Some of the best Open Source software is better than the commercial counterpart and free to customize both the software and source code. Such is Linux, Open Office, WordPress, Firefox, and many other valuable but free programs.

Linux

Linux for example is used exclusively by Google to run an estimated 450,000 servers world wide in over 30 data centers. Each data center runs only Linux on over 10,000 Intel servers with an estimated overall electrical power cost for all 30 data centers to be $2,000,000 per month. Google uses Linux for several good reasons. First its free and you can customize the source code. Second it's well supported by it's authors, efficient, reliable, and not a big virus target. Google seems very happy with their Linux server choice. Also it is estimated that Linux Apache server is used on over 50% of all servers on the Internet. Again mainly because it's free, efficient, reliable, and not a big virus target. Most Open Source software was first developed for Linux but then later ported to Windows so that more people could benefit.

Open Office

Open Office is a suite of product similar to Microsoft Office. However with Open Office you can create and edit many different document formats, such as, Word and Open Office. It's three main programs are Writer (Word alternative), Clac (Excel alternative), and Impress (PowerPoint) alternative. It even has a Draw (Visio alternative), Data (Access alternative), and Math (Equation alternative) programs. We use Open Office on our lab computers and my students find it very useful for their class projects.

Firefox

Firefox is the best browser program because it is small, efficient, reliable, and safer than Internet Explorer. It also has many nice add-ons that extend its abilities and provide a nice productive platform for many activities. Two of its more popular add-ons are Adblock Plus with it's ability to block advertising with an updated ad list and Download Helper with it's ability to download videos on the fly. It even has a nice SEO toolbar add-on that is very helpful when researching keywords and web sites.

Gimp

Gimp is a powerful Photoshop alternative. It has many photo layer editing features for filtering and transforming photos much like Photoshop's features. You can also easily create GIF animations and other cool animation effects with it's transforming features. It's easy to enhance and edit photos and turn regular pictures into professional works of art. There is also a newer Gimp Shop distribution available for Photoshop users.

Audacity

Audacity is a audio recording and editing program. It was voted in 2009 as Best Project for Multimedia. Its features include, microphone input, line input, and other sources, dub over existing tracks for creating multi-track recordings, can record up to 16 channels at once with multi-channel hardware, also level meters can monitor volume levels before, during, and even after recordings.

This list is just a few of the many valuable and best Open Source software programs available. There is many computer maintenance and network tools that I use daily. I also have some YouTube videos on many of the more technical Open Source utilities.