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32-645: Info-Mac consisted of two distinct services: the Info-Mac Archive , a user-submitted collection of nearly all contemporary freeware and shareware available for the Macintosh, and the Info-Mac Digest , an electronic mailing list open to public participation. Both the Info-Mac Archive and Info-Mac Digest were operated by volunteers. The Info-Mac Digest was published daily via Stanford University servers, and

64-434: A portmanteau of the words "free" and "premium", is a pricing strategy by which a basic product or service is provided free of charge , but money (a premium) is charged for additional features, services, or virtual (online) or physical (offline) goods that expand the functionality of the free version of the software. This business model has been used in the software industry since the 1980s. A subset of this model used by

96-566: A legal safe and internationally law domains respecting way. The typical freeware use case "share" can be further refined with Creative Commons restriction clauses like non-commerciality ( CC BY-NC ) or no- derivatives ( CC BY-ND ), see description of licenses . There are several usage examples , for instance The White Chamber , Mari0 or Assault Cube , all freeware by being CC BY-NC-SA licensed with only non-commercial sharing allowed. Freeware cannot economically rely on commercial promotion. In May 2015 advertising freeware on Google AdWords

128-468: A license, but displays advertising to either cover development costs or as a means of income. Registerware forces the user to subscribe with the publisher before being able to use the product. While commercial products may require registration to ensure licensed use , registerware do not. Shareware permits redistribution, but the license only allows limited use before paying the license fee. Some features may be disabled prior to payment, in which case it

160-556: A promotion for the premium version. The two often share a code base, using a compiler flag to determine which is produced. For example, BBEdit has a BBEdit Lite edition which has fewer features. XnView is available free of charge for personal use but must be licensed for commercial use. The "free" version may be advertising supported, as was the case with the DivX . Ad-supported software and registerware also bear resemblances to freeware. Ad-supported software does not ask for payment for

192-405: A single entity to be responsible for updating and enhancing the product, which is then given away without charge. Other freeware projects are simply released as one-off programs with no promise or expectation of further development. These may include source code , as does free software, so that users can make any required or desired changes themselves, but this code remains subject to the license of

224-430: A variation of the model known as " open core ", in which the unsupported, feature-limited free version is also open-source software, but versions with additional features and official support are commercial software. In June 2011, PC World reported that traditional anti-virus software had started to lose market share to freemium anti-virus products. By September 2012, all but two of the 50 highest-grossing apps in

256-623: Is particularly suited to software as the cost of distribution is negligible. A freemium model is sometimes used to build a consumer base when the marginal cost of producing extra units is low. Thus little is lost by giving away free software licenses as long as significant cannibalization is avoided. Other examples include free-to-play games – video games that can be downloaded without paying. Video game publishers of free-to-play games rely on other means to generate revenue – such as optional in-game virtual items that can be purchased by players to enhance gameplay or aesthetics. Ways in which

288-685: Is published daily. Info-Mac also distributes an iOS app called iForum on the App Store . Freeware Freeware is software , most often proprietary , that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user . There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license , or EULA that defines freeware unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for the freeware it offers. For instance, modification , redistribution by third parties, and reverse engineering are permitted by some publishers but prohibited by others. Unlike with free and open-source software , which are also often distributed free of charge,

320-431: Is sometimes known as crippleware. Both freeware and shareware sometimes have a limited evaluation period, after which the software is automatically disabled or starts displaying a request to pay a registration fee. In the latter case it is colloquially known as nagware. The Creative Commons offer licenses , applicable to all by copyright governed works including software, which allow a developer to define "freeware" in

352-643: Is typically proprietary and distributed without source code. By contrast, the "free" in "free software" refers to freedoms granted users under the software license (for example, to run the program for any purpose, modify and redistribute the program to others), and such software may be sold at a price. According to the Free Software Foundation (FSF), "freeware" is a loosely defined category and it has no clear accepted definition, although FSF asks that free software (libre; unrestricted and with source code available) should not be called freeware. In contrast

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384-528: The Free Software Foundation calls free software , the author of freeware usually restricts the rights of the user to use, copy, distribute, modify, make derivative works, or reverse engineer the software. The software license may impose additional usage restrictions; for instance, the license may be "free for private, non-commercial use" only, or usage over a network, on a server, or in combination with certain other software packages may be prohibited. Restrictions may be required by license or enforced by

416-447: The source code for freeware is typically not made available. Freeware may be intended to benefit its producer by, for example, encouraging sales of a more capable version, as in the freemium and shareware business models . The term freeware was coined in 1982 by Andrew Fluegelman , who wanted to sell PC-Talk , the communications application he had created, outside of commercial distribution channels. Fluegelman distributed

448-518: The Games section of Apple's iTunes App Store supported in-app purchases , leading Wired to conclude that game developers were now required to choose between including such purchases or foregoing a very substantial revenue stream. Beginning in 2013, the digital distribution platform Steam began to add numerous free-to-play and early-access games to its library, many of which utilized freemium marketing for their in-game economies. Due to criticism that

480-648: The Info-Mac Digest was discontinued in November 2002, while the Info-Mac Archive stopped accepting new file submissions in December 2005. In December 2007, Info-Mac was redesigned and relaunched with a Web 2.0 interface, combining previous Info-Mac Digest and Info-Mac Archive content with a modernized forum-based community and news aggregator. Today, Info-Mac has expanded to cover all Apple product lines. A new, opt in Info-Mac Digest automatically generated from forum content

512-476: The Oxford English Dictionary simply characterizes freeware as being "available free of charge (sometimes with the suggestion that users should make a donation to the provider)". Some freeware products are released alongside paid versions that either have more features or less restrictive licensing terms. This approach is known as freemium ("free" + "premium"), since the "free" version is intended as

