12 must-have cross-platform applications

By Selena Frye July 27, 2010, 5:40 AM PDT

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12 must-have cross-platform applications

OpenOffice Suite

OpenOffice is one of the pillars of the open source community and is one of the most important cross-platform applications available, providing a solid and free alternative to Microsoft Office.

Adobe Acrobat Reader

There’s no shortage of PDF readers out there. And for every platform, there is a unique PDF reader. But none of those unique viewers offers the quality and ease of use that Adobe Reader provides. It is the standard for PDFs, and with clients for just about every platform, it’s a clear winner over the competition.

Google Chrome

Google Chrome is fast (the Linux version has been tested as the fastest rendering Web browser on any platform), it is stable, extensible, and as cross platform as any other browser (not called IE).

Apache

Apache is one of the most-used Web servers in the world. When you add to that the fact that you can use Apache on Windows, Linux, and Mac, it’s hands down the winner among Web servers. And to top it off, Apache is free. How can the competition win against such a mighty contender?

Synergy+ keyboard and mouse sharing

With Synergy+ your primary computer can be Windows, Linux, or OS X and so can any of the other computers that you want to share the keyboard and mouse with. And there is no need for additional cables or KVM switches–if the computers are networked together, that is all the connection required.

Synergy+ works on a client-server architecture. So the primary workstation, to which the keyboard and mouse are physically (or wirelessly) attached acts as the Synergy+ server, whereas the other systems will act as the Synergy+ clients.

By Selena Frye

Selena Frye is a former Senior Editor for TechRepublic. Her background is in technical writing, editing, and research. I edit the Data Center, Linux and Open Source, Apple in the Enterprise, and IT Security blogs.

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