There are a few must-visit freeware sites that I have on my blogroll. Now, granted, there are lots of places on the internet to find free software. Often people will have one-page lists of great freeware. That’s all fine and good. But I want a little bit of depth and perhaps a description or review, or at least freeware that is hand-picked by people who know what they’re talking about. Another problem: often a lot of regular, high-traffic websites list shareware alongside freeware (*ahem* cnet) so it gets harder to find REAL freeware. Or you’re browsing a site and it says “free download.” Yeah, free download sometimes = unfree software. I’m a freeloader, I’m sorry.
So, these sites listed stick to freeware and freeware only, and either have reviews, popularity counts, or are at least hand-picked by someone! Anyway, they’re absolute can’t-miss location.
Snapfiles Freeware: This is one of the first places (other than this blog!) that you should look for freeware. It is very well-organized, thorough, although not as thorough as some other sites. But, the best ones in each category are almost always there. Each of them has reviews by Snapfiles and users, so it’s easy to quickly gauge which ones to download. Definitely at the top of my list.
Freeware Home: Comprehensive, great freeware site. Honestly, if I wanted to find a hard-to-find piece of free software, other than Google this is the first place I’d search. Tons of listings. Well-worth the visit.
Freeware Files: A site that has been around for a long time and has a great interface and listings. Easy to find the most popular downloads so you can get exactly what you want. Worthy of frequent revisits.
Pricelessware Freeware: You certainly can’t go wrong with an uber-nerd site like this. And I don’t mean that in a bad way. The newsgroup alt.comp.freeware users come up with their picks and make a list on a yearly basis. Heck, you can go all the way back to 2000 (courtesy of the internet archive). The 2007 summary list has a ton of freeware on it, or you can see specific 2007 lists by category. Brilliant!
Game Hippo: Awesome name and awesome site. Get this: all freeware games. And lots of them. And lots of those lots are really excellent games. Some are even previous commercial software, which helps to show that it’s possible to play great games for a long time–years–and not pay a dime. In future blog posts I’ll cover some great freeware games for your enjoyment.
There you have it, so go start downloading, and you can thank me later. (And thanks to all the thousands of great freeware authors for making free software. Some of it, is, honestly, just as good as commercial software.)
