With the price of tuition rising every year, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for students to make it through college without racking up a hefty sum of debt. Add the rising costs of gas, housing, and textbooks, and it just gets worse. Fortunately, there’s one area where students can save a lot of money by using free alternatives — software.
Instant Messaging
It’s practically impossible to keep a group of friends that all use the same IM program. Luckily, there are some great free programs out there that allow you to sign into all of your IM accounts at once.
- Digsby — IM + Email + Social Networks
- Meebo — multi-protocol web-based IM client
- Pidgin — multi-protocol IM client
- Trillian — multi-protocol IM client
- Adium — multi-protocol IM client for Mac OS X
- AIM Lite — simple version of AIM if you don’t want all the feature bloat
Phone Calls Over the Internet (VoIP)
Who knows how much I would have saved on phone calls back in undergrad if these options had been around? Whether you’re in a long distance relationship or calling your parents back at home, these programs can help you save a lot money.
- Skype — free calls over the internet to other people on Skype
- Google Talk — free Internet calls and online chat
- SightSpeed — Internet video chat and voice calling for friends and family
Managing Your Email
When you show up at college, they’ll give you at least one school email account, so you need a program that will help you organize and manage it.
Webmail
Most colleges still have crappy web access for school email accounts. Fortunately, you can get way better webmail accounts for free. If you really hate your school email, try to find out if you can get your school email forwarded to your Gmail, Yahoo! Mail, or Hotmail account.
Browsing the Web
Here are just a few of the free web browsers available out there. Pick one and stick with it or try them all if you’re more adventurous.
- Firefox
- Opera
- Safari
- Internet Explorer
- Flock — The Social Web Browser
Office Alternatives
Avoid buying Microsoft Office by using one of these free offline or online alternatives to create, edit, share, and publish your documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
- OpenOffice — free office suite for Windows/Linux
- NeoOffice — free office suite for Mac OS X
- Google Docs — online documents, spreadsheets and presentations
- Zoho — online word processor, spreadsheet, presentation, and more
Online Reference
Who needs a traditional encyclopedia anymore when you have all of this reference material at your fingertips?
- Wikipedia — the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit
- Scholarpedia — peer-reviewed open-access encyclopedia written by scholars from all around the world
- MSN Encarta
- Britannica Online Encyclopedia
Photo Editing and Management
Not ready to shell out a few hundred dollars for Photoshop? Try one of these programs to manage and manipulate your photos for free.
- Picasa — free photo editing and photo management software
- Paint.NET — free software for digital photo editing
- Gimp — free Photoshop alternative
- Splashup — desktop image-editing power in a web browser
Photo Sharing
After you finishing editing your photos, you need a way to share them with friends and family. Here are some of the best sites for sharing photos with the rest of the world.
Media Players
Getting annoyed because Windows Media Player, Quicktime, or iTunes can’t play a file you downloaded? Try one of the following programs and be happy.
- VLC Player — cross-platform media player that’ll play pretty much any file format you throw at it
- K-Lite Codec Pack — a collection of codecs and related tools that allows you to play practically anything you download
- Media Monkey — free media jukebox, music manager, CD ripper and converter
- Winamp — MP3, multimedia, and music player
Audio Editing and Recording
This section is for broke musicians. If you’ve been wanting to record and edit your latest tracks but can’t afford a professional program, look no further.
- Audacity — free audio editor and recorder
- Ardour — digital audio workstation
- Jokosher — simple yet powerful multi-track studio
3D Software
Feeling inspired by the latest animated movies? Or maybe you’re frustrated because you think you can make a better one? Well, do it. Take a shot at making your own animated movies for free by using open source software.
- Blender — open source 3D content creation suite
Did I leave something off the list? Let me know by leaving a comment.
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PT 08.13.08 at 11:30 pm
I’d add SplashUp.com to the photo editing tools. Great list.
Broke Grad Student 08.18.08 at 12:40 am
Thanks for the tip, PT. I added it to the list.
Doctor S 08.18.08 at 6:39 am
Wow what a great comprehensive list you came up with! All are excellent choices and what I think the real key is to find a good combination that works for you! One thing that is great is the interoperability of some of the packages that allow you to implement some of the tools together (i.e. Google and all of its online apps). Great post and it shows how much time and research you put in!!!
GG @ This Writer's Wallet 08.18.08 at 8:20 pm
Oooh, I’ll add in that pandora.com offers a great way to listen to music for free, as well as learn new groups/songs you’ll like!
Broke Grad Student 08.21.08 at 11:10 am
GG, I agree that Pandora is awesome for listening to and discovering new music for free. Unfortunately, there have been rumors that it may be shutting down soon, because they can’t afford to pay the royalty fees.
Eugene 10.01.08 at 9:15 pm
Under Photo Management/Editing, it’s safe to add Photoshop Express (https://www.photoshop.com/express) now…It’s free!