"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

There used to be a time when you were interested in a new program, you could look on the internet at your favourite web site and find a review telling all about the new program you were interested in. Or you could subscribe to a newsletter and get all the information you need on new stuff. You could make your decision based on your findings.

You can't always do that anymore.

Review the Review

The first thing you need to do now is review the review. Who is the author? What is their purpose in writing the article. Are they being completely up front from the beginning, or are they fluffing up the commentary only to point out the negatives in a very discreet way.

  Free Program

Or is it?

Here is what I've found becoming common place:

a) You are led to believe it is a free program, then find out you are getting a less than basic version and have to pay up front to get the full version or one that is going to do what the entire article says.

b) The program is full of "gotchas" like added tool bars, virus scanners and search page changers, unless you do a custom install. (And you always should.)

c)  There are even some articles that advertise a 'free' program in the large headline and should you decide to check it out, you will find you are offered a trial version of the program - after you register and give a lot of personal information.

So when it says 'free' you really have to dig deeper carefully and determine whether the program is really free, a free trial, or free if you fulfill some obligations, which can even mean paying for it, in a conventional way, or maybe not.

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License