The Personal Computer Enthusiast

The following are compilations of work by thousands of computer development experts.
Some open source projects that YOU should know about:

• Linux – Powerful End-User Operating System (rivals: Windows, Mac OSX) *considers personal use only – ignores server oriented OS's
• Mandrake, Red Hat: Fedora Core, Debian, etc – versions of Home Linux
• Firefox – Powerful Web Browser (rivals: Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, etc)
• OpenOffice – The open source answer to Microsoft Office (rivals: Microsoft Office, Works, etc)
• DC++ - original p2p concepts (rivals: other Direct Connect clients, and loosely other p2p programs such as the legendary extinct napster, limewire, kazaa, etc)
• Gaim – Instant Messaging Client which supports: AOL's AIM, ICQ, MSN Messenger, Jabber, IRC, Yahoo's YIM, and has completely open source plugin features to do support virtually anything (rivals: Trillian, Miranda, stand-alone clients, etc)

For more specific open source applications, you can visit:

• SourceForge.net – "The world's largest development and download repository of Open Source code and applications"( wikipedia.org )

Now these topics can be somewhat controversial so I'll spare the details for now. But for a good start, I highly recommend using Firefox over Internet Explorer since it will offer many things that Internet Explorer cannot. The biggest threat with Internet Explorer, in my opinion, is the use of ActiveX which allows webmasters to install unwanted spyware/malware onto your comp if you settings are not set correctly. Firefox also has a huge database of user-submitted extensions (plugins) which makes almost anything possible. I'll probably create a post on Firefox in more detail later – possibly after Internet Explorer 7 is officially launched with Vista (Jan. 07).

Got other suggestions on what should be in this list? Leave a comment!