A little while back, I decided to write an ebook on simple computer maintenance. Not wanting to invest any money for my first shot at an informational product, I went looking for a free ebook compiler. I found many that said free download; however I hardly found what I was looking for. Many just didnt work properly. Others refused to let you compile and executable ebook without a registration key which cost money. Even others were so complicated, that I didnt want to bother. This was a frustrating Endeavour to say the least. So I finally settled down with the good old fashioned PDF files.

Well that said, lets talk about one of the major problems out there in wonderful world of computers. Free software. For example, Grandma comes in to my computer repair shop, all upset, carrying her tower which started shutting down out of the blue. She cant get onto Pogo to play her bingo games. It turns out that something is robbing her internet connection and memory. It starts when the computer starts up. This something also wants to download updates and has a bad connection with the update server. I recognize this at startup, it takes me all of five minutes to fix it, and I then find myself $65 dollars richer.

What it all boils down to is the fact that there is a lot of scams out there. With the exception of a few reputable programs such as ad-aware, nothing is free. They all come bundled with spyware of some sort. Its simply because programmers have found another way to make a buck off of something that they can offer for free. They can either show advertisements in a little window at the bottom of their program or they can throw in a commercial key logger and get your personal information and steal your identity. So you should always, at the very least, check out user reviews from people who have used the program before you try it.

I myself have tried many free programs. Some are good and I never have a problem. Others arent so good and are removed from my computer. The thing that ticks me off the most is when you see something that says free download, and you download it only to find out that you have to pay to make it work. When this happens, it is immediately deleted from my computer. I then refuse to do business with this software designer out of principal. They ran a dishonest add that said free download. Why would I trust them with my credit card number? If they run an honest add that says try it for 15 days free or something like that, Id be more likely too buy if I find value in the program.

So heres an idea to help you keep things running smoothly and protect yourself from identity theft:

First of all, as a rule I never give my personal credit card information over the internet, and have instead found a much better way of doing things. I got a pre-paid credit card. Ill put a few bucks on it and buy something. If a scammer gets a hold of that, they get basically nothing out of it. I also never try anything free on my main computer, and instead have an old piece of junk that I turn on and try it. If it works good with no problem I may download it onto my main computer. If not, I reformat the hard drive on my old computer which means nothing to me anyway.

This has kept my home made monster running smoothly for about five years now. Of course its not the same computer, I always get the newest and best of everything for it, but thats just me.

Sadly enough there is some really good free stuff out there. It sucks that a few bad apples have to spoil it for the whole bunch. Then again, people have been known to do pretty much anything for a dollar. Havent they?