Let’s say that for every Microsoft product that you currently use, whether it’s a word processor, an operating system, a browser, or a spreadsheet, there was a suitable alternative that would be simple for you to obtain and install.
I know that there are plenty of free alternatives of MS products, such as Eudora instead of Outlook or Mozilla instead of Internet Explorer.
Is it a wise move to use as many non-MS programs as possible, simply because you’d prefer not to have a lot of programs coming from the same company? (I’m assuming here that the comparable programs are at least as good as the MS versions.)
Or would it be smarter to leave the current MS programs that came with your PC the way they are? That is, perhaps it’s more trouble than it’s worth to use alternatives. Perhaps you’re okay in your own little world and don’t mind that so much comes from one place.
I’ve been trying to move away from MS products, under the assumption that there must be something better out there. I think that when people get new computers and use Windows for the first time, they suffer so much with their initiation to it that they’re loath to try something new, thinking that since they did have to struggle so much (at times) to get Windows to work, they owe it to themselves to keep on using it. Besides, they reason, getting something new would just complicate things.
So I now use Eudora for my email and Opera as my browser. I felt that the stability of these programs would undoubtedly be better than their MS counterparts, that they would have more useful and better features, and that they’d even be more secure against virus attacks.
What do you all think? If you could do so easily, would you get as many non-MS programs as you could to replace your current MS programs? Or are you content to deal with what you have?