It all depends on whether or not your application is useful. I have read that most shareware authors don't make much money, but then again most shareware is not especially useful, or is useful but interchangeable with software available elsewhere for free. I think if you can come up with a program that people actually want, you can make a decent part time job out of it at least.

Thorston Lemke (GraphicConverter) makes money. Ambrosia makes money. I don't know about the little guys. I'll get back to you as soon as I launch the app I'm working on (which will happen sometime after I actually write it). Originally posted by ozubahn It all depends on whether or not your application is useful.

I have read that most shareware authors don't make much money, but then again most shareware is not especially useful, or is useful but interchangeable with software available elsewhere for free. I think if you can come up with a program that people actually want, you can make a decent part time job out of it at least. Thorston Lemke (GraphicConverter) makes money. Ambrosia makes money. I don't know about the little guys.

I'll get back to you as soon as I launch the app I'm working on (which will happen sometime after I actually write it). I can actually answer this because I am a shareware developer First off sorry for any bad grammer or spelling, im to lazy to proofread. I started programming about a year ago and I loved it, so I decided to make a shareware game (its in my signature) called Escape. The game was more of a learning experiance than a way to make money, but I did make some nice money off it Most all of my friends on the idevgames forum (about 100 active mac game programmers, 100s of articles, (my name is Jake there)) that have made shareware games have said there first game didn't get one registeration, so most shareware games from individuals like myself don't make much money. My game Escape has had 32 registerations, at an average on 7.50 dollars each (I let the user pay what he wants for the game, Its the best method for your first shareware game), so thats about 250 bucks. I know 2 people that have made over 5000 dollars with one game, but thats rare for individual publishers My game uses a different method than serial numbers, because serial numbers are so easy to steal. I make a file with a binary serial number in it, and when that files inside the games folder it unlocks all the features.

I distribute it on versiontracker.com and 2 other download sites, and that gets me about 2000 downloads every time I update it. My registeration rate is about 2%, I think thats pretty good for my first game. Basically the biggest peice of advice I can give about shareware is registering my game(check my sig for the web site). The second biggest peice of advice is to start small, start by making a simple pong game, than move up to a scrolling racing game, then add lots of features to it, and then start by making a small shareware game. Concentrate on the gameplay, and at the end if its really fun add good graphics. Don't expect to make tons of money off your first (or second) game, making shareware games IS NOT ABOUT MONEY, its about gaining valuable experiance programming and having fun, and maybe paying for your development tools. Click to expand.i'm currently living in fujisawa but i'm floating around, i've lived (when does staying become living?) in a dozen different cities in the last 18 months.

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Boku puu tanoshi!! I take the odakyu sen to shinjuku sometimes and have visited hokone and mishima on occasions. I leave in one month for a massive 150 day overland trip to europe now, ON TOPIC! I want to just make a thankyou and give encouragement to all those considering developing a shareware app.

It's a tough road but it's worth it. I use shareware software everyday. The only major brand software i use every day is photoshop (and apple's 'freeware'). Shareware is one of the best things about OS X. Shareware is not a place i want to make a name for myself but i hope that thousands of developers continue their hard work for OS X shareware! Thanks for sharing this info, Vlade. It gives us some good perspective.

Hey, I see that you're going to offer Escape for Windows too. It's funny that you mention Tetris clones, because that describes one of the game programs I wrote. Its defining feature was speed control. You can change the speed at which objects fall at any time, from 1 (slow) to 9 (fast). The points you earn depend on the speed setting.

You can use speed 0, which turns it into stop-action, where you can move the new piece up/down/left/right; it doesn't fall at all. You earn the least points that way, but even little kids can do it without having to worry about their reaction time. This program wasn't shareware, just a program I wrote for friends. The macdevcenter article mentioned by melchior has interesting comments (and quotes) about shareware and open source software. The suggestion to write programs that complement, rather than compete with, well-known programs makes sense.

I took a little time off this morning and went on an exploring trip, to see what new, free software (and shareware) is available for. The trip started when someone wrote a comment on this site about and, but once I got on, I started poking around, and founds all sorts of great, free Mac software applications. Mac OS X internet software For starters, was released last week. (It was a busy week for me personally, and I forgot to note that here.) If you haven't heard of Camino, it is a free Mac OS X browser, and several years ago it was the only real Mac OS X browser option besides Safari. I just downloaded it, and will give it a spin shortly.

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Is a free Mac software app, and it's described as 'an open source FTP, SFTP, WebDAV, Mosso Cloud Files and Amazon S3 browser for the Mac', and it is an Apple 'Staff Pick'. Lets you quickly, easily, and securely access all of your Bonjour services from anywhere in the world, and it's also an Apple Staff Pick. Lets you 'Stream music and photos from your Mac to your TiVo DVR for listening/viewing on your TV.' I don't have a TiVo any more (just a DVR from the cable company), but if you have TiVo, this sounds very cool, and it's also free. Mac OS X imaging applications I do own a tablet device, so looks like a very cool shareware application. It claims to be optimized for tablet users, and I know what they mean when they write about mouse lag problems, so I look forward to giving this Mac OS X drawing application a spin. And finally, because I do a lot of work with images these days (typically using GIMP), I'm going to take a look at a Mac OS X shareware application named.

I use layers a lot in GIMP, and Pixelmator claims support for layers, filters, color correction tools, and much more. Mac OS X software downloads - sorting options A really nice thing about the Apple downloads website is that it has convenient sorting options, so you can show the Most Recent, Most Popular, and Staff Picks for each Mac OS X software category. More free Mac software applications I could spend hours (or days) downloading all these free Mac software applications, but after giving the ones shown above a spin, I think I better get back to work.:) If you have any free Mac software applications you'd like to share, just leave a comment here, and I'll be glad to share it. (Please don't add shareware or commercial software links, I'll just delete those.) One more note: Since writing this article, I wrote another article about.

I hope both of these articles are helpful.