Every single thing you see on this Web site has been made with free software. Well, almost everything, if you consider that the computer on which all these is created, up to October 2002 and now after July 2003, runs an operating system that happened to be Microsoft Windows, which certainly isn't free (if it were so, Mr. Bill Gates wouldn't be the richest man on Earth). Yet, some of the pages were originally coded by hand in BeOS, a true free operating system (for non-comercial purposes), and between October 2002 and July 2003 the whole site was maintained in Debian, a GNU/Linux distribution (now it's Ubuntu, a Debian-based distro). The other non-free software is Paint Shop Pro, my graphics editor of choice, for the MS-Windows platform.

There are at least two main creeds on the Internet regarding freely available software. On the one hand is WAREZ; on the other one, FREEWARE. The first term refers to software that has been illegally copied and is illicitly distributed by someone or a group of people (even if that someone has acquired his or her copy legally first), and that some other people, consciously or unconsciously, download without paying its commercial or shareware fee. The second term refers to software that is freely and legally available, usually also freely distributable, by its own author or any other authorized person with or without limitations. Of the two, I adhere to the second one.

I'm not exactly saying that WAREZ distribution should be condemned and vehemently prohibited. From the point of view of commercial software companies and their advocates, that should always be so. But sometimes there's a genuine philosophy behind warez distributors and users, who also condemn, in their particular way, the excessive and abusive prices some software companies ask for their products. As long as these companies direct their software to corporate users (the ones with the money to pay for it), that's fine with me. But when they also address them to single users for the same cost, big software companies are equally condemnable, since they are depriving most of the public from benefiting from their invention (which isn't generally nor necesarilly characterized by originality). Thankfully, there exists some very good individuals and groups of individuals who kindly come up with excellent options, which they usually give out for free, or sometimes for a reasonable price.

To avoid all the complications that arise by/from the use of WAREZ (in terms of legality vs moral and ethical grounds), I promote the use of FREEWARE.

There's always a personal satisfaction in doing things for free, for the fun of it, with equally free stuff. To that end and to share that feeling, I came up with this section, not only to recommend these useful freeware applications and utilities, but to give these people credit for what they disheartedly do, and help them to promote their efforts.