Freeware for Windows -- Where Did It Go? 308
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?"
download.com? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:download.com? (Score:4, Insightful)
Grab.
Re:download.com? (Score:5, Funny)
not everyone has discovered google yet...
I personally think all search engines should have as the first hit:
Results:
1) Seach for this on Google, Dumbass [google.com] Acuracy - 100%Re:download.com? (Score:3, Interesting)
not everyone has discovered google yet...
FWIW, I'm still a Google fan, but am finding that Teoma (which uses the same engine as Jeeves, but I like Teoma's presentation better) is delivering results where Google fails.
Google's great (well as good as Infoseek was in its prime before Disney/ABC/Go bought it and ruined it), but Teoma's methods seem to hold up a bit better and retrn results that are often more useful and relevant than Google's, especially in those cases where Googl
Re:download.com? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:download.com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:download.com? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, more and more companies are making it difficult to develop freeware if you are a corporate developer. Many companies now claim that they own everything that you do even on your own time, or at least have very strict rules about using company assests (their development tools) to do personal work.
These combined together have hurt "free" software on windows. The financial side keeps young programmers from developing "free" software, as they desparately need to recover their costs. The business side keeps many professional programmers from contributing as they don't want to fight the corporate battles to defend what they are doing. I know several folks in both categories. Most of the young folks are moving to Linux where the tools are much less expensive and the professional guys are finding things to do besides computer work on their own time.
Re:download.com? (Score:5, Interesting)
MOD PARENT UP! (Score:5, Funny)
I mean, really, there are TONS of ways to CORRECTLY bash them! Check your facts!
Re:download.com? (Score:4, Informative)
Microsoft offers a *FREE* ASP.Net development IDE called ASP.NET Matrix available at www.ASP.Net [asp.net]. It's geared towards code writing, so you don't get a great WYSIWYG HTML tool, but you can do some pretty cool stuff with it.
For a Windows Form IDE, look at SharpDevelop [icsharpcode.net] which is currently in Beta release
I'm sure there are others, but I've actually used those two IDE's (well, three if you count TextPad
Re:download.com? (Score:5, Insightful)
The not-so-good coders. The coders who would just look at you funny if you suggested that they use a command-line tool.
Sure, there are exceptions, like the excellent IrfanView [irfanview.com] and of course the wonderful (and also free-as-in-speech!) utility CDEX [sourceforge.net], and of course many "cross-platform" projects like Audacity [sourceforge.net] and The GIMP [gimp.org] (many of which originated in the Linux/Unix world anyhow)... buuuut... the majority of the freeware coders in the Windows world tend to be those who couldn't easily make a living off of their code.
You have to remember that the CULTURE in the Windows world is not like that of the Linux world...
While we're on the topic of comparative culture (drifting rapidly off-topic here, but...), please note that in Windows-land, money is a much stronger motivator. Additionally, in Windows-land, conformity is a lot more prevalent. You still see Unix coders who prefer some obscure clone of EMACS or vi, or an even more obscure editor no one's heard of, or one they wrote themselves. Windows people tend to write their papers in MS Word, and only MS Word... because that's what everyone else uses. It is a more conformist culture (this isn't a judgment, it's simply a fact!)
I am, at this very moment, editing a letter using GNU nano and a CGI I scripted in Perl to format it nicely for printing and/or PDFing. I'm not using MS Office, or even OpenOffice. And there are gajillions of people using "weird" or otherwise obscure solutions like that throughout the Unix world. In Windows-land, a weird approach like that would just get you funny looks. Like I said-- differences in culture...
Re:download.com? (Score:2)
Many companies now claim that they own everything that you do even on your own time
MyCorp has rules like this, but from what I understand, unless your creation is very closely aligned with your workplace functions, what you do on your own time with your own resources would be very difficult for the company to claim if you wanted to challenge it.
And, most reasonable companies aren't going to go after Joe's MP3 index catalog database management program if he spends his days doing VB to help managers mangl
Re:download.com? (Score:3, Interesting)
In California, so long as you don't use company time, equipment, or premises to create a work, and that work is not substantially relevant to work you do for the company, they have no claims whatsoever on your work, and that right cannot be waived.
Re:download.com? (Score:5, Interesting)
The worst part is that they only charge the little guys. My company (big internet company) released a client-side application last year. Download.com approached us and offered to host it for free. They've served a ton of downloads and we've never paid them a cent. They even featured it for a while -- something we neither asked for nor discussed with them.
Yet the little guy that gets ten downloads a week actually has to pay for it...
Re:download.com? (Score:4, Insightful)
the little-guys downloads aren't common enough to warrent raising advertising costs for their specific pages to cover the expense of hosting.
