ThinkFree Online Review

ThinSkin writes "ThinkFree Online is, simply put, Office without the Microsoft, a collection of free online apps that support and contain most features found in Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. ThinkFree has just released a major upgrade to its features, bumping its online storage to 1GB for each user and adding a lightweight AJAX-based collaboration feature. ExtremeTech has an interesting review of ThinkFree Online's applications and features which reveals a lot to like about this improved webware and, while it may have its occasional quirks, can be great for those who want to edit and create documents on the fly."

I love it!

[Anonymous Coward]

ive been using thinkfree.org for about a year now after having tried openoffice.

i simply cannot fathom having to install Office ever again unless it is for macro/VB integration.. and it definately leaves OpenOffice miles behind in terms of proper Office compatibility and change of workflow.

thank you thinkfree!
-Sj53

What if...

[cultrhetor]

You actually have to do work when you have ... no connection? [Cringes and hides from constantly wired /.ers]

Ummm

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people are grumbling about the fact that this is an internet based service. Why couldn't this be run on a corporate intranet instead?

vim and tex

[Anonymous Coward]

Meh, give me vim and tex anyday (and yes, I used to use Emacs, whatever). It doesn't take me long to install, or much space to store my documents as gzipped .tex files. I've also got a wonderful little script (aterm -title micro_word -e sh -c "antiword \"$1\" | vi -") to execute on .doc files from within a browser.
I'm aware that there are non-geeks out there. My mom uses Word. My mom's net connection is also often flakey... what a dumb idea. Microsoft could pack it in someday, but, to be honest, this won't be an issue. Mom was running win98 until earlier this year. Many Biology journals only accept .doc format. This is obviously stupid, but as long as she's still got the version of word she wrote the doc on, we can get it back - no biggy. I'm a big open source proponent, and closed source/closed formats are dumb, but this isn't why. Internet applications that still use a stupid format are not the solution

Re:Web Based Application

[Saint Fnordius]

The difference is who is in control: if your data is stored on your personal computer, you can yank the cord, turn off the router, or otherwise keep your data where you and only you have access to it. With a web app, you have no way to access the information without that access. You can't just take it offline.

There is also an issue of trust here. It is much easier to "sandbox" your home computer. I still know people who keep their home office PC off of the Internet so that they don't get distracted. If they need something from the Net, they plug in the modem only for that task and unplug the cable as soon as they log out. One guy even keeps his personal files on an external hard drive he can keep it safe. Primitive and paranoid, but it's a more common mentality than you may realise.

There are some things we do in public, some things we do in smaller groups and some things we do alone. Web applications require you to do everything in a potentially open environment, one where you lose independence.

Now, I don't think Web-based applications are worthless. In fact, they are good for collaborative work, for documents that are created as a discussion or are open to be edited by a community. It is not the place, however, for private information. That is still best processed locally. I still keep most of my photos in iPhoto, but I also use flickr for those pictures that I don't mind others seeing. Why should my letters and other text documents be different?

Re:Looks very nice

[muellerr1]

I agree. Looks like most people responding to your comment seem to think that centralized computing is inevitable. We used to have centralized computing, with dumb terminals. We stopped doing that because we liked the idea of having our own computer in our own office under our own control. Why would that ever change back again? I predict that for connective applications like email, information, and other communications functions we certainly will use centralized servers, but for just about everything else we'll continue to keep our computers and software in our own offices. Nobody really wants a dumb terminal again.

Availability

[sgt scrub]

I would like to know if the server software is available for others. It is only practicle if the site is up all of the time. "High availability" means a lot when it comes to documents and business. Regardless, this sounds like one of the coffin nails I've been searching for.

Having done their updates...

[simonjp]

... its now too busy to view even the hopepage. "The server is temporarily unable to service your request due to too many connections. We apolize for the inconvienience. Please try again later." But, what happens if I click "Save" and this happens ?!?