The best open source software makes it easy to do everyday tasks on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and you don’t have to pay for it.
Open source software is a type of program where the person who made it decides to share the code for free. If software has an open source license, anyone in the world can download, change, and share it without having to pay the person who made it.
Since the idea of open source started in the late 1990s, it has made a big impact on the world. In fact, it’s estimated that a huge 96% of all web servers around the world use some version of the open source Linux operating system.
It’s important to know that open source doesn’t just mean “free.” Some companies release their software for free but still own all the rights to it, so other people can’t change it. On the other hand, successful open source projects are made by lots of people who work together to create something amazing, and they do it on their own time.
This way of developing software has some great benefits. Open source software is often safer because people from all over the world check out new versions, and if there are any problems, they get fixed quickly. People are also excited to add cool new features to open source programs, making them just as good, if not better, than programs you have to pay for.
While open source software is used in many things like networks and web servers, we’ll focus here on the best open source software that you can download and use on your own device.