon Naturally Speaking.

It's a lot more convenient to boot to one os and be able to use it all day long.


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## RootbeaR (Dec 9, 2006)

Stoner said:


> It's a lot more convenient to boot to one os and be able to use it all day long.


Couldn't have said it better myself.


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## net_newsy (Jan 15, 2004)

Convenience is anything that is intended to save a time, energy or frustration.

...it all depends on one's PERSONAL needs! CHEERS! 

.::

Top 50 Proprietary Programs that Drive You Crazy - and Their Open Source Alternatives 
http://whdb.com/2008/the-top-50-pro...you-crazy-and-their-open-source-alternatives/

This is the LINK I'm looking for, thanks lotuseclat79 !!!

.


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## RedHelix (Oct 31, 2005)

Microsoft Sharepoint wiki sucks.

MediaWiki, meanwhile, is awesome.


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