Re:download.com? (Score:5, Informative)
As mentioned by others, most of the freeware developers have moved on to Free platforms, BUT a lot of that stuff has been ported to Windows. TheOpenCD [sunsite.dk] has a good listing of Open Source stuff that's been ported. Check the forums if you don't find exactly what you're looking for, as a lot of apps don't get included on the CD for various reasons (space, duplication of functionality, etc).
Re:download.com? (Score:3, Informative)
It is linux's fault (Score:5, Funny)
Re:It is linux's fault (Score:5, Insightful)
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
Shocked! Appalled! (Score:4, Funny)
Hold up...did the parent just imply that Linux users were helpful and would answer questions?!?
Hah, it's a joke! I'm kidding!
Sorta!
Re:It is linux's fault (Score:2)
Re:It is linux's fault (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It is linux's fault (Score:4, Interesting)
The win32 threading API is very nice. Seriously -- I'm a FreeBSD developer, and there isn't much about Windows which I like, but win32 threads are really well thought out and intuitive.
Re:It is linux's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
To take the sockets API as an example, the UNIX world had BSD sockets, while the Windows world had Winsock. Microsoft didn't invent Winsock -- it was put together by people who wanted TCP/IP on Windows back when Microsoft didn't provide this. When Microsoft a
Re:It is linux's fault (Score:3, Insightful)
Surely something like that would never happen in the Linux world... oh, wait. It does happen. Everyone and their grandma has to come up with their own widgets (QT, GTK, Motif, Mozilla's own crap, etc), their very own font rendering library, their very own sound daemon, their very own graphics library (e.g., I'm sure SDL or SVGALib don't exactly align 1-to-1 with OpenGL either), etc.
So I hope you'll have some understanding if I find this ki
GNU/* and *BSD (Score:4, Informative)
When making free-as-in-cost, they may as well be doing free-as-in-freedom. And working with other developers that share code is nice.
Re:GNU/* and *BSD (Score:4, Insightful)
When I need software? in kinda this order:
$ grep keyword
(that's for Debian, but I'm sure there are similar package lists with descriptions on the other distros)
If that doesn't work, I try the free software directory [gnu.org], and then freshmeat [freshmeat.net].
Re:GNU/* and *BSD (Score:3, Informative)
$ grep keyword
apt-cache search searchterm
Nonags... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Nonags... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pricelessware.org/ [pricelessware.org]
Selected by readers from the alt.freeware newsgroup.
...and OnlyTheBestFreeware.com (Score:3, Informative)
Opensource Ate Freeware (Score:5, Insightful)
With that in mind, Audacity [sourceforge.net], while being a bit more full featured than a simple sound recorder, will take care of what you need.
Re:Opensource Ate Freeware (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Opensource Ate Freeware (Score:2)
Re:Opensource Ate Freeware (Score:2, Interesting)
I handle the sound for our church, mainly recording sermons and music, and it certainly handles the job. The setup is simple enough to user right out of the *cough* box *cough* or package. Often I by the end of the service I have about 1.5GB of stuff to go through and clean up and put on a CD which audacity handles pretty well also.
Re:Opensource Ate Freeware (Score:2)
Re:Opensource Ate Freeware (Score:4, Informative)
I have to assume you're doing this in windows, since under Linux, if you had the ogg libraries you'd already have a decoder and be doing this with a simple shell script.
So, take just about any decent audio player (such as winamp) that reads Ogg Vorbis and use it to write out WAV files instead of playing to the soundcard (on Winamp it's called the "Nullsoft disk-writer pluging"). Problem solved; you make a playlist, press play & a few seconds later, you're finished.
Searching found (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Searching found (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.pricelessware.org/ (Score:5, Informative)
Re:http://www.pricelessware.org/ (Score:2)
Re:http://www.pricelessware.org/ (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.pricelessware.org/ [pricelessware.org]- I'll 2nd this recommendation
http://www.tinyapps.org/ [tinyapps.org]- I've had some good luck here too.
It's called TUCOWS (Score:5, Informative)
AudioGrabber 1.83 [com-us.net] is freeware, and is rated 5 stars. I used to use it to rip CDs, but the description claims it can do exactly what you need.
