Freeware

Freeware is proprietary software that is available for use at no monetary cost. In other words, freeware may be used without payment but may usually not be modified, re-distributed or reverse-engineered without the author's permission. Two historic examples of freeware include Skype and Adobe Acrobat Reader.

Freeware, although itself free of charge, may be intended to benefit its owner, e.g. by encouraging sales of a more capable version ("Freemium" or Shareware business model). The source code of freeware is typically not available, unlike free software and open source software which are often distributed free of charge.

History

The term freeware was coined in 1982 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 commercial distribution channels. Fluegelman actually distributed PC-Talk via a process now referred to as shareware, no longer called freeware.

The term freeware was used often in the 1980s and 1990s for programs released without source code.