Comments on: You have choices.

You have choices.

gman — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:27:54 -0800

AlternativeTo finds substitutes to expensive and/or crappy desktop and mobile software. "Tell us what application you want to replace and we give you great alternatives, based on user recommendations."

By: kaibutsu

kaibutsu — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:37:21 -0800

Ok, I tried 'Windows,' and it didn't say 'Linux.' What gives? Looks like a great idea for a site, though! I've been dreaming of a better music player, according to my very particular definition of 'better.' Perhaps this will help...

By: crapmatic

crapmatic — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:42:35 -0800

I've gotta get this Something Seems To Be Broken package it keeps suggesting... it apparently is a good replacement for everything.

By: gman

gman — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:43:49 -0800

Just in case it's not clear, you type in your search and then hit the 'Find alternatives to _______' link in the result.

By: Cat Pie Hurts

Cat Pie Hurts — Tue, 04 May 2010 16:53:00 -0800

In the same vein, there's osalt.com, but specifically for open source alternatives.

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:18:48 -0800

Here seems like a good place to say that I tried the new Ubuntu, and after sanding off the rough edges (by installing the right drivers and getting Gnome Do and Docky), I think I like it better than Windows 7 and Mac OSX, which I dual boot on my MacBook Pro. I uninstalled Windows 7, and now I'm just keeping Mac for my old software and TF2 (once they expand the beta). Alternatives rock!

By: chaff

chaff — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:19:49 -0800

Huh, I just found out through this that BumpTop got bought by Google and is only available for download for one more week. Wonder what they're going to do with it.

By: mccarty.tim

mccarty.tim — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:24:00 -0800

I liked the looks of BumpTop but never installed it. Google has Chrome OS coming out, but that's mainly a web browser. I'm guessing Google will rebrand it and build it in to Google Desktop.

By: jeoc

jeoc — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:39:40 -0800

I think this interface is a little confusing. Maybe it is just because they didn't have the first program I searched (Captivate, which seems weird). I don't know - it just seems busy. I kind of want an alternative to this site. That said, I love this concept and will spend some time here trying to figure out how to avoid buying a bunch of Captivate licenses for my department.

By: DU

DU — Tue, 04 May 2010 17:43:13 -0800

Thunderbird (on Linux) has been bothering me off recently, so I tried that. Top alternative? Evolution. Nice try, cure, but I'll take the disease.

By: Greg_Ace

Greg_Ace — Tue, 04 May 2010 19:22:23 -0800

The first thing I did was look up the application I currently support. No alternatives found - which is unfortunate, because this software package should seriously be a lot less clunky and error-prone than it is, and I think some healthy competition would give the suits some incentive to improve it. On the other hand, that would end up allowing them to cut way back on its support-staff costs in favor of development...so I should probably be careful what I wish for....

By: alternativeto

alternativeto — Wed, 05 May 2010 01:51:51 -0800

Hi! I'm Ola and are one of the co-founder of AlternativeTo. Thanks to gman for posting our site here! kaibutsu: The search is not perfect. When you do a generic search like "Windows" you hit a lot of applications like Windows Media Player and so on. Windows is listed as Windows 7 and you can find alternatives to it here http://alternativeto.net/desktop/windows-7 .. Ubuntu is the top alternative! We will spend some time and try to make the search better! crapmatic: We would be really happy if you could report to us how you got the error page? Did you get it when you did a search? I will take a look at the error log today and see what i can find. But please drop us an e-mail at hello@alternativeto.net and we will try to track down this problem. jeoc: It was actually weird that we do not have Adobe Captivate in our database. I will add it right now! And as you may have noticed it's possible to add applications to our database by just signing up with OpenID or Facebook Connect. I use it a lot to add apps that i do not know any alternatives to and hope that somebody will add a new alternatives. Is this an alternative to Camtasia and so on? Anyway i added it now: http://alternativeto.net/desktop/adobe-captivate/ Greg_Ace: Hehe, what application is it that you work for? And thanks again for the comments and hope you continue to use the site and tell your friends about it! /Ola

By: alternativeto

alternativeto — Wed, 05 May 2010 08:13:55 -0800

crapmatic: I think i found the bug you had issues with? You got it when you clicked the search icon without adding any text to the searchbox right? It's fixed now!

By: punilux

punilux — Wed, 05 May 2010 11:58:05 -0800

...BumpTop got bought by Google and is only available for download for one more week. Wonder what they're going to do with it BumpTop seems a good fit for iPad-like devices. Which might explain Google's interest.

By: irisclara

irisclara — Wed, 05 May 2010 14:22:38 -0800

I've been using this site for a few months now and I like it. It doesn't replace Softpedia and Tucows but the narrow focus of the search results provides a good quick reference. Still no real alternative to Calibre but I keep hoping. Thanks for the visit Ola.

By: WCityMike

WCityMike — Wed, 05 May 2010 15:30:38 -0800

The site is quite useful; it assisted in a recent migration.