Wallets - alt coins

[Nixle]

I know this isn't bitcoin, its alt coin, but since I'm a forum baby I can't post it in the alt coin forum. I'm curious. If I want a particular coin and got it not by mining it, but by exchange (purchase, trading services, etc), is it absolutely required to have the original wallet/program download that was developed for that coin? I don't want to download 50 alt coin programs on my poor pc, but I'd like to be able to accept them.