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The Explorer: Fred's Favorite Four-Letter Word: "Free"


Who doesn't like free, especially when it comes to top-quality software?

By Fred Langa
InformationWeek
May 8, 2000 12:00 AM

One of the nicest trends in the online world of late is the proliferation of high-quality free software; and relatedly, the explosion of sites specializing in freeware (free software) distribution.

Freeware's been around for as long as there's been software. But historically, a lot of freeware applications (with a few notable exceptions) were either (1) trivial; or (2) badly done, amateurish programs; or (3) "crippleware" teasers designed to give you a taste of a full-price commercial app.

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But today's freeware is often high-quality, professional-caliber software, and it comes in a mind-boggling array of categories. There are entire free operating systems such as Linux in all its flavors, BeOS, and Solaris.

There are entire free office suites, such as StarOffice.

There are high-quality free antivirus apps, such as InoculateIT, free firewalls such as ZoneAlarm, and far more highly-targeted, professional-quality freeware tools and utilities than you could ever hope to download.

Of course, not everything's that's free is good: Some freeware today contains ad-tracking and ad-rotating software that can consume your bandwidth without your knowledge and also potentially be used to track your surfing habits and "phone home" to some other site without your knowledge or consent. And sometimes, freeware apps are Trojan horses that contain an unwelcome surprise in the form of a worm or a virus.

As with any software, you have to be careful about the freeware you run; get it only from trusted sources, and always (always, always) virus-scan any files you download before you run their Install or Setup program.

It's also a good idea to use a firewall app (such as the freeware ZoneAlarm mentioned above) to detect and prevent surreptitious "phone home" behavior of any apps you install. But with a little caution, there's a world of excellent free software waiting for you to try. And it's not hard to find. For example, point your Usenet/Newsgroup reader at Alt.comp.freeware; it's a user-to-user clearinghouse for a ton of information about various freeware apps -- what's good, what's bad, where to get the apps, and lots more.

Or, you can use your favorite search engine to query on "freeware," but be warned: Unless you limit your search to a specific type or category of software, you'll be swamped with results. A general search on "freeware" at my favorite search engine (AlltheWeb.com) turns up over 817,000 pages! On the other hand, using the same engine and searching for the exact phrase "freeware download" pares the list to a large (but scannable) 8,000 sites; and further refining the query to (for example) "freeware disk utility" turns up an easily manageable 20 pages. Experiment with various phrasing until you find a manageable number of hits in the exact category you're interested in.

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