Open Source Software Reviews

Xine is a free, GPL-licensed multimedia playback engine. This high performance software plays back CDs, DVDs and VCDs. It also supports a large number of multimedia files like AVI, MOV, WMV, MP3 etc.

VNC or Virtual Network Computing is a client server software package for accessing remote network to graphical desktops. TightVNC, a free remote control software package is the enhanced version of VNC software. TightVNC allows the users to view the desktop of a remote machine and control it with local mouse and keyboard.

MPlayer is a movie and animation player, which runs on a wide range of codecs and file formats including MPEG, DivX, Windows media, Real Audio and Video, QuickTime and Vivo.

A wide range of output drivers supports MPlayer. It works well with X11, Xv, DGA, Open GL, SVGAlib, DirectFB etc. However, other drivers like GGI, SDL, VESA etc. and some low level card-specific drivers like Matrox, 3Dfx and ATI are also supported by MPlayer.

Gaim is an instant messaging client, based on Linux operating system.

Gaim allows its users to access multiple networks simultaneously. The users can login to their multiple accounts at a time. This is the unique and most popular feature of Gaim since the users can access all the instant messenger services at a time. For example – a person is chatting with friends on MSN messenger, and talking to another friend on Yahoo messenger and sitting in an IRC channel simultaneously at the same time.

Mozilla is considered as a wonderful alternate web browser to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. Mozilla is free software and can easily be downloaded from Mozilla site.

To speak about the appearance, Mozilla is a simple looking clear browser. It contains all the features of a modern advanced browser like: security settings, Password protection, download and Cookie managers, multi-language and multi-platform support and the Web Standards.

Linux is an open source operating system originally developed by Linus Torvalds in 1991. Since it is an open source operating system, the source code is freely available to everybody throughout the world over the Internet. This software has been developed under GNU General Public License and is considered as a revolutionary operating system in the world of computers.

Apache is one of the widely used web servers on the Internet, developed originally by the Apache group in 1995. This open source HTTP server is Unix-based and supports PERL and PHP languages.

Apache HTTP server is a project supported by Apace Software Foundation (ASF), a non-profit corporation. Their aim was to provide a secure, efficient and extensible HTTP server. Apache server is characterized by a collaborative, consensus based development process with and open and realistic software license from ASF.

C++ is an object oriented programming (OOP) language, which is considered as the best application for creating large-scale applications. The concept of C++ has emerged from its predecessor C (a procedural language), and C++ is treated as the extension of C or the superset of C.

C is perhaps the most popular programming language in today’s computer world. This procedural language was developed at Bell Labs in the early 1970’s. Initially, it was designed only for Unix-based systems. However, later it was enhanced for using on different other platforms.

PHP or Hypertext Preprocessor is a scripting language, which is used especially for web development.

PHP is mainly a server side scripting and can easily be embedded into HTML. Its functionalities resemble with any other CGI programs’ functionalities like collecting form data, generating page content, sending or receiving cookies etc.