Dear Universe: Thank You For All The Free Software I Use Daily

It is time I thanked the universe for all the software I use everyday for free.

I make money out of using these tools (because they help me do my job) and it doesn’t cost me anything.

So here’s a list of my top 6 (in order of “most thankful”):

1. Gmail

What is it? Email/Webmail

Who made it? Google

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • Cutting edge spam filtering
  • Accessing my 6 email accounts in a single place (POP3, SMTP, IMAP)
  • 7GB of online storage space so I never have to delete an email or get stupid “your email account is full” and having to save stupid Outlook archive files to my computer
  • Email search that is just as clever and easy to use as Google Web Search
  • Filters that keep my inbox clean and tidy
  • Labels instead of folders (so a single email can be in more than one place at once)

2. WordPress

What is it? Blogging & Website Content Management System

Who made it? Matt and the world (open source, collaborative)

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • Powerful CMS software that means I can build super-cool websites for clients (all it costs me is time)
  • Powerful plugins that extend the capabilities and functions of my clients websites
  • A community of theme developers that make it easy to make the website look great with just a click

3. Apache / PHP / MySQL

What is it? The 3 components you need for a website server. Apache: the software that runs on the web server.  PHP: the programming language. MySQL: the database software

Who made it? Nerds.

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free (for web hosting companies)
  • And super-cheap for me because the web hosting companies have low costs
  • Since it’s open source, it’s super popular, so there is thousands of people contributing to forums which makes any question easy to answer, every technical difficulty easy to solve

4. Picasa

What is it? Photo organising software

Who made it? Originally by IdeaLab, now by Google

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • An easy way to store and access all my digital photos and videos
  • Easy upload and sharing to Picasa Web Albums (1GB of storage free)
  • One-click email (resizes on the fly, interfaces with Gmail)
  • One click back-up to DVD for peace of mind (and next time it remembers which files have already been backed up)

5. Skype

What is it? Instant Messaging/Web Chat, Phone Calling, Video Calling, Screen Sharing

Who made it? A bunch of Sweedish/Estonian entrepreneurs

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • Free international phone calls
  • Free video calls with my dad to show him his grandson

6. AVG

What is it? Anti-virus software

Who made it? AVG Technologies (formerly known as Grisoft)

What am I thankful for?

  • That it’s free
  • It just does its job and doesn’t get in my way
  • So I don’t have to pay Norton

More Free Software That I Am Thankful For:

  1. Firefox (My window to the world, with truck loads of useful plugins available)
  2. Google Analytics (Website statistics)
  3. Open Office (Just as good as Microsoft Office, and completely free)
  4. Google Calendar (Keeps me organised)
  5. Google Docs (Online document storage, excellent for collaborating on documents with others)
  6. LimeSurvey (Powerful survey software, and completely free)

I’d be completely rooted if these companies started to charge (especially Google).

More Free Software That My Twitter Friends Are Thankful For:

  1. Gimp (Photo editor similar to Photoshop) @AudaciousGloop
  2. Zoho CRM (Customer Relationship Management) @AudaciousGloop
  3. Seesmic Desktop (Desktop client) @ShotByRobins
  4. Faststone Screen Capture @ShotByRobins
  5. uTorrent (Torrent client) @ShotByRobins
  6. Copernic (Desktop Search) @ShotByRobins
  7. VNC (Virtual Network Computing) @ShotByRobins
  8. Hootsuite (Twitter client) @WebSam
  9. Sylpheed (Email client) @WebSam
  10. Thunderbird (Email client) @DeepWebDesign
  11. Tweetdeck (Twitter client) @DeepWebDesign
  12. Oolite (Addictive online game) @DeepWebDesign
  13. Faststone Image Resizer @DeepWebDesign

What Software Are You Thankful For?

Add your thoughts to the comments below.