The availability of free software has dramatically increased over the years with the implementation of alternate income streams such as donations and advertising. Today an average computer user could have a perfect system with a great software configuration without losing a cent from an OS to a media player. A good percentage of this free software is open source and with the benefit that open source provides, more and more developers are shifting to make their products open source and consider alternate means of income rather than charge for software.
Where there is Windows 7 and Mac, there is the free, open source Ubuntu (based on Linux). Where there is Microsoft Office there is Open Office. Similarly, looking at every software category where there is the well reputed shareware there is an equally equipped freeware application too. Let’s look at some of the other software categories. Anti Virus, Kaspersky for just 70 bucks…AVG for free. Anti spyware, Ad aware professional for 40 bucks…Spybot for free. Media players, Power DVD for $65…VLC for free and so on.
If you take any other category as well you’ll find where there is shareware there will be similar freeware software available. Of course some categories are dominated by freeware, web browsers for example are all freeware. This stems from the fact that web browsers have an effective business model of earning money via search engine advertising.
While this trend of free software exists some people still prefer shareware as they believe that with good free software there is always some ‘catch’ which involves a negative effect on the user. While this idea may be accurate sometimes in most cases these freeware providers have ways to gain. One way would be through advertising and others simply develop free software especially software developed by one or a small group of people as a leisure activity.
Overall, the balance between shareware and freeware is well in equilibrium, where both software have equal response. If freeware takes over, hardly developed shareware by companies which deserve to be paid for would go into decline. The way freeware is appreciating I doubt there will be any shift towards shareware unless freeware providers start looking at other negative ways of personal gain.
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