Freeware for Windows -- Where Did It Go?

Talahamut asks: "The other day, I was planning on recording a radio show by running my stereo's output into my PC. Oooh, that sucks - WinXP's Sound Recorder limits you to 60 sec. recordings. Oh well, I'll just go online and grab a little WAV recorder. 30 minutes later, I'm frustrated because all I find is crippleware (time-limited, of course...) that records every format under the sun from any sound stream imaginable. What happened to the small home-brewed Windows utilities that used to be so easy to find online years ago? All the freeware sites I checked had nothing but commercial crippleware. Is there no place to find simple programs like that anymore?"

Comments

download.com?

[eviljolly]

Try going to www.download.com and searching under programs with freeware licenses.

Re:download.com?

[MrResistor]

Obviously it's been a while since you've tried to find anything on download.com that was both free AND useful. The combination is pretty much non-existant these days.

As mentioned by others, most of the freeware developers have moved on to Free platforms, BUT a lot of that stuff has been ported to Windows. TheOpenCD has a good listing of Open Source stuff that's been ported. Check the forums if you don't find exactly what you're looking for, as a lot of apps don't get included on the CD for various reasons (space, duplication of functionality, etc).

Nonags...

[sxyzzx]

www.nonags.com

Re:Nonags...

[Da Fokka]

My favourite freeware site is:
http://www.pricelessware.org/
Selected by readers from the alt.freeware newsgroup.

Searching found

[Foo2rama]

I use http://www.versiontracker.com to find all my software... I found these gems all freeware for you. Pocket voice recorder Sound recorder And the total search with "shareware" is Hope this helps

http://www.pricelessware.org/

[pancakeunicorn]

http://www.pricelessware.org/

Re:http://www.pricelessware.org/

[phildog]

http://www.pricelessware.org/ - I'll 2nd this recommendation

http://www.tinyapps.org/ - I've had some good luck here too.

It's called TUCOWS

[eggstasy]

Ever heard of TUCOWS? You can search for software there, and order by license.
AudioGrabber 1.83 is freeware, and is rated 5 stars. I used to use it to rip CDs, but the description claims it can do exactly what you need.

Re:It's called TUCOWS

[DeadSea]

Some more resoureces:

1. Open Directory: Freeware - Lists hundreds of sites offering freeware.
2. Nonags - Better that tucows for Windows stuff because it doesn't list nagware.

Audacity

[Dave114]

It may be a little bit overkill for recording a radio program (although I've used the software for that before), but why not try the (open source) Audacity?

2 answers in one

[samjam]

http://freshmeat.net/projects/audacity/

Freshmeat.net lists MANY software applications as they are released, and as good search capabilities if you login.

Audacity is one of the best non-complex sound recorders and mixers going, using wxWidgets works and looks right under linux, windows and probably more (you look).

Sam

It's not limited to 60 seconds

[lightspawn]

It just looks that way because of a bad, bad, bad UI.

Record 60 seconds of silence. Now save them as a file, and import it into the current sample. Voila! a 2-minute sample, which you can record over. Repeat as necessary.

Re:or perhaps

[erebus24]

or perhaps you should search better :

Total Recorder Standard Edition costs just $11.95 (USD). Most other recording packages cost more and deliver less. Additionally, all new program updates are available to purchasers at no cost!

AnalogX

[Reddog0176]

AnalogX.com has some pretty good software. http://www.analogx.com/contents/download.htm

Excellent Freeware Site

[todsandberg]

Excellent Freeware Site
http://www.snapfiles.com/freeeware/ (used to be webattack.com)
I used to be addicted to freeware and this was one of my favorite places to get a fix.
All the software is well categorized.
I can often find what I'm looking for here.

http://www.nonags.com is good too.

Tod

Re:Was there really lots of freeware?

[HeghmoH]

There is a fascinating article about the effectiveness of crippling shareware versus relying on goodwill at http://www.scrawlsoft.com/products/common/hardnose .html.

The short summary: He did a study using a Windows shareware program. Upon installation, it randomly chose whether to be crippleware or simply remind the user to pay when starting and quitting the program, with a 50% chance of each. It did this in such a way that reinstalling wouldn't randomly choose again, so most people didn't even realize there were two "versions". The crippled version sold over five times as many copies.

Granted, this is a single example and may not be representative of all situations, but it's the best study I'm aware of so far. It puts the "people who will buy it will pay for it anyway, don't piss people off by crippling the product" position in serious doubt, at least in my mind.