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Listen to the podcast: Is Free Software
Worth it?. 
Transcript
This is Leo Notenboom with news, commentary and answers to some of the many questions I get at askleo.info.
Last week I mentioned that I had switched to using Thunderbird, which is a free, open source email client similar to Microsoft's Outlook Express or Outlook.
After seeing someone's on-line compendium 30 essential pieces of free and open software, it dawned on me that using Thunderbird - or any free software for that matter - could be considered at odds with my ongoing rant about relying on free email services such as Hotmail.
I mean, you get what you pay for, right?
To me it boils down to a couple of simple issues: quality and support.
Thunderbird has proven itself for a while. It works. It's a good piece of software. And if I do have problems with it, there's an active user community - often including the very developers who work on it - ready to help.
Hotmail on the other hand, which is my common target only because of the volume of mail I get on it, seems to suffer from problems regularly, and when you do have a problem, there's really nowhere to turn.
There's a lot of good, free software out there. Some of it, like Firefox and Thunderbird, compete very favorably against their commercial counterparts. Some of it, like Open Office, competes well, but still feels rough around the edges at times. And naturally there's a lot of really bad free software out there as well.
So when is free software worth it?
I go back to quality and support. Invest a little time in finding out how others are experiencing any free software that you're considering, and how it meets your needs. Find out how well documented the software is (a common issue with free programs) what support options there are, and whether those are even active. There are plenty of so called support forums out there full of nothing but unanswered questions.
And if you do try one, don't put all your eggs in the shiney free basket right away. For example, though I've been using Thunderbird heavily for over a week now, you know I'm still set up to switch back Outlook at a moments notice should a disaster happen. I don't expect it, but won't risk it either.
Investing money in a commercially produced and supported product is often a wise and expedient investment. But investing some time to look at the free and open source alternatives can also be a very wise investment as well.
I'd love to hear what you think. Visit ask leo dot info, and enter 10968 in the go to article number box. Leave me a comment, I love hearing from you.
This is a presentation of askleo.info, a free on-line technical question and answer service. Hundreds of questions and answers are online and ready to help solve your computer problems.
That's askleo.info.
Article C2859 - December 2, 2006
I think thunderbird is totally worth using.
Posted by: Aalok at December 10, 2006 12:31 AMI agree Free software depends on quality and support, as an active linux user, I rely on primarily free software (the OS included) and without the support from forums and user groups would not have been able to get some of the software I have working properly.
Posted by: Derek at December 11, 2006 7:31 PMI love free software not just because of the fact its free but because there are so many decent programs out there that in some cases just far outperform paid solutions. For example I hate Dreamweaver and Frontpage but I love HTMLBox, PSPad and others.
Plus I find that some free software isn't just a ploy to get you to buy something a lot of them are just labours of love. For example the phenomenal Spybot - Search & Destroy originally written by a guy dedicating it to his girlfriend!! Another favourite of mine as a programmers is Context an excellent text editor written by Edin Kirin.
@Mary Snapfiles (formerly known as webattack) is an excellent site for freeware and shareware, I strongly recommend it. As with Cnet there are user opinions and rating alongside the staff opinions so you can at least gauge the quality of said software before downloading it.
Posted by: David at December 15, 2006 3:28 AMHow can you tell if free software isn't a virus or spyware or malware or something?
Posted by: Jack at December 16, 2006 3:28 PMDownload only from trusted locations. Run an anti-virus scan on things before you install them.
Posted by: Leo Notenboom at December 21, 2006 12:44 PM