Should I Use Freeware Or Free Software?

Freeware is a term used to describe free software. Freeware is a great resource and many people have been using it for years.

I spoke to a lot of people about freeware who have said that they would never use it because they heard that free software contains hidden viruses. Your first thought might be this is just not the case. After all I have been using freeware for years and have never been infected.

However, if you give the idea more thought, You will realize that such a concern is not without merit. Because If you have not learned who you can trust and who you need to stay away from.

How Do you Know What Is Safe

How does the average, non geek minded web surfer know what is safe and what isn't? Try doing a search on Google for the term freeware, you will see more than 170 million pages are returned. If you just start downloading any old software that looks good, you may get into a lot of trouble.

Because freeware can in fact contain spyware, adware, trojans, back doors, key loggers, bots or viruses. So, you should be concerned. However, even though we know everything in life has some sort of risk, this risk does not keep us from living our lives. It just means that we must be aware of the threats and know how to avoid them, for example if you see cars on a busy road you don't just walk in front of one to get to the other side'.

So how do we know how to avoid infected software? Some freeware web sites will list any and all freeware just so they can say that they have the most titles for download. Or others will list only popular freeware. But popular does not always mean the best and this still does not guarantee safety.

The keyword here is research

If you want to be a clever downloader, The keyword here is research. You might ask how do I go about that? well it's a lot easier than you may think by going around to forums, message boards, news groups and sites that are devoted to reviewing software.

Forums and message boards are a great place to learn about other people's experience with a particular piece of software. If someone is happy with some software that they have downloaded chances are they will just happily be on the way but if someone is unhappy with a program or piece of software they have downloaded and installed they will almost certainly let everyone know about it. A note here you can't just read one or two reviews or complaints and make a decision because it may not be the fault of the software it might be the person who downloaded at fault so try to find as many posts as you can.

Another places for your research are websites that test all software themselves before putting up for download. So how do you find trust worthy websites? Part of it is just knowing the history and the background of the different websites and this, again, is learned via research and here is a tip on finding them.

Google Toolbar

If you have the Google Toolbar install you will see a page rank bar ranging from 1 - 10. If you not sure about what the Google toolbar is just do a search, via Google of course.

If the main page of a site has no page rank at all there is a chance that Google may have banned them for a number of reasons or that the site is only very new, in either case it is best to be wary. On the other hand if a site has a high ranking say 4 or above in most cases they have been around for a while and should be reasonably safe, note this is not a hard and fast rule but just a general guide just remember to research before downloading any freeware.

Here at Best Download Sites you may scan your computer for free for any hidden nasties after a download or installing any freeware or any other software.