All of us like to search the net for freeware. Google search results are always full of free goodies. Try to search for free antivirus, free games or anything and you would get pages full of really free products. But have you ever thought why are they free? Why don't they charge on using these products to earn money? Are free services as good as a payed one? Well, if there are no limitations in free products, then what would be the need of buying anything! In this article ,let us discuss some concepts that make the idea of freeware more clear.
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Open Source Software:
Most of us have heard about Open Office which is a very good alternative for MS Office. Open Office falls in the category of Open Source Software. So what exactly is Open Source? Open Source software are created and developed by a community or maybe even a commercial company but the main point is that the source code of the product is made available to everyone and that too for free. Anyone is allowed to make changes in the program and redistribute it. These type of software are generally free of cost for lifetime use. But what about their performance? In front of payed products, do they stand high enough? The answer is 'yes' as well as 'no'. Well known Open Source software like Open Office serves very good performance. Also Linux is a freeware and we all know how powerful it is. But not necessarily can free stand higher than payed. So it is always better to investigate about the software performance before testing it.
If it's free, then lets just try it!
If the above heading comes in your mind whenever you think about downloading a freeware, then you should change your idea. Because, Internet is full of dangers! Spam, malware, virus, adware, and many other unwanted 'free' things come with your downloaded file if the freeware you just downloaded is a low quality one. One should always think before downloading anything even if we don't have to pay a single penny. If the food is free, it doesn't mean you should eat it! Just in case the food is rotten, it would cause a stomach ache. Similarly, your computer can get infected by viruses and damage your system. So what do you think now?
Should we trust them?
Obviously, it does not depend if the product if free or payed, but it depends on the performance and features that you expect it to give. Before downloading a freeware, I always search for a review of the product on blogs and review sites. Never go with what the flashy banners at the download site says. You can always trust a freeware that has won many thanks from its users. In the conclusion, freeware are one of the most interesting things on the net. Using them or not depends on you, but if a freeware is really nice, then it would make its way to the top. Very good examples of them are Linux, Open Office and Mozilla Firefox. And there are many more such good products available free of cost and for every purpose that we require.
