Browsing the Web has become like walking down a carnival sideshow. Everywhere you turn, you're bombarded with come-ons. You know there's a catch to each and every pitch because these barkers are pros at separating you from your money.
The people offering free software and Web services appear to be taking lessons from retired carnies. Their offers are too good to be true—literally. Most of these folks are in business, after all, so they have to make money somehow.
And as they say, the most successful cons are the ones where the victim doesn't even know he or she has been conned at all.
Of course, the purveyors of these "free" services assert that there's nothing underhanded about their method of doing business. Many are up-front about their business model, whether it involves placing ads in their products and services, downloading unrelated browser toolbars along with their updates, charging only organizations who use the software while letting individuals have it for free, or offering only dumbed-down versions of the programs for free and requiring payment for access to all the products' features.
Still, sifting through the "free" claims to find the true price you pay for such products can be daunting. Anyone who has used the Internet for any length of time knows it pays to be skeptical. While there are hundreds—perhaps thousands—of truly free programs and services available on the Web, finding the best of them isn't always easy. And clicking the wrong free-download link can be downright dangerous.
One way to determine whether a program is really free is its use of the Free Software Foundation's GNU General Public License (GPL). The GNU GPL stipulates that the software can be used, copied, and distributed verbatim without limitation, though it cannot be changed. While you can usually get the source code of programs that adhere to the GNU GPL, the license differs somewhat from open-source software.
The Open Source Initiative defines 10 criteria that programs must follow to be considered "open source." Among these are that the software can be redistributed—whether sold or given away—without limitation, and that the source code be distributable as well. Such programs must also allow "modifications and derived works" that can be distributed under the same terms.
SourceForge provides the most comprehensive collection of open-source software for Windows, Linux, and other operating systems. The programs listed on the site are often poorly documented and may be labeled as "projects," so you may not want to pin your business's success on one of them.
In fact, you'll often find more complete reviews of the programs listed on SourceForge by searching for them on Download.com. For example, here's the SourceForge entry for the KeePass Password Safe password-management freeware, and the product's entry on Download.com.
Whose bandwidth is it, anyway?
My biggest beef with software vendors—whether they charge for their products or not—is their cavalier attitude toward our system resources. Microsoft ties up our PCs every second Tuesday of the month with multimegabyte Windows updates. But a more recent example is Apple's latest iTunes and QuickTime update, which comes in at a whopping 101.2MB download. Apple, Microsoft, and other software vendors repeatedly expect me to put my workday on hold and turn my system over to their monster updates.
Apple's iTunes + QuickTime updater wants to download more than 100MB of patches in the middle of my workday.
(Credit: Apple)Many antivirus and other security programs let you use them for free but request a donation—sometimes repeatedly. For example, InformAction's popular NoScript add-on for Firefox opens a page after each update that solicits donations.
Other times, the vendor offers a free version of their commercial products, but finding it on the company's site becomes a game of Where's Waldo? If you're looking for AVG Free, you'll find it much faster on Download.com than you would on AVG Technologies' site.
Perhaps the greatest danger when looking for free software is becoming a victim of rogue security programs. This form of malware tricks you into downloading it by promising free protection, and then it claims to have found viruses that aren't actually there. The software holds your system for ransom, requiring that you pay to "remove" the infection that the program itself created.
The best way to avoid such traps is to restrict your software downloads to sites such as Download.com that scan all the files they host for malware prior to offering them for download. Better yet, think twice or even three times before installing any program. Every piece of software you load on your PC comes at a price, even if it's just the time, effort, and bandwidth required to keep it up-to-date so it doesn't become a security weak point.
Nearly all broadband Internet accounts come with storage on the ISP's servers, but I'll wager not one in 10 broadband users ever store anything there. That's a shame, especially if you find yourself schlepping a USB thumbdrive or rewritable CD full of your personal files from computer to computer. There are dozens of free utilities out there that make transferring files between your local PC and an FTP or Web server as easy as dragging and dropping. The two I've been using are the open-source FileZilla FTP client, and 2Brightsparks' SyncBack, which is also available in a $30 version called SyncBackSE that adds compression, performance, and security features.
Windows' built-in FTP comes up short
You don't need any added software to send files to an FTP server from Windows: simply type the server address into Windows Explorer's address bar and press Enter to connect and view the files, or open a command prompt and type the address there. If you're working with lots of files in several folders, the Windows approach is like dressing in the dark. FileZilla and other FTP clients give you a clearer view of your file transfers before, during, and after the process.
For example, I use FileZilla to transfer files to a directory on my ISP's FTP server, as well as to update a Web site hosted on one of the company's Web servers. I created a profile for each task and can jump between the two simply by clicking the drop-down menu next to the program's Quickconnect button. FileZilla's multiple windows let me view the folder trees and contents of the local PC and the remote server side by side.
The free FileZilla FTP program lets you compare the contents of folders on your local PC and the remote FTP server.
As simple as FTP transfers are using FileZilla, you can't use it to back up files to an FTP server automatically, nor is it easy to synchronize files between two folders. That's where SyncBack comes in: the program lets you schedule file syncs and backups to FTP servers as well as to local storage devices. And you can run your backup and sync profiles manually with a single click. SyncBack lists the files that appear in the source or destination folder, but not in the other, so you can choose which files to include or exclude from the update.
Back up and sync files on an FTP server as easy as to a local folder with the free SyncBack utility from 2Brightworks.
It may sound like a trifle, but one of the greatest benefits of the FileZilla/SyncBack approach to file syncs and backups is that I no longer have to fumble around trying to plug my thumbdrive into the USB ports on my various PCs. It's also one less gizmo to keep from misplacing. Any programs that simplify my life even a little bit are welcome.
Monday: Getting Ubuntu to play nice with Flash and QuickTime.
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