Google Docs & Zoho

If you want to be able to access your documents from anyone, share them easily, or just don’t need to have local tools, consider web apps as an alternative. There are several online office suites available for free, including Google’s Docs and Zoho’s office apps.

Both services allow you to create, store and share word processing and spreadsheet documents, and even create simple presentations. Both also provide you with limited online storage.

The upside to using online apps is that you can access them from any computer, and you can share documents with other users just by typing in their email address. You also don’t have to worry about losing work if your own computer runs into trouble.

The downside is that you need an internet connection whenever you want to work, and, while you can download documents, you never truly ’own’ them. Note that your documents are secure in as much as they’re backed up and locked behind robust firewalls. Zoho promises that it’s working on a system to encrypt your data while they're in transit; Google has gone one stage further and introduced server-side encryption for files in its storage service. It also says it doesn’t give encryption keys to government.