All articles tagged with #free software
ON1 is offering its Effects 2025 photo editing software and plugin for free until January 12, allowing users to try it without payment or sign-up, with features like presets, filters, AI tools, and compatibility with major photo apps.
Handy is a free, easy-to-use speech-to-text application that leverages advanced AI models like Nvidia's Parakeet and OpenAI's Whisper to convert spoken words into text accurately, offering a simple setup and customizable options for users on Windows, macOS, and Linux.
The article discusses the growing trend of subscription fatigue among artists and creatives, highlighting how free and one-time purchase software like Affinity, Blender, Krita, and DaVinci Resolve are providing strong alternatives to traditional subscription-based tools like Adobe. It predicts that by 2026, the creative industry will shift towards more accessible, fairer pricing models, reducing reliance on costly subscriptions and empowering users with more choice and affordability.
The article highlights five free Windows applications that are useful but not widely known, encouraging users to explore and utilize these tools to enhance their productivity and experience.
Affinity rapidly gained over one million users in less than a week after consolidating its apps into a free platform, a move supported by Canva's business model to make professional creative tools accessible, mirroring strategies like Blackmagic's DaVinci Resolve.
Affinity is a comprehensive, free photo editing and design software that combines features of Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign, offering powerful editing tools, layer management, and advanced features like HDR merging and object selection, but lacks cataloguing and preset effects, making it ideal for experienced users who prefer a manual, technical approach.
Affinity, a powerful photo editing software, has announced it is now completely free forever, providing photographers with a professional, lightweight alternative to Adobe Photoshop without subscription costs or AI distractions.
Canva has relaunched its Affinity creative suite as a free, all-in-one app for photo editing, vector illustration, and page layouts, available on Windows and Mac, with future iPad support, featuring AI-powered tools and seamless integration with Canva accounts, while maintaining support for older standalone versions.
The article discusses the challenges of creating user-friendly interfaces in software, especially free and open-source projects, highlighting the complexity of designing for non-developers, the importance of simplicity, and the potential role of AI in improving user experience. It emphasizes that good UI design requires vision, effort, and understanding of user needs, which are often overlooked in favor of feature creep and technical focus.
The article discusses the ongoing struggle of free software to achieve true freedom and control over technology, highlighting issues like hardware lock-in, corporate control, and the importance of open standards and devices. Despite significant progress in open infrastructure, the dominance of closed, attested hardware and services limits user freedom, and the community must continue advocating for open hardware, legislation, and alternative solutions to preserve digital rights and privacy.
The article highlights 14 free online tools that can perform various tasks directly in a web browser, eliminating the need for paid desktop utilities. These tools include ILovePDF for PDF conversions, Giphy for creating GIFs, Image Compressor for reducing image sizes, Smallpdf for editing PDFs, ZIP Extractor for unzipping files, QRCodeMonkey for generating QR codes, UnitConverters for unit conversions, iLoveIMG for watermarking images, Canva for graphic design, Image to Text Converter for extracting text from images, Audio Cutter Online for trimming audio clips, RedKetchup Color Picker for identifying colors in images, Google Translate for translations, and Calculator.net for various calculations.
Microsoft offers a free online version of Office, now known as Microsoft 365, accessible through a Microsoft account and web browser. While some features are limited compared to the desktop version, users can create and edit Word, Excel, and PowerPoint files, with automatic cloud syncing. The web apps provide a familiar interface and basic functionality, making them suitable for most users, though advanced features are restricted.
The FSFLA has released GNU Linux-libre 6.7-gnu, a downstream version of the Linux 6.7 kernel that removes non-free microcode/firmware blob support and other non-free elements. The release includes updates and clean-ups for various graphics drivers and hardware support, and can be downloaded from FSFLA.org.
PDFGear is a free, offline PDF editor that offers a range of features including merging, editing, converting, and signing PDF documents. It also includes ChatGPT, allowing users to interact with their PDF files using natural language. While certain features may become paid services in the future, the core functionalities of PDF editing will remain free. PDFGear aims to democratize PDF editing and disrupt the $20 billion PDF market. Users are encouraged to take advantage of the current free version while it lasts.