What Shareware titles have YOU bought, and why?

[dpayer]

I have always thought we can learn from those who were successful in moving us to make a purchse.

I have purchased a license for Winzip, for PDF995, for a 'Registry cleaner', some of coffeecup.com's utilities.

PDF995 allowed me to make PDFs by acting as s printer driver. It annoyed me by opening a web page (often in an actively used window) to promote itself whenever you made a pdf. Still, it let me do what I wanted without paying. It just seemed worth it to buy it and remove the annoyance.

Winzip was just incredibly useful and I had put it on many machines, I felt guilty for using it when they were asking me to pay for a license.

The others gave me a sufficent experience in the trial period (most had a cripple in the shareware version) that I saw what I wanted and that the product could likely deliver the needed features.

What products have you bought and why?

David P.

[Horst Helfen]

I purchased a license for Search & Replace (Funduc Software), a very useful tool for replacing text in multitudes of files which I use very often.

I bought a full version of a NeoBook Plugin (rtFileSystemMgt), providing system and file management functions.

Four Winds Mah Jong is a game of Mahjong - not the usual tile removing version but the original game where 4 players play against each other - which I licensed too.

Maybe I'll complete the list this evening at home.

[beno]

Hi David,

What products have you bought and why?

I'm not trying to present myself as the best shareware customer/buyer but this is very difficult to answer from my experience.

I have acquired a lot of shareware titles. Why?:

- There are lots of interesting titles: file format conversions (images, texts, video), WinZip, etc

- Shareware price is nice in general

- You can test it and make sure that the program does the job you are looking for. Or at least does a big part of the job you are trying to accomplish...

- Shareware can be purcased on line, so you do not have to go to a software shop. This point is very important for persons like me that live in countries different than the US.

- You do not have to drop a box to the trash... because there are no physical boxes... no kidding... shareware is a ecollogical

- Mmmhh I have bought lots of titles for the last 15-10 years... and I do not complain....

My shareware cent.

beno

[Wrangler]

I am a shareware junkie. I have been buying shareware since the early DOS days, way before the Internet was invented by Al Gore . Shareware allows authors like you and me to publish our work, without the cost of putting it into a box much larger than is needed, and finding stores to carry the product. Much like what mp3.com did for musicians. It gave them exposure they couldn't otherwise have gotten, because a record company wouldn't take them, or they couldn't afford to have an album cut.

It allows the user to try it before they buy it. That way, none of the problems with returning it if we don't like it. There are generally no returns on software. I have been stuck with many commercial titles that had a fancy box, but turned out to be junk. I have also found many shareware titles that are junk, but I found out BEFORE I paid for them. Then, delete it and it's gone. (And I mean JUNK. Some of the early titles had no means to exit the program. You had to ctrl-C to get out, or reboot the computer)

Some of the shareware titles I have bought are:

ClipMate - Use this almost every day
WinRar and WinZip - Gotta zip'em up
NeoBook and it's plugins
Setup Factory
WinCHM
EasyPlus Mailer
WinOrganizer
NetObjects
DreamWeaver
The Bat!
PaintShop Pro
PromoSoft
ZoneAlarm
BackUpMy PC
Diskeeper

and many more. If I listed them all, I would probably be banned for forum abuse. Most of these have 30 day unrestricted trial periods so I can beat them up to see if they provide what I need.

Buying my first computer was like buying a record player. Gotta have software, just like you gotta have records. You will never gain full use of the apparatus unless you have a variety of stuff to use with it.

And, like Beno said: Easy to find and buy, no trees cut down to package them and print documentation, and in most cases, better support, usually free. Plus, why pay for a box when you just throw it out anyway? And who reads the manual?

Compared to most commercial products, shareware prices are almost always reasonable. Many offer free upgrades, even for life.

My shareware dime. (Sorry, Beno. I don't know about Mexico, but a cent isn't worth anything here. )

[cp4w]

My preferences go to shareware for the same reasons other friend say.

My personal list of shareware programs is not so long as that of Wrangler, but now I can see I have at least 20 program: Neobook, Neopaint, PaintShop, Animation Shop, Metricon, Skyglobe, Pdf995, Amiglobe, VideoMach, MahJong, Drag and View, Eudora and other and other

The best are those of Neosoftware (Neobook and Neopaint, since DOS time), but if the programs are splendid, extra-large is the custom care of Dave. Never seen the same

Licia

P.S. My English is a horror movie!!! I beg you pardon

[Wrangler]

Actually, Licia, your english is quite good. I have no problem understanding what you are saying.

[remlap]

I think the whole nature of Shareware has changed over recent years. Like many others, I've been using and buying shareware since the DOS days. Today, the vast majority of what we deem 'shareware' is in fact TrialWare and has been commercially driven away from the original concepts developed by Andrew Fluegelman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andrew_Fluegelman. Back in 1982 he released his PC-Talk application under a term which he entitled 'Freeware', with the simple proviso that if the user liked the program, they could send him some money. There were no 30 day trial periods and serial numbers for 'registered users'. Payments to Flugelman were voluntary, if you didn't want to pay, you could still use the software.

As a lawyer, Flugelman went on to obtain a Trademark on the word 'Freeware' in order to preserve its meaning. This then created the strange paradox whereby other developers then started using the term, 'Shareware' in order that Flugelman's trademark was not infringed.

Over the years, thanks in a large part to the bullying dictates of the ASP (Association of Shareware Professionals), Shareware has become Trialware and Freeware has become something that is given away without any request for payment.

Of course, Flugelman was no charitable software developer, he was a shrewd businessman and his Freeware model of, 'pay me if you want' worked and worked well. Certainly under the Flugelman model of Freeware, the software is not some junk which has no commercial value, so the author just gives it away; Freeware is a commercially viable option for quality software.

Recently, I have tried to revive the spirit of Flugelman by releasing one of my applications under his original publishing concept ... 'if you like it, buy me a couple of beers and send me $10 and if you don't want to do that, you can still use the software'. Far from being commercial suicide, the returns it brings far exceeds anything I have ever released under the Shareware banner. I don't have to worry about cracks, hacks and serial numbers, the software just makes an occasional request for a 'donation' and for those who do send me $10, I send them a slightly newer version which is free of donation requests.

Because the application comes without the expected 30 day trial period, magazines are happy to publish it on their cover disks; indeed it's been on cover disks all over the world, including Italy, Germany, USA, Australia and the UK. To date, there isn't a day goes by that I don't make money off this application.

So viva Flugelman and viva 'real' freeware!

[beno]

Hi remplap,

Interesting... thanks for sharing this with us.

Just curiosity: can we take a look at your program?

Saludos,

beno