Thursday, January 20, 2011

Downloading Computer Software From The Net

By Owen Jones


Everybody likes a freebie and that goes for users of computers as well. Getting hold of these free programs normally means copying them from a disk given away with a computer magazine or downloading computer software off the Net. Just what kind of computer software you would like is up to you naturally but you can acquire working versions of most types of software from the Internet, if you look about hard enough.

Most people who want to download free computer software from the Internet are looking for utilities - utilities such as anti-virus software, anti-spyware utilities, firewalls, back-up programs and word processing utilities.

You can find several thousands of programs like these to download from the Internet by typing 'free software' into Google or by going to download sites like download.com, tucows.com and majorgeeks.com, but there are dozens more of them as well.

These free software downloads come in a couple of different kinds. These are: freeware, shareware, time-limited usage and limited functionality programs. Freeware is literally free; the writer has put the software into the public domain for anyone to use free of charge.

Shareware is comparable, but you are expected to donate a contribution if you like the software or use it regularly. Sometimes shareware is time-bombed so that it ceases working after a month or a pop-up appears each hour after a month and occasionally nothing occurs at all or a couple of features will cease to work (like 'save' or 'send').

Time-limited usage software is normally a trial. In other words, you can use the full program, but it will switch itself off until you pay after a certain length of time. This is quite common with expensive software. Some free software comes with limited functionality from day one, but you can use it for as long as you like. The complete version is available on payment.

There is another type of freeware which is an on-going worldwide product. Into this category falls such software as Firefox, OpenOffice, Wordpress and Opera. These are excellent top-grade products and are completely free of charge.

There are also free gaming web sites, although most of the better games are time-bombed for limited functionality or only work in demo mode, which means that you can merely watch, you cannot take part. This is extremely maddening. If you spend an hour downloading a game merely to find that it is a demo version, so try to find out first.

The other foremost category of free software on the Internet is tutorials. You can find a free tutorial for virtually anything that you want to learn. The majority of free tutorials seem to be on aspects of using a computer like programming or editing HTML, but there are also free tutorials on using major-brand software; passing exams; needlework, gardening, and just about anything else too.

If you want to begin downloading computer software off the Internet free of charge, try some of the names I suggested or do a free search on Google.




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