Many software developers, like myself, have a difficult time finding the right balance between respecting the rights of the users of their software (such as releasing the source code under a license ...

The early 1980s saw the emergence of a new breed of software developers who gave their games away for free (usually through dial-up BBSs) in the hope that some players would enjoy the games enough to ...

Some of the largest sites for shareware include Download.com (www.download.com), Shareware.com (www.shareware.com) and hotfiles.com (www.hotfiles.com). These are large, general-interest sites focused ...

With Apple’s introduction of an iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK) last week, it seems everyone and their brother is hopping on the iPhone bandwagon or considering the jump. There are still some ...

Just like many people close to my age, I spent a lot of time as a kid playing Shareware games on our home PC. Better than a game demo, you could play the first "episode" of a game for free, but then ...

More of China's programmers are writing shareware--home-brewed, low-cost software--for fun and small profit, according to the official Xinhua news agency. Unlike commercial software from behemoths ...

Back before YouTube and Twitch and always online DRM, developers needed more effective ways of marketing than just relying on word of mouth. This resulted in shareware, demos and demo discs, free ...

Terms such as Freeware, Free software, Open source, Shareware, Trialware, Adware, Nagware, etc are often used to define programs. Does one really know the difference between freeware and free software ...

Welcome to Ars Gaming Week 2019! As a staff full of gamers and game-lovers, we'll be serving up extra reviews, guides, interviews, and other stories all about gaming from August 19 to August 23.

I had no idea how important shareware was, and arguably still is, to the gaming industry until today. To me, shareware represented the few games I managed to play for free throughout the '90s. In ...