Fruux Synchronizes Your Contacts, Calendars, and To-Dos Across Systems, OSes, and Devices for Free

If you're wedded to one platform, it's a good bet you already have a tool that keeps your life synchronized and organized pretty well. For those of us who have to deal with multiple platforms, multiple computers and mobile devices with multiple operating systems, and work with people who use different ones than we do, there's Fruux, a free service that keeps your to-dos, calendars, and contacts in sync on almost any platform. Think of it like iCloud for the rest of us.

Admittedly, if you've thrown in with Google for Google Calendar, Google Contacts (which seriously could use some help, Google), and Google Tasks, then you may not see the need for another platform to organize all of them, and that's fine. However, if you use Outlook at work, Thunderbird at home, Android on the go, a Mac in one place and Windows in another, Fruux offers you a seamless and free way to keep using the tools you want to use while keeping all of that data cleanly organized, without duplications or forcing you to leave your preferred tool to manage your contacts or calendar.

Accounts are free, and support up to three devices, and the service will even import your data from other services like Apple's iCloud and your Google account. Fruux uses open standards like CalDAV and CardDAV, and keeps you from having all of your data locked into one vendor, and lets you access and export it at any time. The service supports iOS, Android, OS X, and any system where Thunderbird (Mac/Win/Linux), Microsoft Outlook (Windows, full support for Outlook is on the way) or Evolution (Linux) run. Fruux even supports Nokia N9 devices. If keeping all of your data locked into one walled garden or closed system bothers you, or if you just wish you had a little more flexibility when it comes to syncing and organizing your contacts and calendar, Fruux can help.