NWA-PCUG Newsletter Article, November 2009
Commercial Software Available for Free
By Ira Wilsker, APCUG Director;
Columnist, The Examiner, Beaumont, TX; Radio & TV Show Host

iwilsker@apcug.net
(click to email author)

WEBSITES:
http://dottech.org
http://dottech.org/category/freebies
http://www.giveawayoftheday.com
http://game.giveawayoftheday.com

Computer users often seem to be in the market for additional software. Many users even seem to have an addiction to new software, seeming to have an insatiable urge to try something new. There are many online resources that have enormous libraries of free software to download, such as download.com, MajorGeek, and TUCOWS, but other than some pirate and hacker sites, there are only a few sites where commercial software can legitimately be downloaded free.

One of my personal favorites is dotTech.org, which has proven to be an excellent resource when it comes to legitimately getting free copies of commercial software. New titles appear on an almost daily basis under the “freebies” category (dottech.org/category/freebies), and are usually available for a very limited time or a limited number of downloads. The “freebies” page has an editorial comment at the top that was posted by the founder of dotTech, “Ashraf” says, “I gave up my ‘illegal’ activities long ago – but I still like freebies. Here you will see posts about how to attain commercial software for free – 100% legit!” Currently, there are 52 commercial software titles available as a free download, but this number is dynamic and changes frequently as old offers expire, and new titles are added. As with bargains anywhere else, the rule is that if you see something you like, get it now, because it may not be there later. Ashraf and the editors of dotTech.org review each software title, and I have found the reviews to be reliable and accurate. There is also an open blog on each listing where users who have downloaded and installed the software have left comments as to the functionality of the software, a feature that I have found useful.

DotTech’s selection of software is varied, but seems to favor performance utilities. While many of the software publishers listed on dotTech may not be familiar to Americans, they are mostly European in origin, and generally have a very good to excellent reputation. These lesser known publishers will typically allow their commercial software to be promoted on dotTech in order to become better known, and to sometimes get leads to sell their other software products. Mostly, the titles available are the latest versions, but in a few cases the free downloads were of a previous but recent version. There are two very good commercial products that I use regularly thanks to dotTech, and I do periodically receive emailed promotions from the publishers about their other wares. These promotions are more sporadic than regular, and not so frequent as to be irritating. Both have unsubscribe links on their promotions, but I have found them often interesting, as their products that they promote are often offered at deep discounts. One recent example was the German software publisher, Ashampoo that sent an email that offered almost all of its products for a flat price of only $10 each. It should be noted that Ashampoo is not some little software publisher, as it is very popular in Europe, and claims to have over 10 million registered users of its software, with 97 million copies installed. This is precisely the type of company that promotes its software on dotTech.org.

Some of the commercial software that has recently been offered free on dotTech include Ashampoo Office 2008, Ashampoo Internet Accelerator 2, USB Safely Remove 4.1, Comfort Keys Lite, Ashampoo Burning Studio 2010, O&O CleverCache 6 Professional, WinX DVD Ripper Platinum, CyberLink PowerDirector 7 Ultra, Paragon Drive Backup 9.0 Professional, EVEREST Ultimate Edition 4.6, EASEUS Partition Master Pro, and dozens of other titles. The full list can be found online at dottech.org/category/freebies. I subscribe to dotTech’s RSS feed (dottech.org/feed) and email alerts (dottech.org/e-mail-reminders) so I can keep up with the latest software giveaways. I routinely download and install the new offerings to satiate my desire to try new software; generally, I have been very satisfied with the offerings and have found them to be generally excellent. For those that I no longer want, they have been easy to uninstall with their integral uninstall function or from Add/Remove Programs. In addition to commercial software, dotTech also has some good software tips and hints, as well as reviews of other software products.

Speaking of giveaways, what may arguably be the most popular software giveaway website is “Give Away of the Day” at http://www.giveawayoftheday.com. The software on that website must be downloaded and installed by midnight Pacific time (2am Central time), or the install feature will fail, but if it is installed by the deadline, a fully registered copy of the software is yours to keep. Every 24 hours, at midnight Pacific Time, a new software title becomes available. Software available on Give Away of the Day has been of all types, including utilities, video and audio editors, security software, and other genres, and is often from major software publishers. It needs to be noted that the software downloaded and registered through Give Away of the Day is not eligible for support, and does not qualify for free upgrades. It should also be noted that during the registration process, which must be done while online, some other utilities may appear on the registration popup that may be installed, and by my choice, I never select them for installation.

Give Away of the Day often has dozens of comments and reviews of that day’s software by the time dawn breaks in the U.S., these comments being posted by users mostly in Asia and Europe, where the software has been available for download for several hours. If the software looks interesting, I click on the icon to go to the download page, and review the comments prior to downloading. The reviews are summarized with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” rating; if the majority of reviewers likes the software, I will seriously consider downloading it; if the “thumbs down” are in the majority, then I will usually not download it. I also read the reviews and comments to corroborate that the software will install and function on my operating system. I also find references in the review to competing, often free, competitors to be generally helpful, and a source of other software to try. It is interesting that often the first, and usually the most comprehensive review posted is from Ashraf, the same person that runs dotTech. These reviews list the good and bad features of the program offered, as well as a link to a full review on dotTech.

Give Away of the Day has a sister site, Game Give Away of the Day, which has commercial computer games available for download. Unlike the parent site, new games are not typically available every day, but it is still a worthwhile website for gamers to visit on a frequent basis just to see if something new has been posted.

Both Give Away of the Day and Game Give Away of the Day offer RSS feeds and email alerts to notify those interested of any new offerings. I subscribe to both in order to be informed of those offerings.

These websites have had some great commercial software available at a great price (free), which I use on a regular basis. They are most worthy of a regular visit in order to take advantage of the offerings.

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