Tech Insider: David Wolfgang-Kimball

Buying the software you need to carry out all your daily transactions can drain the average person's bank account--not counting all the upgrades you'll need a year later. The solution? Shareware.

More and more people, when they fire up their favorite financial bookkeeping software, are creating a payment category for computer-related purchases. Indeed, the purchase of a computer only presages the beginning of the financial efflux; after purchasing an office productivity package and some other software, the software bill can easily exceed the original cost of the computer itself.

To make matters worse, when you buy a piece of software, all you're buying is the box, the manuals, and a license to use the software. You don't even have clear ownership of what you've bought. And the usage license, according to most license agreements, can be revoked at any time for a wide variety of reasons.

Such is the modern world of commercial software: expensive, sometimes buggy, and never yours. But if you're willing to venture beyond the commercial software vendors, shareware, freeware, and public domain software can reduce your software expenditures considerably, as long as you are willing to do some downloading.

Software Habits Do you use shareware? No. It's too risky. Yes. I think it makes great sense. or just check the results.

THE GROWTH OF SHAREWARE
The Internet has caused a revolution in the software industry. Small (and very small) software development houses no longer have to figure out the logistics of large-scale distribution, marketing, and promotion; instead, they make the software available for downloading from some FTP or Web server. People find their way to the server, download the software, try it for a while, and determine whether it fits their needs.

Typically, a small payment is requested if you continue to use the software (called "shareware"); generally this price is much less than you'd have to pay for similar software from a commercial vendor, because you don't need to help defray promotional and distribution costs. Sometimes the author does not wish to be paid at all (making the software "freeware"), and sometimes all the author wants is a postcard or email note saying thanks!

In many cases, this software is every bit as good as a commercially developed version. This system for distributing software has been very successful; many companies have sold enough copies of some $5 bit of shareware to become quite profitable. This model for selling inexpensive software obviously depends on the integrity of the people using the shareware; it is important to pay for your shareware! Next: What's Available and Where Do I Find It? >

More columns by David Wolfgang-Kimball