Shareware is a waste of time

I figure I haven't tortured myself enough today and decided to try out a piece of shareware crap called FotoMagico. What a waste of time. You apparently can't even try the program without installing a "license." Excuse me, what exactly is the purpose of shareware, anyway? Aren't you supposed to try this out first and then decide if it's worth paying for? Remember the good old days when you could do that? Yeah. neither do I.

Let's just face it — shareware is an absolute waste of time. It's usually crippled in some way, disabling all the useful features or preventing you from saving files, essentially keeping you from trying out the software before you buy it, which was the whole point of shareware from the beginning. (Actually, no, that wasn't the point. The point of shareware was that some individual developers wanted to write software but didn't want to pay for distribution. But I digress.)

At this point, I give up and go hunt for a freeware solution, which is what I should have done to begin with. This isn't always easy, either. Shareware sites usually clutter up the place listing "free downloads," as in you can download it for free and THEN pay for it. I have to filter through these sites and dig my way to the real freeware lurking in the dark out there.