The Best Home Office Software – Open Office

The worst thing that can happen to a home office is to lose all the data when a hard drive crashes. Luckily today there is software to backup your important files on a regular basis for free. Search Download.com and you will find some very nice utilities. Plus the costs of data storage continues to decline rapidly. A terabyte, 1,000 gigabytes, can now be purchased near $100. Also getting your virus protection software up-to-date can stop the main hard drive from crashing in the first place. Download.com has some very good virus protection software and search Google for a software comparison is always well worth the time.

Start by assessing what you need in the form of software for your home business and the amount of money that you can spend. Then start looking for free programs that have the same functionality and performance of the expensive applications. Make sure to consider specialized software for your business like photo-editing programs or accounting software.

Some software is required by all home businesses including QuickBooks or Quicken. Tax preparation software such as Turbo Tax and also an office suite like Microsoft Office. Other options that are less expensive than Microsoft Office include Microsoft Works, Google Docs and Open Office. Open Office has become one of the more popular office suites because it is completely free and is compatible with the file formats created by Microsoft Office. Download a copy today and try it out.

A web browser is also an important piece of software for performing research and maintaining a web presence. Selecting an open source web browser could very well be the way to go instead of using the default Microsoft Explorer or Safari. Check comparisons online of browser features and performance. But Firefox, Safari, Opera and Chrome all offer good performance and nice features that might be better than Microsoft’s web browser. Keep an open mind and read all that you can. Selecting the best home office software can save you a lot of time and a lot of headaches.