Re:It's called TUCOWS (Score:5, Informative)
Better than TUCOWS... (Score:2)
Simtel is still pretty good, and has always been a good place to find free or cheap software. AFAIK, it was the first large-scale public repository for free and open source software. Before sunsite.unc.edu, before ftp.uu.net, there was Simtel - in the old days, the first place to look for programs or source was ftp.wsmr(f
Re:Better than TUCOWS... (Score:2)
The origins of what is now Tucows Inc, began in Flint, Michigan in 1993. At that time, while working for local libraries, Scott Swedorski noticed the public's increasing interest in the world wide Web and used his personal website to offer downloadable software. He dubbed this service TUCOWS -- an acronym for The Ultimate Collection of Winsock Software -- which quickly gained worldwide recognition as the first site to offer software on a "freeware" or "sharewa
Audacity (Score:4, Informative)
WinAmp! (Score:3, Informative)
Whats worst..... (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't kill me to pay for software, but I remember the CD's of free games and tools that anyone running DOS could use.
Vertical
Re:Whats worst..... (Score:2)
You don't by chance know of a good VCDEasy like program for Linux do you? I'd rather not have to write the raw XML to use vcdimager :(.
Re:Whats worst..... (Score:3, Insightful)
2 reasons - Spyware and SourceForge.net (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
Gresham's (ancient, Hindu) Law (Score:2, Funny)
There is no disappearing of the true Dhamma until a fals Dhamma arises in the world.
When the false Dhamma arises, he makes the true Dhamma to disappear.
Samyutta-Nikaya II, 224
2 answers in one (Score:5, Informative)
Freshmeat.net lists MANY software applications as they are released, and as good search capabilities if you login.
Audacity is one of the best non-complex sound recorders and mixers going, using wxWidgets works and looks right under linux, windows and probably more (you look).
Sam
Re:2 answers in one (Score:2)
For the original question submitter: follow the advice of a couple of the posts and check sourceforge and freshmeat and stay away from download.com, etc. You'll find a great deal of software for all sorts of tasks.
And, you might want to consider loadin
Re:2 answers in one (Score:2)
But..... it is way more versatile than any of the 'professional' audio editors I've tried - most of them won't even import mp3 never mind FLAC or OGG.
It's still getting there....
That's how it goes (Score:5, Funny)
I think that's how the things go: you make good freeware and someone will support you to commercialize it if you don't do it yourself. We've seen a couple of such cases in OSS community. Developers are simply human who need to feed their kids and pay their mortage.
P.S. Oh btw, the reason my friend declined their offers is that he lost the source code in a harddrive failure and he's too embarrass to admit it.
Re:That's how it goes (Score:2)
I know that it's too late now, but if the offer was decent enough (too justify the expense) there are a few companies that specialize in data recovery off crashed harddrives.
Re:That's how it goes (Score:2)
Was there really lots of freeware? (Score:4, Interesting)
Perhaps the attitude of the article author that this was all "freeware" is why it has slowly changed to cripple-ware
Re:Was there really lots of freeware? (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is there wasn't enough good will to buy groceries with. That's why I have seen most shareware titles either become demos or crippleware.
It's funny also how all the "free downloads" really aren't.
Re:Was there really lots of freeware? (Score:2)
Re:Was there really lots of freeware? (Score:5, Informative)
The short summary: He did a study using a Windows shareware program. Upon installation, it randomly chose whether to be crippleware or simply remind the user to pay when starting and quitting the program, with a 50% chance of each. It did this in such a way that reinstalling wouldn't randomly choose again, so most people didn't even realize there were two "versions". The crippled version sold over five times as many copies.
Granted, this is a single example and may not be representative of all situations, but it's the best study I'm aware of so far. It puts the "people who will buy it will pay for it anyway, don't piss people off by crippling the product" position in serious doubt, at least in my mind.
It's not limited to 60 seconds (Score:5, Informative)
Record 60 seconds of silence. Now save them as a file, and import it into the current sample. Voila! a 2-minute sample, which you can record over. Repeat as necessary.
Re:It's not limited to 60 seconds (Score:2)
That's one way (Score:3, Informative)
record any thing
Press Ctrl+C
Press and Hold Ctrl+V until it's as long as you like.
this is /..... (Score:2, Informative)
Petzold's book is a good starting point...
You probably want... (Score:3, Informative)
Most of the components are BSD licensed too. And don't let the default look put you off; it's skinnable [foobarlooks.tk] and you can go a *long* way with nice formatting strings [koillismaa.fi].
I could go on, but I should really stop gushing. I've successfully converted quite a few peeps by doing this though, so there must be some truth in it
This is what you want (Score:5, Insightful)
I personally always include a "GPL" when I search for Windows software; helps filter out the cripppleware.
