[ Thanks to James
Maguire for this link. ]
“When we think of open source software, generally we
think of a desktop environment that supports the same principles.
But what about those people who prefer using Windows, yet want to
try out some open source software to see what all of the fuss is
about?“To address this, I’ve put together twenty of my favorite open
source applications for the Windows desktop. Then to make things
interesting, I offer up the proprietary cousins for each
application in comparison.“1) 7-Zip – Not to be confused with any of the other
countless unzip programs out there, 7-Zip is unique in how it
balances simplicity with format unpacking options. 7-Zip will
pack/unpack anything from the following formats: 7z, ZIP, GZIP,
BZIP2 and TAR. If you are looking to simply unpack software, then
the list gets a bit longer: ARJ, CAB, CHM, CPIO, DEB, DMG, HFS,
ISO, LZH, LZMA, MSI, NSIS, RAR, RPM, UDF, WIM, XAR and Z
compression formats.“From the proprietary side of the fence, I point you to the
popular WinZip program. Supported packing formats appear to be: ZIP
and ZIPX. Anything beyond this is a mystery due to the feature list
neglecting to elaborate on any other available formats.“2) Filezilla “