Microsoft’s stance for decades was that community creation and sharing of communal code (later to be known as free and open source software) represented a direct attack on their business. Their battle with Linux stretches back many years. Back in 2001, former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer famously tarnished Linux “a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches”. Microsoft also initiated its “Get the Facts” marketing campaign from mid-2003, which specifically criticized Linux server usage, total cost of ownership, security, indemnification and reliability. The campaign was widely criticized for spreading misinformation.
However, in recent years, there has been a partial shift by Microsoft to embrace the open source software paradigm. For example, some of their code is open sourced. Examples include Visual Studio Code, .NET Framework, Atom, and PowerShell. They have also made investments in Linux development, server technology and organizations including the Linux Foundation and Open Source Initiative. They have made acquisitions such as Xamarin to help mobile app development, and GitHub a hugely popular code repository for open source developers. And they have partnered with Canonical, the developers of the popular Ubuntu distro. But many developers remain hugely sceptical about Microsoft and their apparent shift to embrace open source.
This series looks at the best free and open source alternatives to products and services offered by Microsoft.
Microsoft Edge is a proprietary cross-platform web browser. It is a Chromium-based browser with Blink and V8 engines.
Edge is available for Linux but it’s proprietary software. We recommend the best free and open source alternatives.
1. Tor Browser
While there’s lots to like about many Linux web browsers, we recommend that you install Tor Browser. This web browser lets you avoid surveillance, tracking, and censorship.
Tor Browser really does offer an extremely private browsing experience preventing websites from “fingerprinting” you. The software doesn’t keep any browsing history, and cookies are only valid for a single session. There’s multi-layer encryption to boot.
None of this would mean anything if the web browser itself didn’t offer all the essential features. It does!
2. Firefox
If you want a more mainstream alternative, we’re strong admirers of Firefox, software developed by the Mozilla Foundation.
Firefox offers a good set of functionality including essentials like tabbed browsing, spell checking, incremental search, live bookmarking, Smart Bookmarks, private browsing, and an integrated search system. Private Browsing deletes cookie data when you close the browser window and doesn’t track your browsing data.
As an open source project, transparency and openness are an essential part of their founding principles.
Firefox is at the core of most privacy-focused browsers.
3. Pale Moon
Pale Moon is originally a fork of Firefox with substantial divergence particularly in its user interface, add-on support, and always runs in single-process mode.
Pale Moon is based on a different layout engine to Gecko-based browsers like Firefox. It uses Goanna, an optimized layout and rendering browser engine.
This privacy-aware web browser offers additional security features.
And it offers its own add-on ecosystem built on time-tested technologies such as XUL (plus JS and CSS) and XPCOM.
4. Waterfox
We also recommend Waterfox. One of its central planks is its ethical nature. It’s based on Firefox and uses Firefox’s browser engine.
Waterfox does not collect any telemetry, meaning you do not have to worry about any tracking or usage information about what you do inside your browser.
The only thing that Waterfox sends back is your OS and browser version to check for updates to various components.
The browser is focused on power users, which lets you make the important decisions. System1, an advertising company, acquired Waterfox in 2019.
5. Chromium
Google sponsor Chromium, a free and open source software project. While Chromium is a solid browser there are significant privacy concerns.
All articles in this series:
| Alternatives to Microsoft's Products and Services | |
|---|---|
 | Bing offers search services, including web, video, image and map search products. It's developed using ASP.NET. |
 | Calculator is a simple yet powerful calculator that includes standard, scientific, programmer, and graphing calculator functionality, as well as a set of converters between various units of measurement and currencies. |
 | Dynamics 365 is a product line of enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management intelligent business applications. |
| Edge is a cross-platform web browser. It is a Chromium-based browser with Blink and V8 engines. |
 | Exchange Server is a mail server and calendaring server. Exchange uses a single building block architecture. |
 | GitHub is a distributed version control and source code management functionality service. It includes non-Git elements. |
 | Office is a family of client software, server software, and services. Microsoft has promoted Office 365 as the primary means of obtaining Office. |
 | OneDrive is a file hosting service and synchronization service. Users can upload Microsoft Office documents to OneDrive. |
 | OneNote is a note-taking program for free-form information gathering and collaboration. It gathers users’ notes, drawings, screen clippings, and audio commentaries. |
 | Outlook is a personal information manager that's primarily an email client. It includes calendaring, task managing, contact managing, note-taking, journal logging, and web browsing. |
 | Planner lets users create Kanban boards using content-rich tasks with features including files, checklists, and labels. |
 | Project lets you develop schedules, assign resources, track progress, manage budget, and more. It's part of the Microsoft Office enterprise project management product. |
 | Publisher is a desktop publishing application with focus on page layout and design. Use text, photos and links to make professional publications personal. |
 | SharePoint is a web-based collaborative platform that’s often used as a document management and storage system. |
 | Skype is software for VoIP-based videotelephony, videoconferencing and voice calls. The software also provides instant messaging, file transfer, debit-based calls to landline and mobile telephones (over traditional telephone networks), and more. |
 | Snipping Tool is a screenshot utility. It can take still screenshots of an open window, rectangular areas, a free-form area, or the entire screen. |
 | SwiftKey is a virtual keyboard app for Android. SwiftKey learns from previous typed text and outputs predictions based on currently inputted text and what it has learned. |
 | Teams is a business communication platform. The service integrates with the company’s Office 365 subscription office productivity suite. |
 | Terminal is billed as “a modern, fast, efficient, powerful, and productive terminal application for users of command-line tools and shells like Command Prompt, PowerShell, and WSL”. It offers multiple tabs, panes, Unicode and UTF-8 character support, a GPU accelerated text rendering engine, and custom themes, styles, and configurations. |
 | To Do is a cloud-based task management application. It allows users to manage their tasks from a smartphone, tablet and computer. |
 | Visio is a diagramming and vector graphics application. Database modeling in Visio revolves around a Database Model Diagram (DMD). |
 | Visual Studio is an integrated development environment. It is used to develop computer programs, as well as websites, web apps, web services and mobile apps. |
 | Whiteboard provides a freeform, intelligent canvas where you and your team can create, and collaborate visually via the cloud. Designed for touch, type, and pen, it lets you write or draw as smoothly as you would with ink. |
 | Yammer is a social-networking platform for organizations. It’s a closed platform sometimes described as Facebook for businesses. |