Ok, I'm a ilttle confused about the difference between these two. I told a friend I never owned a copy of Duke Nukem 3D and I was told that I could get it on freeware. When I looked at the official 3D Realms website it said shareware. Is there really a difference? Is a shareware just a demo?
Freeware is just that. Totally free. Most of the time it means that you may use the software for your own personal use with no obligations to compensate the maker in any way.
Shareware can be a full version of software and the maker asks you to be honest. Try the software for a period of time and if you like it then you are asked to pay for it and a method for you to do so is provided. In many cases the shareware version of a program will be restricted until you pay for activation. This can be in many forms. Most common is that some features are not functional. For instance, if you have a shareware version of say a music software it may be fully functional except you cant save your files. Or perhaps you can only save in one of the available formats. More often shareware limits you to a number of uses or a specific number of days, say month.
Hope that helps.
~edit: Oops, I forgot the most common thing in shareware and that is that the program will have a pop up that will come up every time you start the game or whatever and periodically while using it to remind you that it is shareware and you should pay for it.
^ He covered it pretty much. I'll just add that a freeware version of Duke Nukem 3D would mean the entire game is free. A shareware version probably wouldn't include all of the levels (if not, then some other limitation).
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