When Shatin College student Jonathan Yue Shun-poon, 16, turns on his computer, he is not greeted by the familiar Windows interface and jingle that awaits most computer users.
As a fan of free and open-source software (Foss), Yue has instead installed Linux on his machine. Linux is a Foss operating system that dates back to 1991, when Finnish programmer Linus Torvalds wrote the first code.
'Most people have the illusion that if you pay for something, it must be better than something that's free,' he says. 'What they don't realise is the passion of open-source developers. They don't develop programs and applications for money, they do it for the sake of creating a quality product - and in many cases open source is better.'
And Linux is not the only example of software that can be used on your computer free of charge. Open Office Suite is an open-source rival to Microsoft's Office package, while VLC media player is a free alternative to Windows Media Player (WMP). Many users appreciate VLC's ability to play almost any media format, and some even prefer it to WMP, which they say is fussy about what it will and will not play.
And new features can even be available on Foss products first.
Dominic Charles Thompson, 19, a student at Royal Holloway, University of London, quotes the example of free internet browser Mozilla Firefox.