Last week we asked what software you keep in your dock. This week I sifted through your comments looking for what free software you keep in your dock. Quite a lot, actually!

After going through 43 comments, only six people had no free software in their dock. And that’s not because they don’t use free software. It’s because they don’t use the dock! In every case they prefer to use a text-based launcher such as the free Quicksilver.

So the use of free software is pervasive. In fact, the use of free web browsers is virtually universal. Almost every commenter has both Firefox and Chrome in their dock, and many use Safari. Besides browsers, iTunes and Skype are also very common.

So here is the list of free software used by at least two commenters. (The number of commenters is in brackets.) Note that the number of unique commenters using free software is 31.

• Web browsers: Chrome (26), Firefox (22), Safari (11), Opera (2)
• Media players: iTunes (20), Spotify (5), VLC (2), Winamp (2)
• Chat/IM: Skype (13), Windows Live / MSN Messenger (4), Adium (3), FaceTime (2)
• Twitter clients: Twitter for Mac (9), TweetDeck (2)
• FTP clients: FileZilla (5), Cyberduck (2)
• Text editors: TextWrangler (3), Komodo Edit (2)
• Office suites: OpenOffice.org/LibreOffice (2)
• Productivity: Wunderlist (2)

Is your favorite free software there? Is it missing? Let us know in the comments.