What is the difference b/w freeware,shareware, and firmware?
Hi Mr. Seedrick, This is a recurring question relating to the differences between all this -ware usage in IT; Let me start by the -ware suffix that defines very simply a computer program (or code) that is also called software. What comes before -ware gives you an idea of what kind of software you are dealing with: 1. FREEWARE: Is a legitimate software (it is often copyrighted as any other commercial product) that is distributed free. Their popularity is on the rise, and it is often believed in the IT community that their quality in general equals or surpasses some commercial softwares… Good examples of Freewares are: – Web Browsers: Camino (mac), Firefox, Opera… – Productivity Suites: OpenOffice… – Multimedia Apps: iTunes, Google Earth… Try checking www.downloads.com to find some of the best. 2. SHAREWARE: This time you have to pay for the product, but the developer lets you try the software for usually some time (ranging from a few days to months), it is some form of “try it b
