Wednesday, January 16, 2008

How do they do it?


Most Indians, wherever they are, are out to score the best possible deal. Getting something gratis is the ultimate high. I'm no exception. I track deals2buy and edealinfo obsessively. Read downloadsquad everyday. Have installed damn near every piece of freeware I could get my hands on. You get the picture.

In doing all this, I came across a gem of a site a few months ago. GiveAwayOfTheDay (GAOTD to its followers) is built on a simple premise - it gives away one piece of commercial software every day. The software has to be downloaded and activated before that day is done, and is yours for life thereafter. Is there a catch? Not one I could find yet - the programs come sans updates or support, and are only free for personal use, but none of this is a deal-breaker. Even better, they have a sister site that servers gamers, one game at a time.

All this is well, but it begs the question - how good are the programs and games available. The answer depends on the day - some days all you get is a crappy screensaver, other days the program is significant. I've come across file utilities, image editors, media tools and system software in the short time I've been tracking it. Some of these programs have found permanent places on my system.

On the games front, the answer is even starker. Between strings of match-3 games comes along an indy classic. Yesterday's program Immortal defense was Gametunnel's Indy Strategy game of the year and a game I had on my must-play list.

Don't take my word for it. Follow the site for a few weeks and you'll be gushing about it too

Image courtesy of bigfoto.com

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