What is the difference between Freeware and Shareware?

Question

What is the difference between Freeware and Shareware?

Answer 1

Shareware: try it out, share it with your friends. If you like it, pay us for it.

Freeware: it's free, period. However, please don't mess with it (i.e. decompile it, reverse engineer it, and so on).

EDIT:
Open Source is different. Open Source means the source code is available... if you follow the rules. If you download the open source, and you use it, and you made improvements (or fixed bugs), you must SHARE the improvements with the community. This usually makes the program freeware, but freeware doesn't say anything about the source code. One can be freeware without being open source.

Answer 2

The main difference between freeware and shareware is the price. Freeware is 100% free. You'll never be asked for any money in order to make certain features available. Shareware allows you access to most of the common functions of a program, but, generally requires a licensing fee in order to access the special features.

Answer 3

Freeware as it say's is "free" and doesn't have a fee to use it. Some programmers don't mind a donation. Shareware generally is free but may have a expiration date and the product may no longer function at that time or if doesn't expire it may not have the full features of the full fledged copy of the product. Exceptions for the later can lie in the copyright agreement where government or a business may still have to pay a fee.

Answer 4

freeware means that it is complete and free to use.
another type of freeware is abandonware, meaning that it is no longer maintained at one point it had might been a pay for product. there is also software that has fallen into public domain, meaning that the copyright was not maintained so now it is free public knowledge and free to use, an example of this is atari 2600 games which can be legally downloaded and played at https://www.atari2600.com/

shareware typically indicates that you must pay eventually (trial version) or the verison is limited. other types of shareware are postcardware or emailware, where the only requiremnt to freely use the software is to send the author a postcard or email.

also

open source means that it is created and maintained typically by a community and is free. if you are looking for free apps you should be looking into this category. they have an office like suite (openoffice.org), photoshop like app (gimp) etc.. high quaility stuff. visit http://sourceforge.net/ to find an app you might need.

Answer 5

Freeware is exactly what it implies. Free of charge. Shareware is generally offered as a trial program, either with or without operational limitations. After the initial trial period, you are expected to register it, pay for it, or discontinue using it.

Answer 6

Freeware is absolutely free to use. Sometimes the author may ask for a donation.

Shareware can be a fully functional program or a program with limited features. When you pay for the program you receive a key to make it fully functional. It is on the honor system for you to pay for it.

Answer 7

Freeware is free full functioning.
Shareware is most probably a trial that works for a couple of months, and it is most likely does not have all the functions as the full version.

Answer 8

Freeware is free.
No charge you can share it and do what you want with it.

Shareware is just what it says, Its normally free and you can share it.
However with shareware you normally get a 30day trial option, after that you need to buy it to continue using it.

Freeware is now called OpenSource normally

Answer 9

Freeware is FREE
Shareware is free to try, then you register it,
also there is Beerware. Free but if you ever meet the author, buy them a beer

Answer 10

Freeware is completely free, shareware is a smaller less fucntional version of a program...