Which free applications are worth trying?

Here’s a piece of free advice: If something is free, it’s free for a reason (and it’s not always bad!)

This month, we’re taking a look at the free software you can find available on the internet. There are a variety of things you can find for free – freeware products, free trials, free open-source software, free services. The big draw of all of these is the cost: Nothing! But these products are free for some reason – and that reason might make it a bad choice. Sometimes, the free software is good enough. In other cases, the free product could be exactly what you need.

Let’s deal with the best part of this first: Sometimes a free product is a good decision. The right decision. When this is true, it is most often regardless of the cost. The best examples for this are free trials of software that turn out to be good and might be worth the purchase. When you have a task that needs to be handled, or your old software needs replacing, looking at a selection of new applications is much easier if they offer a month or three of free trial – no subscription, no fees. This allows you to see if the product is good for you or your company. By offering the free trial, the software company gets a marketing boost that helps you find their services, and you get a chance to make sure it’s a good fit. A win-win scenario!

Sometimes, the reason for ‘free’ software is that someone else is paying for the same software. A number of businesses offer free client software to interact with their paid services. Zoom and TeamViewer, as examples, have free client software that allows minimal use. The offering of these free clients or versions enhances the value of their paid services, making it more likely a potential customer will later purchase those products. A great example of this is Acrobat Reader. Adobe Acrobat Standard and Pro are they pay versions and Adobe Reader is free.

Another common situation with ‘free’ software is when companies offer a simplified version of their full product as a free version. While the full product is an amazing application, you might only need it for a small part of it, or only for a short period of time. We categorized these as ‘Good Enough’ free. One of our favorite antimalware software products is Malwarebytes, which is known to have a very good scanner for potentially unwanted programs. Malwarebytes has a paid subscription service which will constantly check incoming downloads and installations for dangerous malware, but the free version is fine standalone to run alongside another security program, such as Windows Defender, Webroot, or another antivirus. We often use the free versions of TreeSizeFree, ForensIT Profile Wizard, and other tools for small projects.

Running a business, there can be a temptation to save money with a ‘good enough’ product, but the definition of ‘good enough’ is not always true. There are certain applications which are considered to be industry standards, such as the Microsoft Office suite, and free versions of those (such as OpenOffice) may be acceptable for your personal use, but when you are running a business, it will be worth your investment to purchase the standard product from Microsoft for full interoperability with all Microsoft services. Google and Microsoft offer free personal shared cloud storage with Google Drive and OneDrive, but you will find a much more enjoyable and effective experience by having the full paid version instead of juggling numerous personal accounts.

With these good examples, I should warn you: There are numerous ways a free product can be bad. I’ll get the easy reasons out of the way first: The product itself could be bad, and not really worth trying to sell. The product could be actually dangerous – something virus-ridden or rife with other malware – and it could be offered free because the bad actors want people to download and install it. Sometimes, the product is free because it wants to sell the data it gathers from your usage, like Facebook. And sometimes, a product is free because it’s in a trial period.

We talked about free trials earlier, and how they could be positive. Sometimes, a free trial is a great thing when you are testing a product, but other times the free trial is more of a trap. A year-long subscription that offers you ‘three months free’ isn’t really offering it free. A large number of computers, when purchased ‘clean’, come pre-installed with McAfee or Norton Antivirus with a free trial; Amazon Alexa interface, shopping options, and more. Anything pre-installed and advertised as free was actually paid for by the company to push their product on you. Microsoft has pre-installed their Office 365 applications on a number of windows machines, and it is integrated enough that it feels natural to use – but when that trial runs out, it won’t be as easy to access your documents unless you take the easy subscription option, or take the longer and more involved process of finding a replacement (which might just be the non-subscription version of Office).

You can always contact us with any questions or concerns about any free choices, of course.