There’s lots of great free software out there but is free software safe to download?  Free software can help  you with everything from doing taxes to malware removal.  But you should be careful every time you download something new on to your computer.  Free software can be great, but some free software can cause your computer serious problems.  Some hackers like to cloak their viruses in free software, and sometimes even well intentioned developers of free software can cause you problems if they didn’t work all the bugs out of their software.

When it comes to free software, do your best to stick with reputable software download sites.  Man of the House recommends Cnet’s Download.com, Tucows.com, or ZD Net Downloads.  Also, most reliable software sites provide user reviews. If the website you’re considering downloading from doesn’t provide user feedback or shows mostly negative user feedback, then it’s best to steer clear.  And just generally speaking, it’s a good idea to err on the side of caution.  If the site looks sketchy in any way, it’s a good idea not download from it.  Also, make sure that you have malware protection up and running before you download anything.

Sometimes, despite caution and research, you can still end up downloading something that causes problems on your system.  If that’s the case, you should first uninstall the software and reboot your computer.  If you really want to use the problematic software, try reinstalling it, assuming you have antivirus software up and running.

Sometimes antivirus software can mess with the process of installing new applications. You can scan the free software with your antivirus program before you download it.  This allows you to disable the real time scan option while downloading the software.    If, once you’ve done all this, you still have problems with the software, its best to uninstall the program completely and look for a different application.

Sometimes, problematic programs may refuse to uninstall.   In this case, Windows users can use Windows’ System Restore.  This will reset all your programs—without affecting your data—to a specific date.  To use the Window’s System Restore, go to Search System Restore at Microsoft.com and follow the directions for your type of Windows.   If you don’t have Windows, try to manually remove it from your installation directory.  You’ll also want to clean up your registry, because most applications install information there, as well.  For this you can use a free (but certified as reputable) registry cleaner.

If you have any question about which software is reputable, or have any issues dealing with buggy software you’ve already installed you can also use TalkLocal to find reliable local computer help.

This entry was originally posted on Wednesday, July 4th, 2012 at 10:00 pm and is filed under Computer Repair. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.