Open source software has long been a staple for geeks, but its coming into the mainstream and providing a valuable alternative for people who no longer want to pay for certain functionality. Here we explore the top five open source alternatives to popular Windows programs, showing you how you can live without them.

1. Microsoft Office – The alternative to this has been Open Office for years, but with support that has been less than stellar, Open Office hasn’t gained much ground. However, after it was purchased by Sun Microsystems in 2006, Open Office began seeing regular updates and has since become a valid alternative to people who want a great office suite without forking over tons of money.

2. Photoshop – The Gimp can do just about everything Photoshop can and better, and it does it all for free. While the interface of The Gimp is just a bit different from that of Photoshop, learning to use it doesn’t take ages and once you discover the brushes and editing tools, you have a powerful image editor on your hands.

3. Windows Media Player – Windows Media Player is free, sure, but its very limited in what it can do. This is where Miro comes in, as it’s a full fledged media player with tons of functionality and the ability to download torrents as well.

4. Outlook Express - Thunderbird is a robust email client which is made by the same people who brought us Firefox. In fact, it offers many features Outlook Express doesn’t, and those that it does, it often does tons better. Thunderbird is one of the first programs you should use on your computer if you’re an avid email user.

5. WinZip – For people who archive files regularly, PeaZip is a great alternative to both WinZip and WinRAR, as it supports all of those formats and more, including 7Zip.