All over the internet you can find free software trials for everything from screen savers to virus software to art and movie-making software and even tax filing software. These can be offered directly from the manufacturers or linked through websites specifically set up for finding a variety of software offered free on the internet.
Why do companies offer their software on a free trial basis? This is a marketing tool designed to give you a “taste” of what a company has to offer in hopes that you will want to buy their full software after your trial is complete. This gives the consumer a chance to find out if the software being offered will actually meet their needs before investing the money into buying it, while bringing more potential customers to the company due to the fact that a consumer is able to try it out before buying. Because software programs generally cannot be returned once they are opened and installed, this gives the consumer a chance to determine if this is going to be the right software for their wants and needs.
However, on the flip side, due to the amount of time to install and learn to use some of the software being offered, the consumer may not always feel that it was “free,” especially in the business world where time is money. Depending on the type of software that is being offered on a trial basis and the full cost of the product, a free trial is not always a good deal for everyone. In today’s technological world full of malware and viruses more and more people are becoming wary of downloading anything off the internet and may steer away from downloading a free trial of any software, feeling more secure in purchasing it and installing it directly from a CD.