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Got some fancy schmancy photos you want to edit? Turn on your Windows 7 computer ($119.99) and fire up Photoshop ($699)! And when you’re done editing them, be sure to back them up with Altaro Oops! Backup ($99), or risk losing them.
Image by tao_zhyn on Flickr
If you’re busy entering your credit card number on every software site you can find just so that you can get useful tools, stop! A lot of the time, there is plenty of other software out there that can do the job for cheaper, or even free. AlternativeTo is a great site that can help you locate and review those alternatives.
After finding an expensive piece of shareware, just go to AlternativeTo.net. Using their convenient search box, just enter the software title.
If you’re lucky, hitting Enter will put you on the software’s page. This is the case with entering Windows 7, Oops! Backup, and Photoshop. Other times, you will be taken to a search result page. From there you can select the proper title.
(Not every program has a page; in this case, you can give back to the community and create a page for it.)
Picking your Alternative
Once you’ve found the page for the software you’re considering, you’ll see that it has basic information about the title and, further down the page, a section dedicated to alternatives, reviews, and further information.
However, not all of the alternative titles are freeware. If you’re open to paying money, this is fine, but if you, say, can’t afford new software right now, you can simply select only freeware from the License menu. Once you’ve tailored the list as you see fit, just click on a title. You’ll be brought to that software’s page, which has links to its website and even more alternatives.
You can now pick an alternative and get to work! With AlternativesTo.net, picking an alternative is downright fun.
Conclusion
Although not every title has an alternative, and of those, most alternatives aren’t “clones” of their shareware brethren, AlternativesTo.net is a great place to find free software when you need it. And it’s not just for shareware alternatives either: a lot of freeware titles have alternatives as well!
