Best Spanish Programs on the Web
A review of the Top Free Internet Programs for Spanish-Speakers
Feb 20, 2008
For a long time people who didn’t speak English have had a hard time finding quality software because a large percentage of the world’s best software is released with English as the default language. Recently however, American companies have realized that they’re missing out on a huge chunk of the world market by not offering their programs in Spanish. The following categories give users some of the pros and cons to different programs available in Spanish on the internet. the best part is that they’re all free.
Internet Browsers
Mozilla’s Firefox and Microsoft’s Internet Explorer are the heavyweights in the internet browser category. Internet Explorer has dominated for quite some time because it comes pre-installed in all Windows computers, but Firefox has quickly sliced through Microsoft’s lead by offering a free browser with much better security. (The security problems in Internet Explorer are legendary.) As Firefox brought new innovations to web browsing, such as tabbed browsing and remembering where users were during a crash, Microsoft began mimicking its rival and adding those features to IE. Now both companies offer Spanish-language versions of their browsers free of charge.
Email Clients
The only free Spanish-language browser that stands far above the competition is Mozilla’s Thunderbird. It can do all of the things that Microsoft’s Outlook client can do, but it features much tighter security, and it can be upgraded endlessly with all of the free add-ons available on Mozilla’s site. With RSS and newsgroup support and a clean interface, Thunderbird is quickly catching up to Microsoft Outlook, and the best part about it is that it is free. Outlook must still be purchased as part of Microsoft Office, and the Spanish language pack to convert the software for Spanish-speakers is going to cost users as well.
Instant Messengers
Instant Messengers are some of the most popular computer programs of all time. They let users easily connect with friends and family all around the world and allow user to have video chats, save conversations, and share files quickly. The top contenders in this category are MSN Messenger, Yahoo’s Y! Messenger, and America Online’s AIM, and all have free versions in Spanish with full feature functionality.
The biggest advantage for Spanish-speakers is that MSN Messenger is the most popular instant messenger in the world, giving users a much larger group of people who users can chat with, including more Spanish-speakers than AIM or Y! Messenger. Yahoo comes in second in that category, with AIM coming in last.
It should be noted, however, that AIM is the most popular instant messenger within the United States, so if it’s local friends users want to keep in touch with, this might be a good choice. All three offer the ability to save conversations, have video chats and video calls, and transfer files.
Music Players
Windows Media Player 11 and iTunes Latino dominate the landscape for Spanish-speaking music lovers. Both are available as full-featured free downloads and both allow users to manage and play their music collection on their computer. While iTunes is the player of choice for iPod owners, it bears noting that iTunes hogs system memory, running all sorts of background processes even when the iTunes program itself isn’t running.
By comparison, WMP11 doesn’t slow down computers much and doesn’t run any extra programs when it isn’t open. The actual browsing of the music libraries is also much smoother in WMP11, while on iTunes there was some jerkiness to the scrolling. Because of these issues and all the different types of media the Microsoft program can handle, WMP11 comes out on top as the best all-around Spanish-language music player.
Still, iTunes is specifically built for the iPod and is integrated with the iTunes website, so it’ll be quite some time before most iPod users decide to check out the competition.
Spyware and Antivirus
Spyware and adware are names for programs that silently install themselves on a computer and begin displaying annoying pop-up ads or quietly sending personal information about users out to their parents companies. These types of programs can cause major problems for both users and their computer. Thankfully, Spybot Search & Destroy and Lavasoft’s AdAware are both amazing solutions. The two programs are free and best used in tandem. Both can have their user languages switched to Spanish so that the interface and all the definitions and virus explanations are in Spanish, making them ideal solutions to virus problems.
Other Programs of Note
Google Desktop allows users to search their computer, take notes, and so much more, by giving users the option of adding widgets to this very popular program. The best part is that Google now offers its Desktop program in Spanish.
Adobe Acrobat PDF Maker integrates into Microsoft Word, allowing users to turn Word documents into PDF files, the standard for documents on the web, allowing people on all different kinds of systems to see a document exactly as the author intended it to be seen. In order for users to view PDF files, make sure to download the latest Spanish-language version of Adobe Reader. Reader even integrates into your web browser, letting users view uploaded PDFs right on the net.
PowerPoint files have become very common in the worlds of business and education and Microsoft’s PowerPoint Viewer lets users view these files on their computer without having to pay for the full version of PowerPoint. Now this useful program is available as a free download for Spanish-speakers.
Bittorrent allows users to download large programs, movies, and entire albums or music collections with one click, and much faster than if users were looking for these files one at a time via a normal peer-to-peer client. Now the program that started the torrent revolution is available in Spanish as well.
For further resources, please read Best Spanish Language Websites.
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