By Don Rittner
What good is having a personal computer if you don't have tons of software to run on it? It's like having a Mercedes parked in the garage with no engine in it. So I'm going to show you how to get tons of free and inexpensive software.
There are three kinds of software for your computer: commercial, shareware, and freeware.
Commercial software is the kind you pay for at a local computer store, or mail order catalog. Commercial software comes with a warranty. The developers often keep it current, or fix bugs, with updates or new versions, which you may obtain free or for a nominal charge. Printed manuals are often included, although there is a move to include Adobe Acrobat files instead, which reduces the cost of production (and increases their profit). It often comes to you over-packaged and shrink-wrapped. Commercial software can cost as little as $50 up to thousands of dollars.
When you purchase commercial software you are not buying it outright, but rather are purchasing a license to use that copy only on your computer. You are not permitted to give it away to a friend or even use it on more than one computer. If you do give it to friends it's called pirating. To get around this issue, a commercial developer will often supply a crippled demo version that you can give to friends. Many commercial developers offer a money back guarantee.
Shareware is an interesting concept in which you use the software first, on a trial basis, then pay if you continue to use it. It's also called the honor system. You obtain shareware by downloading it from the Internet, purchasing a CD-ROM collection or getting a full disk as a result of subscribing to a computer magazine. Computer user groups often feature a disk of the month that is part of your membership.
Shareware has a guarantee or warranty only if you send in the shareware registration fee. Shareware can cost as little as a dollar to a couple hundred dollars. Shareware is not packaged but often comes with a digital manual. Unlike commercial developers, shareware authors encourage you to give a copy to your friends.
The quality of shareware varies but there are excellent full-powered shareware programs that rival if not beat their commercial counterparts. A shareware program may become so polished that a commercial software company will purchase the rights, add some bells and whistles, and sell it commercially. Many great software games have appeared that way.
FreeWare is the altruistic side of computing. FreeWare authors will post their programs for all to use and not request a single penny. All they ask for in return is a thank you.
The quality of all these programs varies. You expect that if you pay hard-earned money for a software program it should perform flawlessly (in computer jargon, it means not have too many bugs). Usually that is true.
With commercial software you often have recourse. Report them to the attorney general, or Better Business Bureau. Bad mouth them on the Internet (that works well). Write nasty letters to the CEO. It's rare that you will purchase really bad software -- but it does happen.
Your expectation of shareware is a bit different. You only pay a nominal price for it and you do get to use it for some time to see if it does the job. There is no guarantee that
shareware will be updated or new versions, with more bells and whistles, will ever see the light of day. The developer may get a real job and not have time to keep it current.
Since only about 1% of shareware is ever paid for, I'm surprised developers still create it.
If you expect support from a freeware developer then you probably think the world owes you a living, too! There are no guarantees at all that freeware will even work, or not blow up your computer. Often, there isn't an e-mail address to complain to. Caveat Emptor. You get what you pay for -- which of course is nothing.
That is not to say that freeware is bad. There are hundreds of quality freeware programs on the Net. Many programmers produce it for the satisfaction of seeing their name on the Net. They are more interested in download counts than royalty checks, not to mention the ego satisfaction.
However, the lack of updating can happen in commercial, shareware, or freeware development. Often when a computer's operating system goes through a major overhaul (Windows 3.1 to 95, Apple OS System 7 to 8), it just isn't worth the time.
Bottom line is don't put your life secrets and financial records on a piece of freeware.
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So now that you know the difference where can you get all that shareware and freeware? From the Net, of course. There are hundreds of Web sites that allow you to download software using FTP-- File Transfer Protocol. These are the instructions that allow one computer to grab software from another. Your Web browser has no problem downloading from FTP sites, but you can obtain stand alone FTP programs that will do it for you (and are usually a bit faster).
If you download software from the Web, you better be downloading to a separate Zip disk, SuperDisk, floppy, or other storage medium. Do not download directly to your computer's hard drive since the risk of catching a virus is greater. Be sure to have a virus checker on your computer and check all your downloads before you use them.
The following two Web sites have all the software you could ever want or dream about:
Filez
http://www.filez.com/
Filez is a search engine for FTP sites that contain both PC and Mac files.
Similar to a Web search engine, Filez searches over 7000 FTP servers every week and gives you a convenient one stop shopping list of over 75 million files. Search by categories if you need them. The resulting list from a search gives the links to the location of files for easy downloading.
Jumbo
http://www.jumbo.com/
This site boasts 300,000 shareware and freeware programs arranged in 18 categories. It supports all computer platforms. You can keyword search the whole database or by category.
Don Rittner's column appears Monday's in The Record. You can reach him on drittner@aol.com, or PO Box 50216, Albany, NY 12205.