Giveaway of the Day
Keeping with my current theme that has mostly focused on technology the last few days, I got another one or two cool things to make a few notes about. The topic for today is a site called Giveaway of the Day. Not sure how they do it and profit, short of just promotion, but they basically get free software to give away.
Now some of the good things about the process to begin with.
- The software is pretty well completely free from what I can tell. At least the ones I have tried have not been trial or restricted versions. Complete full versions for totally free.
- There is voting, giving it thumbs up or thumbs down. Kind of gives you some idea as to if you will really want the software or not.
- Further, there is a blog style set of comments on the site. If you take the time to read those you will get a really good feel for what the software is about and how useful it will be for you.
- Though I can’t say this for things that have been available since I have learned about this site, looking at past reviews and offers there have been some occasional real gems in the mix of offerings. I have spied at least two things from December that I have actually purchased in the not so far off past.
The down sides of course…
- The software is free, so most of it tends to be toward the bottom end of the offerings for the particular job that it offered to handle. So far, in the cases of when I have actually downloaded something I have been only marginally satisfied with the results.
- Taking the above one step further, the interfaces and usability have been a little on the short side of things. Further, at least one experience has left me having to clean up registry entries and such after the uninstall to truly get rid of the software.
- Generally, you can get the same and often better functioning software from GNU/GPL licensing schemes which are free all the time.
- The offerings are only available one day, twenty-four hours. So you really have to be on top of it to find the good deals. They are never available after the cutoff (though occasionally they will offer a best of the year for really good deals at the end of the year).
Bottom line is this: If you do not mind taking a chance with things you can probably find some occasionally good software for nothing. Generally you might find the same available otherwise and I would suggest you do the initial install on some older test/trash system just in case based on my experiences so far. But if you got the conditions right it is well worth it for when you do come across the gem that ends up costing you nada!
