It comes as a nasty shock to first-time computer buyers that Windows fails to provide everything they need for day-to-day computing.

In fact, buying all the programs needed to do everyday work such as writing letters, managing accounts and editing photos can cost hundreds of pounds.

Fortunately, though, there’s now a way to get all the features you’d expect from expensive software completely free of charge.

The secret is to make use of so-called ‘online applications’. These are programs that you access using your web browser and internet connection.

Both the programs themselves, and the documents they create, are stored online so they’re available from any computer, anywhere in the world, provided it has an internet connection.

Online applications are free, convenient and flexible, so they’re ideal for frequent travellers, students or anybody who wants a powerful set of programs at no extra cost.

Free and easy
Online applications work very much like online email services such as Google Mail, Hotmail and Yahoo Mail.

Once you’ve signed up and chosen a username and password, you can access the website using a web browser on any computer connected to the internet. You’ll be presented with a list of your documents, with options to create a new document or edit an existing one.

There are hundreds of online applications, covering just about every type of computing task from photo editing to project management and gaming, but to start with we’ll focus on one of the most useful types: online office tools.

Almost every computer user needs to write a letter or create a small spreadsheet at some point, so these tools are useful for just about everyone – especially those who don’t do enough office work to justify spending money on software.

Some of the sites we’ll look at include several functions, such as a word processor and a spreadsheet, while others focus on just one. A good example of a specialist site is Buzzword, which is dedicated to word processing, while Google Docs includes several tools for different purposes.

Enjoy the buzz
Anyone who needs to write a letter or edit a document should take a look at Buzzword, which is owned by software company Adobe.