{"id":1583,"date":"2008-12-23T16:02:28","date_gmt":"2008-12-23T23:02:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/?p=1583"},"modified":"2009-09-11T20:09:34","modified_gmt":"2009-09-12T03:09:34","slug":"all-the-best-all-for-free","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/2008\/12\/all-the-best-all-for-free\/","title":{"rendered":"All the Best, All For Free"},"content":{"rendered":"

From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission.<\/em><\/p>\n

The IT world is a better place because Ian Richards is in it.<\/p>\n

A few years ago I stumbled across a website called \u201c46 Best-Ever Freeware Utilities.\u201d It contained a fantastic list of software covering many of a PC user\u2019s basic needs ranging from tune-up utilities to security packages, office programs, multimedia and more.\u00a0 The site was the work of a man who called himself Gizmo Richards. I quickly became hooked.<\/p>\n

Gizmo\u2019s site actually covered more than just 46 programs and his weekly \u201cSupport Alert\u201d newsletter was a treasure trove of information about how to find free software that met or even exceeded the quality of commercial alternatives.\u00a0 For two years, it was the only e-mail newsletter I paid for.<\/p>\n

Support Alert ended its run as an independent publication last July, when Richards became a Senior Editor at Windows Secrets<\/a> and merged Support Alert into that organization\u2019s line of newsletters. But the mission that created the Web’s best source of information about free software lives on at Gizmo\u2019s Tech Support Alert<\/a>, a moderated wiki that\u2019s carefully attended by Richards and a team of 60 volunteers.<\/p>\n

I called Richards this week for his insight on the state of free software and found him to be quite unlike the person I imagined.\u00a0 Ian Richards is an affable 62-year-old Australian, a veteran of the mainframe world who found his calling in the early days of the microprocessor era and who stumbled upon celebrity when his informal list of freeware utilities assembled on a lark became a viral phenomenon.\u00a0 Tech Support Alert should be in the bookmark list of every PC enthusiast.\u00a0 Its more than 20,000 citations on delicious.com attest to its popularity<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Richards is passionate about giving his visitors a guide to all that is free and good in the software market. \u201cNinety-five percent of the software products that people need are available as a freeware version,\u201d he says. “Free” means different things to different people, of course, but in the Tech Support Alert definition, it refers to products that provide the kind of quality and functionality that users might otherwise expect to pay for. In other words, crippled or limited function products need not apply. \u201cBefore you buy a product, you should routinely consider getting a freeware version,\u201d he told me. You can listen to my 31-minute interview with Richards here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Gizmo and his volunteers excel at finding sources of free downloads, sometimes digging through little-known download sites to find early versions of commercial programs that don\u2019t carry a fee.\u00a0 For example, in the category of free backup programs, they recommend WinBackup V1.86 from Uniblue Systems<\/a>.\u00a0 \u201cAlthough it’s no longer available from the vendor’s site, the program file winbackupfreedr.exe can still be downloaded from a number of sites<\/a>,\u201d the editors note. \u201cThe vendor is offering the older version for free with the hope that users might upgrade at some later time\u2026However, the old program is good enough that most users probably won’t need to.\u201d<\/p>\n

Backup is one of more than 200 categories of software that Tech Support Alert lists.\u00a0 Its freeware database runs into the thousands of programs, which is actually only a tiny fraction of the products available.\u00a0 Richards and his volunteer team test every package they can get their hands on and recommend only the handful that they judge the best. Reviewers, \u201cdon\u2019t have to be technical geniuses, but they do have to be technically competent and have a command of the English language,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

The quality of free software has improved in the decade or so that Ian Richards has been covering the market.\u00a0 Vendors have discovered that by offering scaled-down versions of their commercial products that meet the needs of the vast majority of customers, they can sell premium versions to those who require the very best.\u00a0 Richards offers the example of AVG Technologies<\/a>, a security software company whose antivirus and anti-spyware utilities have been running on my PCs for over two years.\u00a0 AVG\u2019s giveaway programs meet the needs of most home and small business users, but corporations will probably want to pay for the peace of mind and support that they get from the commercial versions.<\/p>\n

AVG and others like it are blazing trails of a new kind of marketing innovation.\u00a0 In the same way that America Online introduced hundreds of corporations to the power of the Internet, these companies are realizing that the technology that people use at home can create opportunities for commercial business. Tech Support Alert encourages this view by raising visitors\u2019 awareness of the low-cost options that are available to them.\u00a0 The site\u2019s 100,000 daily page views testify to its value.<\/p>\n

Gizmo Richards is at an age when many people think about retirement. Instead, he’s helping forge a new model for the software industry.\u00a0 We’re lucky to have him.<\/p>\n

Listen to the interview.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Innovations, a website published by Ziff-Davis Enterprise from mid-2006 to mid-2009. Reprinted by permission. The IT world is a better place because Ian Richards is in it. A few years ago I stumbled across a website called \u201c46 Best-Ever … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":""},"categories":[143],"tags":[160,161],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pTy95-px","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1583"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1600,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1583\/revisions\/1600"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1583"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1583"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gillin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1583"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}