My favourite open source applications

My interest towards open source started a long way when i started using Firefox.
Actually I must say that I was forced to use firefox by one of my senior in my company. But it turned out to be an eye opener for me. I've never heard about the advent of open source movement before that. So that firefox was the door through which i entered the open source world.

Wow. There is almost replacement for all the commercial applications we are using in our day to day life in the open source world. Some are more than enough, where as some perform even better than their commercial counterparts.

Here are the list of open source applications i use (in no particular order) in my personal notebook:

- Firefox
- NetBeans
- Eclipse
- MySQL
- Ubuntu (running on virtual pc)
- Openoffice
- VLC Media Player (Just fell in love with this wonderful app)
- PDFGenerator (mainly as a "virtual printer")
- Notepad++
- 7Zip

Since i'm more into programming i haven't explored great apps like GIMP, etc.

Following are the list of proprietary applications i use:

- Microsoft Windows XP Professional
- Microsoft Virtual PC (only for running ubuntu)
- AVG Antivirus (freeware)
- Komodo Firewall (freeware)(too good a product, i wonder how come they give it as freeware)
- Google talk
- Yahoo Messenger

I read some articles about open source alternatives for antivirus & firewall, like WinPooch, Clamdin etc., but i'm still a bit reluctant to use them.

So, I feel i'm almost there.
I can knock off Windows XP, Virtual PC, AVG, Komodo from the list if I move permanently to ubuntu.

Finally i'm left with Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger. I heard about open source replacement called "pidgin" but i'm not sure whether it supports all the functionalities of these applications. (for e.g. viewing webcam, group voice conference etc)

I'm dreaming about the day when everyone will prefer linux over windows and notebooks pre-installed with linux (whether it's ubuntu or fedora or anything else..) outsell their windows counterparts.

And I believe the day is not so far.