Holy Cow! (tucows.com)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	tucows.com
Date:	19/02/01 (26 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: lots of software and other fun items

Disadvantages: some software aimed at American browser

There are a lot of sites on the World Wide Web that deal with freeware or shareware. Lots of them are quite well known such as shareware.com or cnet.com. These sites are American, and downloads from them can be patchy at best.

Tucows is one of the better known and it’s primarily a download site for computer software. It deals with a variety of platforms and operating systems i.e. Win 3.1 to Win ME, Macintosh, BeOS, Linux and even PDA software. Also, which is excellent for users all over the world, is that no matter where you are downloading from, there will be a mirror site quite close to you. The UK has a large number of them itself, meaning you should always get a decent download speed from the site.

Unlike other download sites, Tucows deals primarily with software that you will use online or over a network. The main categories for the software (based on my Win95/98 experiences) are: Audio, Browsers, Communications, Connectivity, E-Mail, Games (on a separate site – more later), General Tools, HTML tools, Internet Tools, Leisure, Multimedia Tools, Network Tools, Office, Online Tools, Security, Server Tools and Utilities.

It also has companion sites where you can download games and other fun stuff like Windows themes, ICQ skins etc.

The site is very well laid out and very rarely do you have to hunt down a piece of software because you are unsure of where it might be. Download times from a local mirror site are good, and the software content of the site is updated on a regular basis, depending on which mirror you use.

The software is rated ( from one to five “cows”) depending on its’ usefulness so in a category of programs which all do the same thing, you can see what’s best. Tucows also gives you a brief overview of the software before you download it stating a few of the features, file size, if it’s shareware or not (if so, it quotes trial period and registration price).

>It’s a very handy site to have bookmarked if you’re a regular internet or World Wide Web user – I guarantee that if you pop in for a quick look then you’ll download at least one piece of software to use!

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