Except for highly specialized business programs, What Shareware or
Commercial programs are not replaceable by Freeware?
The sad truth, as I have found it, is that while freeware can be good,
the commercial alternatives are often better. They have better thought
out features and much better interfaces. The latter being
understandable, as a lot of freeware is created by a single person that
rarely has a real understanding of what makes a good interface.
My irreplacables are an explorer replacement/file manager[1], email
client[2], text editor[3], bookmark manager[4], a big bunch of graphic
and desktop publishing software (or does that count as "highly
specialized business programs"?), various disk tools. Oh, and an
evergrowing pile of games. But I suppose they don't really count in
this context.
However, it must be said that I also have and use a bunch of freeware
programs that have no worthy competitors in the commercial world. Among
these I find Xnews[5], POPfile[6], Keynote[7], Hamster[8],
Proxomitron[9] (although this one might go in favour of Privoxy[10] at
some point), SmartColor[11] (suggested by an acf-er, thanks again!),
GSpot[12], BSplayer[13], Process Explorer[14], PCgen[15], GuildFTPd[16],
SmartFTP[17]... The list goes on and on.
Actually, I think this one might be better done by a freeware
alternative. Have you had a look at 40tude Dialog? It seems to be a
very fine piece of software indeed. It is not for me, as I have grown
to accostumed to the Xnews way of thinking, but I do think an Agent
user might fancy it. <URL:
http://www.40tude.com/dialog/>
Tone
[1] Qverpgbel Bchf. All freeware alternatives not only pale, but seem
like rather bad jokes in comparison.
[2] Gur Ong! A good example to prove that commercial interfaces aren't
*always* better. Still, the stuff beneath it is good enough for
me to keep using it and (almost) never look away.
[3] Grkgcnq. I might find a freeware alternative to this one, I just
haven't looked all that hard.
[4] Cbjreznexf. I have yet to see a freeware alternative that even
thinks remotely like this.
[5] <URL:
http://xnews.newsguy.com/> It seems to finally have died,
which is sad. After trying a number of other newsreaders out, it
seems Xnews truly *is* irreplacable.
[6] <URL:
http://popfile.sourceforge.net/>
[7] <URL:
http://www.tranglos.com/free/>
[8] <URL:
http://www.tglsoft.de/>
[9] All gone, I'm afraid.
[10] <URL:
http://www.privoxy.org/>
[11] <URL:
http://www.isotton.com/smartcolor/>
[12] <URL:
http://www.headbands.com/gspot/>
[13] <URL:
http://www.bsplayer.org/>
[14] <URL:
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/procexp.shtml>
[15] <URL:
http://pcgen.sourceforge.net/> Ok, so this *is* a rather
specialized tool, but I still couldn't live without it.
[16] <URL:
http://www.guildftpd.com/>
[17] <URL:
http://www.smartftp.com/> ... but I understand this has
entered a grey area these days?
