About FreebieList.com:
FreebieList.com was launched in 1999 with an aim to review only high quality freebies. From the outset, it was destined to be an international freebie site with a global, English-speaking audience. Today, FreebieList.com receives many thousands of daily visitors from all over the world, making it a firm favourite for Web surfers. Our international reach means the freebies we review are available globally. Freebies specific to the UK are given as much priority as U.S. and Canadian offers. And when quality Australian and New Zealand freebies are brought to our attention, we also review those.
The simple design, quality reviews, regular updates, along with highly maintained categories have earned FreebieList.com a large number of awards since its launch, making it one of the Web's elite sites to cover free stuff. Here at FreebieList.com, we're 100% family friendly and never send out unsolicited e-mail to visitors. You don't even require an e-mail address and password before entry. Just surf right in!
Unless you've landed on this page by mistake, you'll probably be wanting to obtain some free stuff. Even new Internet users (commonly called "newbies") should find requesting freebies fairly straight-forward. Before you start browsing through our site, what we'll do is explain the difference between "real" freebies and "digital" freebies.
A free sample of toothpaste is a real freebie, since it's a real-life item. Digital freebies are things like free fonts, online games and free Web site creation tools. These have no cost either, but can only be utilised online (i.e. they don't arrive through the letterbox). Here at FreebieList.com, we separate each type of freebie by category. Real freebies are available from our home page and are categorised as "Product Samples". The rest of FreebieList.com is concerned with digital freebies, and these are clearly accessible via the other homepage hyperlinks.
There are, however, some sections that are sub-categorised, like free software, free e-mail, free contests, free sounds and free Webmaster tools. From the home page it appears as though we have 25 categories, but in reality there are many more. You just need to delve deeper into the site! Now you've been explained the basics, there are a few other things you should be aware of.
1) Be aware of spam (junk-mail).
The Internet is full of junk-mail senders, commonly referred to as "spammers". If you fail to protect yourself against spam, you'll find yourself receiving dozens of advert e-mails. Unfortunately, companies giving away freebies sometimes ask for your e-mail address, along with your postal address. Although providing your delivery details is vital for receiving, say, a free product sample, e-mail addresses aren't treated with as much care or privacy. They are regularly sold on to other companies, who sell them again. Before you embark on a freebie-requesting spree, be sure to set up a secondary junk-mail account. You can do this by choosing any free e-mail address provider. Some of them have been reviewed here and are accessible via the Web. Generally speaking, if you request a freebie over the Internet and they ask you to supply your e-mail address, you should expect to receive spam. Here at FreebieList.com, we take this issue very seriously and have rounded-up some tools that will help you combat the spam menace. Our Free E-mail Programs category has some applications designed specifically to protect yourself against junk-mail.
2) Get a compression or archiving utility.
Software providers regularly serve up their free programs in a compressed format. If Microsoft Windows is your platform, these files will usually have a ".zip" extension. This is to reduce space and help speed up download times. If you're using Windows XP, then you're already set for decompressing files, and you needn't download a utility. People using other operating systems (e.g. earlier versions of Windows), may find our Free ZIP Software section useful. Here, you'll find a selection of freeware compression utilities, which allow you to open, modify and extract archived files. Freeware software has no restrictions and is completely free to download.
Most popular compression utilities can handle various compressed formats, not just .zip extensions. So, if you stumble across a ".rar" or ".tar.gz", you (hopefully) shouldn't find yourself stuck. Having said that, there are still many programs that don't require decompressing. But if you already have an archiving program installed, whenever you come across a compressed file, you'll be well prepared.
3) Be aware of pop-up and pop-under advertisements.
In recent years, many Webmasters have jumped onto an Internet bandwagon and started including irritating pop-up adverts on their pages, attempting to generate more money. After the initial onslaught of pop-ups, other adverts appeared on the scene: pop-unders. These adverts, which are similar to pop-ups, cleverly conceal themselves behind your main browser window. At FreebieList.com we realise the Internet is a constantly changing environment and that eliminating these adverts is a seemingly impossible task. However, we try very hard to keep our directory free of these annoyances. Our actual Web site pages do not contain such adverts. However, when visiting some of the sites we list, you may from time to time, encounter the occasional pop-up. Some useful programs for combating these adverts can be seen below. Both are highly effective.
Mozilla Firefox - Our Web browser of choice, which includes a built-in pop-up advert blocker.
Google Toolbar - A useful add-on for Internet Explorer, with a pop-up blocker.
4) About legitimate freebies.
All the freebies available at FreebieList.com are checked beforehand to ensure they're legitimate. However, on occasions, a sample you've requested may never arrive, even when your friends have received theirs. Companies offering free samples over the Internet regularly underestimate the demand for their products. As a result, they tend to run out of freebies very quickly. At FreebieList.com, if we don't receive a freebie, then the offer is removed fairly rapidly to avoid any disappointment. In any case, requesting freebies early will ensure you get first pick.
Other than the above, there really isn't any more you need to know at this stage. If you have any comments or suggestions about FreebieList.com, feel free to contact us.
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