Free Software We're Most Thankful For [Thanksgiving]

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Dear free software developers: Before we American nerds sit down to our turkey and mashed potatoes today, know that your creations are at the top of the list of things we're most thankful for. Whether you're an indie hacker putting out the occasional script or an employee at a giant internet company building out a webapp with millions of users or a voluntary coder contributing to an open source project, we salute you this Thanksgiving in gratitude for all the things your work enables us to do every day. Short of covering you in candied yam kisses and cranberry sauce hugs, please accept our hearty thanks for your work. We like you. We really, really like you.
While our thanks goes out to ALL developers of ALL the free software we've featured on these pages, a few projects deserve special mention. On Monday we asked exactly what free software you're most thankful for, and thousands of votes later, we've boiled down the list to the top 40 or so. While we're offline for the day, feast your eyes and mouse on this prodigious list of some of the best free software we're most grateful for. Happy Thanksgiving! (Back to a more regular posting schedule tomorrow.)
The 46 Free Desktop Software Applications, Webapps, and Projects We're Most Thankful For

  1. Firefox (see also: The Power User's Guide to Firefox 3)
  2. VLC Media Player (see also: Master Your Digital Media with VLC)
  3. Ubuntu (see also: Hardy Heron Makes Linux Worth Another Look)
  4. Open Office (see also: A First Look at OpenOffice.org 3.0)
  5. Pidgin (see also: Ten Must-Have Plug-ins to Power Up Pidgin)
  6. Launchy (see also: Take Launchy beyond application launching)
  7. Digsby (see also: Digsby Improves Performance, Supports LinkedIn)
  8. Gmail (see also: Our full Gmail coverage)
  9. Adium (see also: Adium Chat Improves Menu Bar Item, Corrects Your IM Grammar )
  10. CCleaner (see also: CCleaner 2.0 Decrapifies Your PC)
  11. Picasa (see also: Organize your digital photos with Picasa)
  12. AutoHotKey (see also: Turn Any Action into a Keyboard Shortcut)
  13. Google
  14. Quicksilver (see also: A beginner's guide to Quicksilver)
  15. GIMP
  16. Foobar 2000 (see also: Roll your own killer audio player with foobar2000)
  17. Thunderbird (see also: Eight killer Thunderbird extensions)
  18. 7-Zip (see also: Top 10 Windows Downloads, #10: 7-Zip (file archive manager) )
  19. DropBox (see also: Dropbox Syncs and Backs Up Files Between Computers Instantaneously)
  20. uTorrent (see also: Our complete uTorrent coverage )
  21. Winamp (see also: Our complete Winamp coverage)
  22. Google Apps
  23. AVG Antivirus (see also: AVG Free Anti-Virus 2008 Released, Much Improved)
  24. Evernote (see also: Expand Your Brain with Evernote)
  25. IrfanView (see also: Download of the Day: IrfanView (Windows) )
  26. Opera (see also: Opera Updates to Version 9.6, Gets Faster, Adds Features)
  27. Chrome (see also: The Power User's Guide to Google Chrome)
  28. Google Calendar (see also: Black-belt scheduling with Google Calendar)
  29. HandBrake (see also: HandBrake Media Converter Gets Even Better)
  30. Skype (see also: Our complete Skype coverage)
  31. Linux (see also: Our complete Linux coverage)
  32. Paint.NET (see also: Top 10 Windows Downloads, #3: Paint.NET )
  33. Ad-Aware (see also: Cleanse thy PC with Ad-Aware)
  34. Avast Antivirus (see also: Download of the Day: Avast anti-virus)
  35. Google Docs (see also: Our complete Google Docs coverage)
  36. LogMeIn (see also: Use LogMeIn for remote tech support)
  37. Transmission (see also: Manage Your BitTorrent Downloads with Transmission)
  38. TrueCrypt (see also: Secure your data with TrueCrypt)
  39. Amarok (see also: An Early Look at Amarok 2)
  40. FileZilla (see also: FTP File Transfer Across Platforms with Filezilla 3.0)
  41. Notepad++ (see also: Top 10 Windows Downloads, #6: Notepad++)
  42. PortableApps.com (see also: Download of the Day: PortableApps Suite 1.0 (Windows))
  43. Rocket Dock (see also: Download of the Day: RocketDock (Windows))
  44. Spybot Search & Destroy (see also: Spybot Search and Destroy crushes evil)
  45. UltraVNC (see also: Tech support with UltraVNC SingleClick)
  46. VirtualBox (see also: VirtualBox 2.0 Adds 64-bit Support, Updated Interface)
A note on the numbers: Mozilla Firefox took first place in this exercise in gratitude with an insanely commanding lead; in fact, Firefox got more than three times the amount of votes the second-place mention (VLC) did. Here's a chart of the top eight on the list so you can see how the votes were spread out relative to one another.
freesoftwarepiechart.png

About our vote count: We (ok, I) grossly underestimated how many votes we would get on this particular post. Almost 800 comments in total—many of which contained more than half a dozen free software projects—made finishing the total count (36 pages of comments) before Thanksgiving 2011 impossible. So, this represents just over 1,100 votes, only one third of the total comments we received. This list of 40 contains all the apps that received 10 or more votes. As almost 200 mentions got only a single vote, we think that even though it's incomplete, it's closely representative of the general consensus. (You can check out our complete vote count spreadsheet here.) Our apologies for the incomplete count—lesson learned. Next time, we'll use a proper survey tool.

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