Everybody likes a freebie and that goes for users of computers too. Acquiring these free programs usually 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 get working versions of most kinds of software from the Internet, if you look about hard enough.
Most people who want to download free computer software off the Internet are searching for utilities - utilities such as anti-virus software, anti-spyware utilities, firewalls, back-up programs and word processing utilities.
You can find many 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 too.
These free software downloads come in a couple of different forms. 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 make a contribution if you like the software or use it regularly. Occasionally shareware is time-bombed so that it stops working after a month or a pop-up appears each hour after a month and occasionally nothing happens at all or a few features will cease to work (like 'save' or 'send').
Time-limited usage software is usually a trial. In other words, you can use the full program, but it will switch itself off until you pay after a predetermined length of time. This is quite common with costly 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 sort of freeware which is an ongoing worldwide product. Into this category comes such software as Firefox, OpenOffice, WordPress and Opera. These are fantastic top-grade products and are entirely free of charge.
There are also free gaming web sites, although most of the better games are time-bombed for limited functionality or merely work in demo mode, which means that you can merely watch, you cannot take part. This is very annoying. If you spend an hour downloading a game just to find that it is a demo version, so endeavor 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 would like to start downloading computer software off the Net free of charge, go with some of the names I suggested or do a free search on Google.
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