Google "freeware"... (Score:2, Informative)
http://www.freewarehome.com/
http://www.nonags.com
http://www.tucows.com
and then:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/
http://www.dago.pmp.com.pl/messer/
My solution (Score:2)
Now every computer I own runs Debian (I switched my server from Gentoo yesterday), my software is 100% legal and it cost me $0. I believe I have given back to the open source community in the form of the amount of bug repo
Re:My solution (Score:3, Insightful)
AnalogX (Score:4, Informative)
Funny you should post this .. (Score:2, Insightful)
As a reminder of how to develop under MFC a couple of days ago I wrote a toy program for monitoring machines.
Kinda like Nagios does (formerly netsaint) but in a single application instead of a webbased system.
I sent a copy to a colleague who appreciated it, and one of his first comments was sell it for 29$!
I am a Debian guy, I write free software for Linux/Unix and I could do for Windows - but to be honest I have no qualms about charging for Windows.
Why? None of the software I've produced has been by a
You dont google well do you (Score:2, Informative)
The top of the list was http://www.vorbis.com/software.psp, which pointed me towards Audacity, which I had already used under Debian (its nice to see open source projects going cross-platform).
This was less than 5 minutes. Google gives you exactly what you ask for, after all....
something similar has happened with drivers (Score:2)
In this case I think we have to put some of the blame on the search engines. They accept kickbacks from sites to be listed earlier in the list of results.
Perhaps not being able to find freeware is a similar phenonmenon.
What we need is an altruistic, non-commercial search engine -- with powerful
it's generational (Score:5, Insightful)
The folks who wrote DOS and Windows freeware in the 80's and 90's have just gotten tired of it. It was fun, but the community of techie early adopters has been inundated with everybody and his mother-in-law, and it's just not the same anymore. If they're still doing it, they've decided to make a job of it: hence crippleware requiring payment. Some have moved on to Linux and such, but the rest are just middle-aged parents who don't have time or enthusiasm for it anymore.
Meanwhile, the new generation of techie types (who could have been early adopters of PCs, but now it's too late for that) have either gone directly into open-source, or they've grown up in that "mature market" of Windows, where it seems that most of the neat toys and applets they'd want are already bundled with the OS, and the bubbling stewpot of innovation has cooled to a simmer.
Another related factor is that the nature of the computer you take out of the box has changed dramatically over that timeframe. If you bought a computer 25 years ago, it was expected that you would do some programming with it. Turn on that Apple II or C64 or that IBM PC without an OS installed, and you're in a BASIC interpretter. The more recent computer purchaser is never really given that nudge.
Free Alternatives (Score:4, Informative)
Audacity - Sound editing (so this post is on-topic!)
Mozilla FireFox - Web browsing.
The Gimp - graphics/photo editing
Sodipodi - Vector graphics (SVG) editing. It's no Illustrator, but the basics are there, and they're pretty nice.
OpenOffice - Not quite ready to replace Word/Excel/PPT, but it's great if you (or your employer/university) haven't already shelled out for Office.
FileZilla - FTP client
Gaim - AOL Instant Messenger client
PuTTY - ssh client
There's a bit more elaboration and links on my blog [pirkle.org].
One possible reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
After a looong search I eventually found one free program that could do the job. Downloaded it, installed it, started ripping. Five minutes later it stopped. Time-limited, you see. But good news! Apparently there was a commercial version which could record for longer than five minutes! So after being tricked like that, obviously I rushed to order the commercial version... NOT.
Obviously that was a dirty bait-and-switch trick but I can think of one legitimate reason why more ethical coders may be moving away from free releases...
A few years ago I wrote a video capture program. It was for my own personal use because I wasn't happy with any of the commercial options available. I decided to release the software for free, and included in the zip file a brief text file explaining how to use it and stating the one very limited, specific job that it was designed to perform.
The software was listed on one download site and the reviewers there ripped it to shreds.
Why?
Because they claimed that a certain feature didn't work.
Never mind the fact that the info file made no mention of that feature. Never mind the fact that the feature was way outside the scope of this particular program. These reviewers wanted a free video capture program with a certain feature, so when a free video capture program came out *without* that feature, they reviewed the program as defective.
Would I release a program for free in future?
Very unlikely.
If someone considers buying a program then they'll probably read the instructions to make sure it can do what they want. If they go ahead and buy it then they'll almost certainly have read the instructions. But if it's free, as with most free stuff online, people have unrealistic expectations and they react nastily when those expectations aren't met.
For something really nice simple and free.... (Score:3, Informative)
Stepvoice recorder
http://www.stepvoice.com [stepvoice.com]
It records almost any sound source directly into MP3. You can also define quality of the recording.
Best of all, it's only 230k!
Excellent Freeware Site (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.snapfiles.com/freeeware/ [snapfiles.com] (used to be webattack.com)
I used to be addicted to freeware and this was one of my favorite places to get a fix.
