by Don Hildenbrand

Created on: February 04, 2009

In the world of PC computing, a person needs more than just the operating system, such as Windows Vista, to get work done. One also needs software for specific purposes, such as writing letters, editing photos, or designing web pages. Unfortunately, these software packages can cost quite a bit of money.

But, with a little searching, there's always a free alternative to those high priced commercial software packages. These free programs are called "freeware". Some that come to mind are OpenOffice as a replacement for Microsoft Office; The Gimp instead of Photoshop; and a slew of free anti-virus and anti-spyware utilities. For the PC gamer, freeware games can also be found, saving the user hundreds of dollars otherwise spent on commercial products.

It would seem then, that freeware would be the savior of the PC world! Why pay for something that you can get for free? Free is a very good price!

But the old adage that "you get what you pay for" rings true in the world of software as well as anywhere else. Although it's true that freeware is a great value, and, for the most part, does just what it's supposed to do, there can also be some downsides to freeware software.

EASE OF USE

Most software that you'd purchase from a commercial company has been carefully designed to be as easy to use as possible, right "out of the box". This, of course, is very important to a company which makes its profit from people buying, and using, it's software. These companies spend considerable amounts of money testing their software to make sure it is "user friendly", and tweaking it to get it as usable as possible. It just wouldn't do them very much good to have their customers return the product because they couldn't easily learn how to actually use it.

Freeware software, on the other hand, can be a little intimidating to use, especially at the very important time of just starting to use it. Many developers of freeware are individuals or small companies that simply don't have the budget to spend on focus groups or extensive testing. Many also make the assumption that anyone looking for their freeware product will be an accomplished PC user, and won't need a lot of "hand holding" as they learn the software.

One category that comes to mind is video editing. Although not the easiest task to accomplish on a PC to begin with, commercial products, such as Sony Vegas, are, with just a little reading of the help files, fairly easy to learn and begin using. They strive to be as intuitive as possible,

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