Downloading from the Internet The Internet is a great resource for many things, including software. There are a lot of good (and a lot of bad) programs available for download. This guide will tell you a little about different ways to download software, types of software to download, give you some tips to make downloads more efficient and successful, and how to download safely. Freeware Freeware is software that is, as the name says, absolutely free. You can download it, install it and use it indefinitely. The authors are usually people who have programming experience, either through their day job or just as a hobby, and write programs they think might be useful. They do it for the fun and don't expect any compensation for it, a very noble attitude that cannot be appreciated enough. Because it is free, you should be realistic. Some freeware is a very amateurish attempt at programming and you end up with a buggy piece of code you wish you never installed, some other freeware is amazingly good and you can't believe that it is free. You'll find some of the good freeware mentioned here in our Downloads section at http://www.PCNineOneOne.com/downloads/ Shareware Shareware is software that is available for free download and allows you to use it for a certain time period after which you are expected to either register it with the owner and pay a small amount to buy a license for unlimited use, or, if you decide you don't like it or don't need it, remove it from your PC. Some shareware relies on the honor system and expects that you contact the owner voluntarily after the evaluation period is up, other will disable itself after the evaluation period is over. Other will disable itself after the evaluation period and can only be unlocked with a valid license or registration number you first have to purchase from the vendor. Try and Buy Try and buy is software from a professional software vendor that you can download from their web site after purchasing it with a credit card online. This way you don't have to go to the store or wait for the product to be shipped to you. Usually you download the software and then get a separate e-mail with a license or registration number after your credit card information was verified. Warez This is a slang term and means pirated software. Warez are illegal! Often warez are programs from professional vendors, often try and buy versions, that were illegaly altered to never expire. This is completely illegal as the owner of the software never sees a penny for it. If you ever happen upon a site that offers free software from vendors that you know you have to pay for, write down the URL for the site and then send an e-mail to a few of the vendors whose software was available for free on that warez site. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Why would anybody give away free copies of Microsoft Office if you normally have to pay several hundred dollars for it in the store? Another good reason never to download anything from these sites is that often warez are infested with viruses and serve as a tool to spread them over the Internet. Where to download software You can find software all over the Internet depending on the type of software. Try and buy can be found of course on the vendor's web site. For example, if you want to purchase a copy of Symantec's Norton Antivirus, you'd go to Symantec's web site, find the product in their online store, and follow the instructions. Shareware and freeware can be found in many places. A good place to start is the download section here on PC911, which is cram-packed with great freeware. But there are many other download sites out there. Here's a list of just a few: http://www.download.com http://www.thefreesite.com/ http://www.mysharewarepage.com/ http://www.winpicks.com/ http://www.elgan.com/windows/ Before you start going hogwild and download programs like crazy, you should know a few things first, though. Successful downloading Downloading software can take quite a while, especially when you're using a regular modem over a phone line. If the program you want is several megabytes, it might take hours. And the longer the download takes, the higher are your chances that the download turns bad, e.g. because you forgot to turn off call waiting and a phone call interrupts it, or your ISP disconnects you, or the server burps, or your dog starts chewing on the phone line. There could be a thousand reasons. To increase your chances of a successful download dramatically, you should seriously look into getting a program like Go!Zilla from http://www.gozilla.com/. The main strong points of this program are that you can schedule a whole list of downloads for in the middle of the night when you're sleeping so that it does not interrupt your busy web surfing schedule, and that you can pick up a download gone bad where it left off without having to start all over again. Safe downloading Please be cautious where you download software from. Make sure that the site you download from is reputable. As mentioned earlier, if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Don't take risks. You don't want to lose your data to a virus or a erased hard drive. Be sure to have a good virus checker installed and running when downloading software from the Internet. Always scan downloaded files before opening them. Organized downloading No, this has nothing to do with the mob. Being organized is crucial to safe and successful downloading from the Internet. Before downloading, you should open Windows Explorer and think about where you want to save the file(s). A great way to keep track of things is by creating a folder called Downloads (duh!) somewhere on your hard drive. Then create subfolders, e.g. Utilities, Games, Drivers, etc. Inside those folders, create appropriate subfolders such as the name of the program, the vendor or the device the driver is for. Then be sure to save each downloaded file in the appropriate folder. If you don't do this, you'll run into several problems. First, if you don't make a note of where you put the file when beginning the download, chances are you have forgotten the location by the time the download is finished and have a heck of a time finding the file. Don't laugh, it happens. Even if you remember the location but don't keep it organized and save all your downloads in the same folder, you'll have a hard time identifying all the different files in there. Usually a downloaded file has a pretty cryptic default name, such as majc408.exe, wd_298_inst_2859_upd.zip, setup.exe or similar useless stuff. I'll guarantee you that a few days later you will not be able to identify what each file is for. But if you keep them organized, you don't have to download that driver for a third time the next time you need to re-install and can easily find it on your hard drive. The next problem you'll run into is that most downloaded files are zip files, compressed archive files containing multiple other files. These files need to be uncompressed before you can do anything with it. The uncompressed version will consist of multiple files, maybe two or three, or 20 or 30, or 257. You certainly don't want to have all those files suddenly appearing in your root directory or your Windows directory, it would be a huge mess. Especially since those files are usually just temporary installation files which can be deleted after successful installation. By having a separate folder, you can unzip the files into that folder and easily delete them when done. Don't go crazy When you download and install software from the Internet, you often have no idea what you're getting and whether the program is any good. So be careful. Not only scan for viruses, but also back up your data and system files before installing new software. If the software is buggy and screws up your registry or contains a virus that wipes out your hard drive, you'll be pretty upset. Also, only install one program at a time. If you install 5 new programs and then suddenly find out that you get a certain error message when booting and your PC freezes when clicking a certain button and this didn't start happening until after installing that downloaded software, you'll have a hard time tracking the culprit down. Doing one at a time makes it a lot easier to trace your steps back. The number one rule of troubleshooting is to change only one thing at a time. You'll see that there is tons of stuff out there to download. Do yourself and your PC a favor and think for a second before you download and install something whether you really need it. Don't clutter your system up with unnecessary eye candy such as screen savers, custom icons, skins, memory resident programs and other junk that will bog down your PC by hogging resources and increasing the risk of software conflicts. That said, enjoy yourself! There is a lot of good software out there that might save you time or money. 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