College life can be expensive and if you’ve mustered up enough cash to buy a college laptop, you’ll be sad to find out that it came with virtually no software. Following are five free software applications that will handle all of your college needs.
OpenOffice 3
If you’re a college student on a budget – who isn’t – you might be surprised to find out the cost of Microsoft’s Home and Student; a whopping $120-$150 smackeroos. $150 might not be such a big deal – if you’re rich – but most college students need a more reasonably priced office suite – like, a free one. Fortunately, OpenOffice exists, and it’ll solve all of your college office software needs at a $150 discount from the standard price of Microsoft Office Home and Student.
AVG Anti-Virus
For some reason downloading living on a college campus makes getting a computer virus a lot easier than outside of a college campus. The average cost of antivirus software is $40, but must be renewed once a year. If you had an extra $40 lying around, you’d buy something more essential to college life – like food – but, there are lots of free antivirus protection solutions out there. I recommended AVG Anti-Virus software because it’s comprehensive, has consistent updates, and well, it’s free.
Mozilla Firefox
While we’re discussing viruses, I think that it’s a good time to discuss dropping Internet Explorer as your internet browser. Internet Explorer – though free – is slow, lacks plugins, and has way too many vulnerabilities to be considered safe for college life. Mozilla Firefox is a great internet browser that has a wide variety of plugins, runs faster than internet explorer, and can help to avoid catching some of those internet viruses.
GIMP
Editing graphics might not be a day to day thing that you’d need to do at college, but eventually you’ll find yourself needing to edit an image for a school project, presentation, or even for social networking purposes. The unfortunate thing about finding a graphic editing application to handle even the most basic needs is that they’ll all cost a kajillion dollars. GIMP is a great open source graphic editing software application that almost rivals Photoshop, but won’t cost one red cent.
Evernote
If you’re looking for a great piece of software to organize all of your notes, thoughts, ideas, etc. but aren’t looking to break the bank; look no further than Evernote. Evernote is a great open source solution to applications like One Note found in Microsoft Office. It’s great to stay organized in college and Evernote will help you accomplish this via their computer software or iPhone and iPad apps.
For more, read Coolest College in the World Gives Students a Free iPad, How to Install Software Applications on Your Netbook Computer, and Best Buy Software Installer Explained: Tips for Your New Computer or Laptop.
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