Find Software Alternatives with Alternative.to
Alternative To is an interesting web service that suggests software alternatives for software and services on Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac and Linux operating systems plus online services.
Alternatives to software programs or online services are useful in a number of situations. This is the case if a service closes down for instance, or a software is no longer developed. You may also be interested in similar programs to one that you use already, for instance to compare it to the alternatives, or for finding a better program.
The site itself is powered by a big database of program and services names, and alternatives for them. To get started, enter a name or search term in the search box on the Alternative.to website, and hit the show button.
Update: Alternative.to has expanded in other areas recently. While you still get software and online service alternatives delivered, you may also enter music, devices, or anything really that you can think of.
Alternative.to review
The site lists alternatives on the page that opens. Results depend a lot on the popularity of an item, and the available alternatives. If you enter Firefox for instance, you get 17 browser alternatives right now, but when you enter Vivaldi, you get none right now.
Each alternative is listed with its name, a short description, a rating (how good of an alternative is it), and user comments if available. Each alternative is linked to its own page on the Alternative.to website.
One downside to the current system is that links may not be provided at all times. The Pale Moon page for instance does not link to the Pale Moon website. This means that you may have to use a search engine to find the homepage of the product.
You may add alternatives to any query, but need to sign up for an account to do so. The alternatives that you add are suggestions which the site's staff checks. There is no guarantee that alternatives do get added to site though. Registered users may also comment and rate user activity, or follow other users of the site.
If something that you enter is not known at all, you get the option to create an article (create knowledge) about it.
Verdict
Alternative.to is a handy online service that you may use to find alternatives for pretty much anything. The results are hit and miss though, as you may get a good selection of alternatives, or only some, or none at all.
If you just want to find software alternatives, you may find this AlternativeTo web service useful for that as well as it concentrates on that.
Old Alternative. review
It works by selecting one of the applications that are already listed on the website or by using the search form on the top of the page. The website will then display a profile page for the selected program that contains a short description, tags and platforms it is available for. The main part of the screen is however filled with alternatives that are sorted by user recommendations. Registered users can add their votes, visit the website of the software and even find alternatives for that application as well.
The alternatives can be filtered by license or operating system. It would for instance be possible to show only free software alternatives for the Windows operating system. Additional tabs are available that display user comments, ratings and Twitter information. The alternatives listed for Adobe Photoshop include GIMP, Paint.net, Pixlr and Picnik among others. The profile page provides comfortable means to view user opinion on software alternatives for a specific program with the option to visit the website of the developer for further information or downloads.
The main page can be filtered by operating system as well to narrow down the choices. The applications that are listed on those pages can also be viewed by most popular, most views, recent and those without alternative. The service offers an easily accessible way of discovering new applications for a selected operating system.
Update: The service has recently been redesigned. It displays a list of popular and new services on the homepage with possibilities to click on those service to open the service's or program's profile page on Alternative To. Alternatives are especially listed for popular programs, websites and services. Many lesser known products do not even have a profile page on the website.
Doesn’t Windows 8 know that www. or http:// are passe ?
Well it is a bit difficulty to distinguish between name.com domains and files for instance.
I know a service made by google that is similar to Google bookmarks.
http://www.google.com/saved
@Ashwin–Thankful you delighted my comment; who knows how many “gamers” would have disagreed!
@Martin
The comments section under this very article (3 comments) is identical to the comments section found under the following article:
https://www.ghacks.net/2023/08/15/netflix-is-testing-game-streaming-on-tvs-and-computers/
Not sure what the issue is, but have seen this issue under some other articles recently but did not report it back then.
Omg a badge!!!
Some tangible reward lmao.
It sucks that redditors are going to love the fuck out of it too.
With the cloud, there is no such thing as unlimited storage or privacy. Stop relying on these tech scums. Purchase your own hardware and develop your own solutions.
This is a certified reddit cringe moment. Hilarious how the article’s author tries to dress it up like it’s anything more than a png for doing the reddit corporation’s moderation work for free (or for bribes from companies and political groups)
Almost al unlmited services have a real limit.
And this comment is written on the dropbox article from August 25, 2023.
First comment > @ilev said on August 4, 2012 at 7:53 pm
For the God’s sake, fix the comments soon please! :[
Yes. Please. Fix the comments.
With Google Chrome, it’s only been 1,500 for some time now.
Anyone who wants to force me in such a way into buying something that I can get elsewhere for free will certainly never see a single dime from my side. I don’t even know how stupid their marketing department is to impose these limits on users instead of offering a valuable product to the paying faction. But they don’t. Even if you pay, you get something that is also available for free elsewhere.
The algorithm has also become less and less savvy in terms of e.g. English/German translations. It used to be that the bot could sort of sense what you were trying to say and put it into different colloquialisms, which was even fun because it was like, “I know what you’re trying to say here, how about…” Now it’s in parts too stupid to translate the simplest sentences correctly, and the suggestions it makes are at times as moronic as those made by Google Translations.
If this is a deep-learning AI that learns from users’ translations and the phrases they choose most often – which, by the way, is a valuable, moneys worthwhile contribution of every free user to this project: They invest their time and texts, thereby providing the necessary data for the AI to do the thing as nicely as they brag about it in the first place – alas, the more unprofessional users discovered the translator, the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, the greater the aggregate of linguistically illiterate users has become, and the worse the language of this deep-learning bot has become, as it now learns the drivel of every Tom, Dick and Harry out there, which is why I now get their Mickey Mouse language as suggestions: the inane language of people who can barely spell the alphabet, it seems.
And as a thank you for our time and effort in helping them and their AI learn, they’ve lowered the limit from what was once 5,000 to now 1,500…? A big “fuck off” from here for that! Not a brass farthing from me for this attitude and behaviour, not in a hundred years.
When will you put an end to the mess in the comments?
Ghacks comments have been broken for too long. What article did you see this comment on? Reply below. If we get to 20 different articles we should all stop using the site in protest.
I posted this on [https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/] so please reply if you see it on a different article.
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Comment redirected me to [https://www.ghacks.net/2012/08/04/add-search-the-internet-to-the-windows-start-menu/] which seems to be the ‘real’ article it is attached to
Article Title: Reddit enforces user activity tracking on site to push advertising revenue
Article URL: https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
No surprises here. This is just the beginning really. I cannot see a valid reason as to why anyone would continue to use the platform anymore when there are enough alternatives fill that void.
I’m not sure if there is a point in commenting given that comments seem to appear under random posts now, but I’ll try… this comment is for https://www.ghacks.net/2023/09/28/reddit-enforces-user-activity-tracking-on-site-to-push-advertising-revenue/
My temporary “solution”, if you can call it that, is to use a VPN (Mullvad in my case) to sign up for and access Reddit via a European connection. I’m doing that with pretty much everything now, at least until the rest of the world catches up with GDPR. I don’t think GDPR is a magical privacy solution but it’s at least a first step.