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

2 reasons - Spyware and SourceForge.net

[Captain Kirk]

I'll never forget the mess AOL's icq client and Kazaa's browser stuff made of my PC. For most utilities, sourceforge tends to have it. Better still, software from sourceforge doesn't install a ton of spyware, hijack your web browser or do any of the crap that freeware/shareware people are forced to do to pay for hosting.

This is one area where open source works. To see the benefit, compare DC++ or eMule with their proprietary equivalents. Better quality because no annoying attempt to install stuff other than what is needed.

Spyware has killed the freeware/shareware world. The degree to which Miranda and eMule are better than their 'free as in beer' equivalents still amazes me.

Re:Opensource Ate Freeware

[enigmatichmachine]

he's pretty much exactly on the nose there... my freeware search engine is sourceforge now. haven't used things like download.com for years. OH, and audacity rocks! its not soundforge, but its essentially windows sound recorder on a lot of steroids.

Re:It is linux's fault

[walt-sjc]

Bwahahahaha! Good one. Here's another. Maybe they will find it more stable and open. Maybe MS programmers will start participating with the community and answering questions on the developers newsgroups. :-)

But one the serious side, all too many Windows developers get sucked into this idea that they are going to get rich off "shareware." It's just not fun. The developers who are just in it for fun are going to move to a truely open platform where they can share in the work of others in an evironment that fosters those ideals instead of the ideals of greed.

So anyway, I don't think it's Windows programmers transitioning to Linux, it's just that most Windows programmers are greedy.

Oh yeah, give this post a half :-)

Re:download.com?

[rot26]

Download.com and similar sites used to be good sources of freeware, but since they started charging to list your software, the freeware is gone; at best, the authors will want to recoup their listing fee.