Internet Freebie Bewares & How to Deal with them

As you can imagine, there are many different things to beware of when it comes to internet freebies. There are also various ways that you can avoid falling into the many pitfalls that come along with these freebies as well. Think about it this way a free sample of toothpaste is a real freebie, since it's a real-life item that you can buy in a store.

Digital freebies, which are offered all over the place are things like free fonts, online games, emoticons, and free Web site creation tools. These are often free to. By now you've been explained the basics of what internet freebies are out there but there are a few other things you should be aware of when it comes to actually getting them.

1) Be aware of spam.
The Internet is completely filled with junk-mail senders, commonly referred to as spammers. We all know what these are. Basically if you fail to protect yourself against spam, you'll find yourself receiving thousands of them. Unfortunately, most of the companies that are giving away freebies sometimes ask for your e-mail address. I’m sure that you see where I am going with this.

Although providing your delivery details is generally imperative if you want to get the item, you need to note that e-mail addresses are not a necessity in receiving an item. They will not be sending it there will they?

When you do give out you email address, you can bet that it will likely be sold to other companies, who sell them again and so on. This just starts a horrible cycle. What this should tell you is that before you embark on a freebie spree, you need to be sure to set up a secondary email account that you will use only for this purpose.

You can do this by choosing any free e-mail address provider like yahoo or hotmail. Generally speaking, if you request a freebie over the Internet and they ask you to supply your e-mail address it is a given that spam will soon follow.

2) Get a compression or archiving utility.
When you are offered freebies like software you will often find that they take up far too much disk space to run. It is like a form of adware that these companies rely on. Usually this happens because they add extra files to the software so that they can receive compensation for every download that they get.

A good example of this is when you find that you download some software and find that they have added search utilities to your browser that you didn’t want. It is real annoying but there is something that you can do about this.

Software providers usually offer their own free programs in a compressed file format. If you are using Microsoft Windows for your computer, these files will usually have a .zip extension at the end of the file (i.e. mediaplayer.zip)

This format is used so as to reduce the amount of disk space they use and help speed up download times. If you're using Windows XP, then you're already set for decompressing files, and you would not need to download a separate utility.

Most popular compression utilities that you can find can handle various compressed formats, not just .zip extensions. Some of these file extensions are .rar or .tar.gz file, you should be fine. There are still many programs that don't require decompressing so you should realize that if you already have an archiving program installed your compression requirements should be fine.

3) Be aware of pop-up advertisements.
These days, many webmasters have started including irritating pop-up adverts on their pages in the specific effort of generating more money. How this works is that after the initial onslaught of pop-ups that a visitor gets, other adverts appeared on the scene as well such as: pop-unders.

These adverts are extremely similar to pop-ups, in that they cleverly conceal themselves behind your main browser window so that they do not pop up on the site but they will show themselves in the taskbar. There are tools that can be very useful in combating these ads. Both of them are highly effective and shown below.

Mozilla FireFox web browser, which includes a built-in pop-up advert blocker.

Google Toolbar which has a useful add-on for Internet Explorer, with a pop-up blocker.
These two tools need to be downloaded but they generally don’t offer any spyware. I will list some websites that offer free downloads later on in this guide for you to be able to go to that are excellent for downloads and advice on downloading.

4) About spyware or adware freebies.
Even though I have covered some of the software freebie problems I had to give out a special section that was geared toward spyware and adware together.

The fact is that most downloadable software has added these into it. Some of them are harmless and can be removed with a good program like Adaware. Others however, are more like viruses or worms.

Knowing about these is important because they often don’t tell you that they are there and many cause major computer problems. I have had so many problems with it in the past, that I have thoroughly exhausted every resource in trying to avoid them.

Spyware can be anything from search additions to actual programs. They are not all dangerous but some of them make duplicate files on the programs that you already have and can’t be removed. It is for this reason that they are harmful because they take up all of your computer’s resources. The best solution to this problem is to download your freebies from reputable sources that offer user reviews. That way you can get solid info about it from others just like you.

5) Viruses and Worms
Internet freebies from software and downloadables like music can also include viruses and worms which we all know can be fatal to computers. Most of these can be found in music downloads and movies. The reason is because of their popularity. Naturally your best bet in avoiding these is to avoid using the free site programs and instead go through cheap and paid services like iTunes.

6) The Free Gift/Rewards/Sample Issue
Since these require a certain amount of your personal information to be shared in order for you to get these items, you have to be cautious with them. For example if you want a free sample, do you have to pay for something else or give out credit card information first? This area requires some basic questions that you should be asking yourself before opting for these freebies, such as:

1. Is the freebie worth the price that must be paid?
2. Do I have to buy something to get the freebie?
3. How much personal information do they require? (i.e. SSN, credit card info., bank information etc.)
4. Do I have to enter into a contract first?
5. is the freebie standing on its own or is there an added cost to pay?
6. what am I willing to do for my freebie?
7. Why is the site giving out freebies?
8. What’s in it for them?

These are important questions that you should get answers to if you really want to try to avoid being taken for a ride. As I explained earlier your freebie may not be all it is cracked up to be.

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