Searching for free software on the Web can be challenging. However, software experts Gurdy and Mary Leete have found the best, highest-quality free software programs and are anxious to share this information with readers! They show where to get these programs, how to install them, what functionality they offer, and, most importantly, how to use them effectively.

The book covers plunging into free software, office productivity software, Internet and e-mail software, multimedia software, and education and entertainment software, and also offers a directory to more free software and resources.

• Describes how to find, install, use, and get the most out of such popular programs as OpenOffice (office productivity), Mozilla Firefox (Web browsing and e-mail), MySQL (database), GIMP (digital image manipulation), Flight Gear (flight simulation), and FreeCiv (multiplayer strategy game)
• Web sites offering free software are booming: GNUWin had more than one million visitors in the last year, OpenOffice.org reports 20 million downloads since 2001, and Mozilla Firefox recently had more than 1 million downloads during a 100-hour period