![]() This is not an exhaustive list of free Windows software but those that I use and find most useful. If the software author asks for a donation and you find the software useful then please consider paying what you think the software is worth to you. Just as "Photoshopping"" for some people now means using any old image editor then "open-source" is often used to describe free software whether it really is open-source or not. ![]() Generally speaking, all open-source software is free but not all free software is open source. There are subtle differences between "open-source" and "free" software, I'll leave that for others to debate, but for most end users, well, me anyway, the end result is the same - you do not have to pay for the software. You won't find software here that, for example, tells you your computer has a virus but won't remove it until you buy the full version.īe aware that when searching for free software many sites will say "free download" which is technically true but what you are really downloading is commercial software that needs to be activated (ie paid for) before it is usable. If an author does this then I've only listed it if the free part does exactly what it is supposed to. Other free software is offered by authors as a cut-down version of their full software. There is other free software that really is free, that is software in the public domain or has one of the GPL (General Public License) or creative commons licenses. Other free software depends on your honesty to either buy it or at least donate a reasonable amount to the authors. ![]() Other "free" software is advert supported which I find very annoying. These are fine if you use the program is one that you need or use a lot. Other "try before you buy" software put annoying watermarks over the output. Some is very good but has annoying "nag" screens that exhort you to buy the full product, some either has features, or even the entire program, that stop working after a set period of time. There is also plenty of "try before you buy" software around. Themselves or wait forever for some large program to download only to find it does weird things to their computer that a real copy wouldn't, or have to hunt around looking for cracks to get it to work properly then block internet access to it so it doesn't "phone home" for updates or whatever. I know there are plenty of ways of getting hold of expensive commercial, copyrighted, programs for free but a lot of people do not want to criminalize They are great programs but many people can't justify spending that amount of money on software for occasional use. The recommended retail cost of Adobe's creative suite before they went subscription only in January 2017 was around $1,800. It's nearly always nice to get something for nothing and computer users have buckets of free programs and utilities to choose from.
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