Freeware is copyrighted computer software which is made available for use free of charge, for an unlimited time, as opposed to shareware where the user is required to pay (e.g. after some trial period).

Freeware contrasts with free software, because of the different meanings of the word "free". Freeware is gratis, as in "free beer", and refers to zero price, versus free software that is described as "libre", as in "free speech", which refers to the freedom to study, change, copy, redistribute, share and use the software in any purpose. However, many programs are both freeware and free software. They are available for zero price, provide the source code and are distributed with free software permissions. This software would exclusively be called free software to avoid confusion with freeware that usually does not come with the source code and is therefore proprietary software.

There are many variations on the freeware model. Freeware is an umbrella term which includes loss leaders (in the form of crippleware) and adware.

The only criterion for being classified as "freeware" is that the software must be made available for use for an unlimited time at no cost. The software license may impose one or more other restrictions on the type of use including personal use, individual use, non-profit use, non-commercial use, academic use, commercial use or any combination of these. For instance, the license may be "free for personal, non-commercial use."

The freeware definition can encompass public domain software (where the programmer has no rights to the software) or free software, and proprietary or shareware with its more restrictive licensing. Programmers who release freeware often want to "give something to the community" but also want credit for their software and to retain control of its future development. Often, when programmers decide to stop developing a freeware product, they will give the source code to another programmer or release the product's source code to the public. The free software movement would reject zero-price proprietary software as "giving something to the community".

The term freeware was coined by Andrew Fluegelman when he wanted to sell a communications program named PC-Talk that he had created but for which he did not wish to use traditional methods of distribution because of their cost. Previously, he held a trademark on the term "freeware" but this trademark has since been abandoned. Fluegelman actually distributed PC-Talk via a process now referred to as shareware.

The following non-game software has been released by their copyright owners.

• MegaZeux, a game creation system.
• Turbo Pascal (1989), a 16-bit Pascal IDE for MS-DOS (get it here).
• Turbo C (1989), a 16-bit C compiler and IDE for MS-DOS (download).
• Version 7 Unix (also called "V7 UNIX") (1979), an important, early ancestor of modern UNIX operating systems, which ran on PDP-11 minicomputers. Released under a free software license by Caldera Systems in 2002. Runnable today under emulation. V7 UNIX includes one of the first C compilers ever written.

• Abandonware
• Freeware games
• Otherware
• Postcardware
• Pricelessware
• Shareware

• Template:Dmoz
• Freeware Wiki [1]