There are many programmers out there that have made some neat programs and use download sites to give away or sell them. These generally come in three flavors:

• Freeware - you can use, keep, and give away copies of these programs without cost.
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• Shareware - you can download them and try them for free. If you like them you can pay the author to keep the full program. The free trial version may be fully operational but you only get a specified number of days to use it or specific features may be disabled until you buy it.
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• Adware - You can use them for free, but ads for products and services are interspersed in the program.

Two sites that host huge numbers of these programs are

www.tucows.com

www.download.com

!!!!!  We have downloaded tons of these without a problem, but it is always a good idea to make sure that your antivirus and antispyware software is up to date and turned on before downloading and playing any of the software.  !!!!!

Here is a sampling of some of the programs, MP3s. videos, etc that I found on these sites:

• The downloads.com site has more than programs. It also has free how to videos. Here are a few video topics - several how to play guitar videos, several food prep videos, how to use some of the application oriented downloads that are offered on the site, and how to play golf videos.
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• download.com has over 4,000 programs in the category of home and education. Here are a few of them: math worksheet maker, a reward program to make a motivator that shows on the desktop of your kids' computers, many recipee managers, many flashcard makers, many typing programs, a program that uses the computer and mouse to teach kids handwriting letter formations, many foreign language tutors, countdown to an event desktop display, text to MP3 reader, Absolute Pitch program to help you learn to sing.
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• download.com has a lot of free music you can download (it is legitimately free). The music ranges from popular musicians that give away samples of their music to unknowns that are looking to build up a base of fans. Every taste and style is represented. My kids download a lot of Christian and instrumental music from here.