More freebies, thanks to the 'Net
Abundant shareware and software available on the Internet can lower distributor costs
By Doug Harper -- Industrial Distribution, 1/1/2000
Did you ever find yourself wishing that you could tweak some aspect of a program or enhance its performance? Have you ever wanted to make a complex application more user-friendly? Would you like an alternative to pricey commercial software?If the answer to any of the above is "Yes," you owe it to yourself to investigate the wonderful world of demos, shareware and freeware.
In fact, whatever quirky, offbeat or arcane program or utility you're looking for, chances are that somebody somewhere has already written it and it's available for downloading on a Web site.
And the offerings run the gamut from free beta versions of apps that have gone commercial and demos of commercial programs, to shareware and absolute freeware. In most cases, shareware authors will allow you to use the full program for a fixed period of time -- normally 30 days -- and then request that you either pay for it or delete it from your hard drive.
They may also subject you to "nag" notices periodically reminding you that the programs are not free. Others enforce this request by blocking access to the program after the 30-day trial. If you do opt to keep using and register a shareware program, prices are inevitably lower than you would pay for a comparable "commercial" program whose cost includes media production, advertising, packaging and distribution.
And many commercial software demos will cripple some component of the program as an incentive to buy the full program. Finally, don't expect to be able to pick up the phone to receive tech support. Basically, you paid nothing, so you get nothing.
But if you can live within these limitations, there is a fascinating cornucopia of software awaiting you online. One of the more popular and complete shareware sites is: http://tucows.tierranet.com/. This has more than 1,000 "Mirror" sites throughout the world.
Chances are that if you can't find a particular program on Tucows, it probably doesn't exist. The site's comprehensive list of software includes (but is by no means limited to): CD Players, MIDI Players, browser add-ons, searchbots, e-mail tools, download managers, Web accelerators, anti-spam tools, e-mail encryption, compression utilities, diagnostic tools, network tools, anti-virus scanners and firewall utilities.
Another popular site with thousands of programs is Shareware.com, at sharware.cnet.com/. Included among this site's exhaustive list of programs are: business development tools, educational applications, multimedia and design utilities.
If you're looking for the cyber equivalent of a "Mom and Pop" operation in an era of multinational corporations, surf over to download.net (http://www.download.net/).
Navigating enormous sites like Tucows can be frustrating because its collection of software is so extensive that you must frequently surf through "trash" to find the "treasure." On the other hand, like a small exclusive boutique, the selection at download.net is relatively limited, but the "merchandise" is of uniformly high quality.
Download.net is primarily known for its collection of games (you can't consider yourself a real computer freak until you've played Duke Nukem 3D), but it also has an excellent selection of antivirus, winsock, audio, and data compression programs, as well as numerous other categories of software.
Before the 30-day trial on your demo e-mail program expires, send your comments to: dcharper@earthlink.net.
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