544-448: The archive. These CDs were sold through Mac-related magazines and publications. Licensing issues required software authors to specifically allow their contributions to be included on the CD-ROM through a statement in the file's abstract. The CDs allowed wider distribution to users who did not have network access or could not spare the long download times associated with software applications. As

576-507: The business model for encouraging predatory game design tactics based on an improper business model. In 2015, Nintendo released two of their own freemium games in the Pokémon series based on other standalone purchasable titles. With the title Pokémon Rumble World , Nintendo took a different approach by making it possible to complete the entire game without buying premium credits, but retaining them as an option so players can proceed through

608-612: The compiled executable and does not constitute free software. A "free" trial is another related concept in which customers are allowed to use a product, free of charge, for a limited time. When a software monopoly has a strong network effect, it may be more profitable for it to offer a "free" trial. Also, customers acquired via a "free" trial have a much lower customer lifetime value as opposed to regular customers, but they also respond more to marketing communications . Some factors that may encourage or discourage people to use "free" trials include: Freemium Freemium ,

640-424: The freemium model and prescribe a framework for implementing them into software products. The freemium model is closely related to tiered services . Notable examples include LinkedIn , Badoo , Discord , and in the form of a "soft" paywall , such as those employed by The New York Times and La Presse+. This is often in a time-limited or feature-limited version to promote a paid-for full version. The model

672-462: The late 1990s. As the growing popularity of the World Wide Web and web hosting services allowed software authors to distribute their own software, and for users to communicate on online message boards , demand for Info-Mac's services grew beyond the capability of an all-volunteer staff to provide and maintain it at an acceptable level. Unable to maintain relevance on the rapidly evolving Internet,

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704-498: The multiplayer games falling under this category were pay-to-win in nature or were low-quality and never finished development, Valve has since added stricter rules to its early-access and free-to-play policies. Freemium games have come under criticism from players and critics. Many are labelled with the derogatory term 'pay-to-win', which criticizes freemium games for giving an advantage to players who pay more money, as opposed to those who have more skill. Criticisms also extend to

736-421: The product or service may be limited or restricted in the free version include: Some software and services make all of the features available for free for a trial period, and then at the end of that period revert to operating as a feature-limited free version (e.g. Online Armor Personal Firewall ). The user can unlock the premium features on payment of a license fee, as per the freemium model. Some businesses use

768-481: The program via the same process as shareware . As software types can change, freeware can change into shareware. In the 1980s and 1990s, the term freeware was often applied to software released without source code . Freeware software is available for use without charge and typically has limited functionality with a more capable version available commercially or as shareware. It is typically fully functional for an unlimited period of time. In contrast to what

800-458: The software itself; e.g., the package may fail to function over a network. The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) defines "open source software" (i.e., free software or free and open-source software), as distinct from "freeware" or "shareware"; it is software where "the Government does not have access to the original source code". The "free" in "freeware" refers to the price of the software, which

832-642: The software was encoded in BinHex or MacBinary format it could be stored on non-Mac file systems such as a BBS or FTP server. Starting with the Info-Mac VI CD-ROM, the discs included the utility "Spelunker" which allowed users to search the archive in a user-friendly manner. Starting with the Info-Mac VIII CD-ROM, the package included two discs to offer twice the shareware and freeware. The popularity of Info-Mac services in their original format waned in

864-399: The term "freemium" for this model. In 2009, Chris Anderson published the book Free , which examines the popularity of this business model. As well as for traditional proprietary software and services, it is now also often used by Web 2.0 and open source companies. In 2014, Eric Seufert published the book Freemium Economics , which attempts to deconstruct the economic principles of

896-670: The video game industry is called free-to-play . The business model has been in use for software since the 1980s. The term freemium to describe this model appears to have been created much later, in response to a 2006 blog post by venture capitalist Fred Wilson summarizing the model: Give your service away for free, possibly ad supported but maybe not, acquire a lot of customers very efficiently through word of mouth, referral networks, organic search marketing, etc., then offer premium-priced value-added services or an enhanced version of your service to your customer base. Jarid Lukin of Alacra , one of Wilson's portfolio companies, then suggested

928-461: The way that the business model can often appear unregulated, to the point of encouraging prolific spending. Freemium games are often designed in a manner where players who are not actively using premium features are actively frustrated, delayed or require much larger investments in time required to acquire currency or upgrades. In November 2014, the animated TV series South Park aired an episode entitled " Freemium Isn't Free ". The episode satirized

960-642: The world. At the time, disk space on a server was cost-prohibitive and hard to come by. Free public archives such as Info-Mac were often the only means for shareware authors to deliver their product over the Internet. Some early commercial software download sites, like CNET's Shareware.com, were originally mirrors of the Info-Mac Archive. Due to the low-bandwidth connections accessible by early Internet users, which made downloading large files an onerous task, Info-Mac partnered with Pacific HiTech to periodically publish CD-ROMs containing selected shareware and freeware from

992-467: Was itself archived on the Info-Mac Archive. At its height, the Info-Mac Digest was read daily by several thousand people, and was mirrored in the Usenet group comp.sys.mac.digest. The Info-Mac Digest was published in "volumes" that covered the period of one calendar year, with some exceptions. The Info-Mac Archive was the centralized collection of Macintosh software with over 100 mirror sites located around

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1024-509: Was restricted to "authoritative source"[s]. Thus web sites and blogs are the primary resource for information on which freeware is available, useful, and is not malware . However, there are also many computer magazines or newspapers that provide ratings for freeware and include compact discs or other storage media containing freeware. Freeware is also often bundled with other products such as digital cameras or scanners . Freeware has been criticized as "unsustainable" because it requires

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