Freeware has always existed since the advent of the digital space. Since then, people have been on a constant quest to create and innovate software that could be used as an alternative to paid software sold by developers and corporations. Although paid software is expected to be generally more polished and feature-rich, the core concepts of software are still captured by most freeware. This article will explore the possibilities of various applications of freeware to different sectors that are readily available to download from the internet with little to no cost.
Education
As the educational system progresses and the curriculums are subject to change, digital outputs from both students and teachers have been incrementally tied to learning. Preparing documents and presentations is now viewed as an essential skill before students can proceed to higher education. As one of the most important sectors of society, the presence of digital libraries on educational systems solved a whole lot of efficiency problems. For instance, students can now simply log into their school’s database to download reference textbooks related to their activities and assignments.
Before, teachers had to hand out physical learning materials, which translated to an increased educational cost. It also takes a lot of time, unlike now that students and teachers can exchange information with a few clicks away.
There are a few popular freeware that this part of the article will be focusing on. Most of what’s listed here are the tried and tested ones that students, teachers, and school administrators generally recommend.
- LibreOffice
- Google Classroom
- LibriVox
LibreOffice is a free and open-source productivity office suite. It works just like the regular Microsoft Office Suite because it’s an all-in-one software that offers a lot of features for the educational sector to use. Developed by The Document Foundation, this freeware was created with a vision to provide the general public with an accessible productivity tool.
What distinguishes this freeware from others is the fact that it’s open-source. This means that the user community can collaborate on adding features and options by pooling together different creative ideas to improve the software.
It’s more than just a platform for students to keep track of their activities and assignments. This freeware by Google is one of the most organized and polished freeware out there. One of its most useful features is the push notification that reminds users about the activities and their due dates. This can be used through different devices, whether through phones or computers.
Among other things, teachers can use Google Classroom to give direct, real-time feedback on the students’ outputs. This is paired with Google’s other freeware like Google Docs, Google Meet, and Google Drive to create a multipurpose platform.
Sometimes, the students are tasked to find sources of information other than what their teachers already provided for them. This is often done so that students can further solidify their learning, including their ability to properly look for reliable, valid, and relevant information.
Over the years, it has been emphasized that students have different types of learning methods that they excel in. Reading, for instance, is an excellent tool for absorbing information, but it doesn’t always work with everyone. This is one of the reasons why audiobooks have become popular ever since the internet and media were used for academic purposes.
With a catalog that is supported by the works compiled in a website called Project Gutenberg, LibriVox offers free audiobooks of literature that belong in the public domain. Its main goal is to provide people free access to audiobooks with an uncomplicated website design, making it easy to navigate. The huge advantage of this freeware is that there are no ads because volunteers solely support the development.
Health
The health sector makes use of freeware the same way the education sector does and more. Technology, in general, has been and always will be part of the progress of the medical field. X-rays, for instance, provided doctors and nurses the means to closely and safely examine the patient’s health condition to come up with an accurate diagnosis. More recent developments in medical technology have proved to be quite useful in a lot of ways, and the existence of freeware is one of them.
- Spatiotemporal Epidemiological Modeler (STEM)
- Caisis
- Orthanc
STEM was first introduced by IBM Research but is now available for free through the Eclipse Foundation. The goal of the development of this software was for scientists and other health professionals to be able to create temporal and spatial models of infectious diseases. This proves to be essential to public health by enabling policymakers to cooperate with the scientific community to create appropriate strategies in containing an epidemic.
This software uses complex mathematical models of different diseases, effectively creating an accurate simulation of the numerical data of the disease and how it would look in a real-world scenario. For it to be useful, the developers also provided a feature that allows the software to include and extend its database with real-time information like the global population.
Since STEM is open-source freeware, scientists who use it as a tool also can provide contributions and insights to the Eclipse Foundation for the software’s improvement.
Caisis is a patient management system that emphasizes cancer patients. It stores data that is useful for institutions to conduct collaborative research. This is another open-source software, making it easier for developers to add new plug-ins, tables, and other useful features for the research and development of patient care.
Its large database makes it an ideal tool for doctors to check on their patients’ clinical records. This includes the chronological summary of patient history and statistics. There are also different selections of templates for each type of cancer so that it’s easily recognizable and therefore easier to organize.
Lightweight, powerful, and publicly available, Orthanc is a Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) software. The mechanics of this freeware is like Google Docs, where different users can operate on the data stored in the software. This significantly simplifies the passing of images and data from a network within the hospital. It serves as a server for medical imaging. It’s designed to handle data from multiple types of imaging that are installed in hospitals like Computed Tomography (CT) and Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
One of its unique uses is its versatility. Orthanc can be run on multiple platforms like Linux and Windows, and macOS X. The software also comes with a web interface that allows users to interact and browse the archive stored online.