All the software is well categorized.
I can often find what I'm looking for here.
http://www.nonags.com is good too.
Tod
Re:Excellent Freeware Site (Score:2)
try this link
Re:Excellent Freeware Site (Score:2)
try this link [snapfiles.com]
Audacity (Score:2, Informative)
Try this one (Score:3, Informative)
Its changed, not disappeared (Score:4, Informative)
Exact Audio Copy (Score:3, Informative)
yes virginia, you can you windows sndrec32 (Score:3, Interesting)
record a blank file, about 2 seconds,
using 'effects' increase the length by 'decreasing speed' as needed to length required for project.
start at beginning of file, and hit 'record' this causes your new sound to mix with the file
using windows sound recorder, it's ability to convert, and the lame codec, I actually have a friend I setup converting his old LAME punk rock from casettes to mp3's using just soundrec.. I actually created blank wav's for him in 180, 240, and 900 second versions, and have used it successfully to record an entire side of a 45 minute casette onto one file, 2800 second blank wav, pared down as needed after the casette was in.
I blame VB... (Score:5, Interesting)
My frustration is not so much finding free tools but finding _any_ tools that don't suck for small simple needs like the one described. I'll gladly pay a small fee for a small utility that does something really well, but the freeware actually tends to be better than the shareware in so many cases, probably because the creator is motivated to make a useful app rather than just become the next WinZip (which I happily paid for years ago, but now I use WinRAR, also paid for). Big commercial apps have their place, but most of the time, what I'm looking for is a simple tool to fill a simple need, not something that tries to be everything to everyone.
Between sourceforge.net and freshmeat.org and maybe a little learning curve with cygwin, there is plenty of good Windows open source software out there to be had, but it should be a lot better.
Recently I wanted a good font manager for Windows, something that would let me browse through hundreds of fonts and install or uninstall them quickly and easily. I found the same thing... a bunch of crappy shareware (or at best, decent shareware that lacked features I required), so in frustration I started writing my own using old Ziff-Davis free utility source code as a starting point. I haven't gotten far because of work demands, but if I ever get something good, I will release it Open Source.
And please, Windows programmers, if you are going to release freeware, give us the source. Many marginal piece of software could be very valuable if the source were available.
I have nothing against shareware or commercial software, but if you are going to go that route, your app better be worth the download, and from what I've seen, most aren't.
At the end of the day, any good software is hard to find.
Re:I blame VB... (Score:5, Insightful)
Either that your Rational or Real, or in many cases, Microsoft and you simply hate your customers.
maybe because... (Score:2)
Maybe they noticed that there wasn't much "honor" out there. Maybe they noticed thier software being used everywhere and how few people were willing to pay the usually dirt cheap registration fee.
Any-way, what you're looking for is called OSS, and it does exist for windows too.Jet Audio (Score:3, Informative)
See download.com
The new freeware (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem with looking for freeware on freeware/shareware sites is that those sites are desperate for some sort of revenue, so they prefer to host shareware and demos that they can earn revenue from through affiliate links. Having worked for such a site, I ought to know.
Most of the best freeware is open source nowadays. Whenever it's not it's usually to promote a commercial product. CDEX is one of the best cd rippers, sound recorders, and sound converters all in one.
Misdiagnosis? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is why it is often better to go to a site which serves as a portal to links to your subject of interest, rather than a general search engine.
Re:Switch to Linux (Score:5, Funny)
This commercial in a thread is brought to you by Anonymous Coward productions, located in Sausalito California copyright 2004 All rights reserved.
We now return you to your regular slashdot reading.
Re:Switch to Linux (Score:2)
[snip]
We now return you to your regular slashdot reading.
Honestly, that sounds _exactly_ like my regular SlashDot reading...
Re:What about... (Score:2)
Another real problem to a lot of this old software is that it was written with 386 clock speeds in mind. So that is around 25 MHz. Most new machines run at 2500MHz, a 100 fold increase that will break many programs.
You can use a DOS simulator and load Windows 3.1 onto it (maybe - there is a real issue of compatibility here, most of the free stuff isn't 100% and there is bound to be bugs). You ca
Re:or perhaps (Score:4, Informative)
Another vote for Total Recorder, & why it work (Score:4, Informative)
A problem with developing this kind of software is needing proprietary libraries, etc. So virtually all software of this type is non-free. Total Recorder gets around this by recording the output of the sound card. Methinks Java could be used for this and it could be cross-platform, but so far no one's bothered.
What sad. (Score:2)
Unadulterated anty OSS zealotry at its worst.