Where do you get your freeware or search for a freeware game?

I am looking to download any of the old Gauntlet games available as freeware now for the PC or Amiga. However, I am not sure where I can safely download these.

In the long-run I would like to know what websites are safe for freeware so whenever I might search for a freeware game I'm not wondering if there is malware or a virus hidden in it.

Thanks.

I highly doubt those titles are available as "freeware". If a game is ever released by the devs for free, it is usually available on their own website. What you are talking about is just plain old piracy.

The word you're looking for is "abandonware". The thing with abandonware is that while probably nobody will be bothered if you go and download it as it has been most likely "abandoned" years or decades ago, it's still copyrighted material. And because of this there's hardly any chance that somebody here will provide you with directions to "safe" download sites for them.

Perhaps what used to be my favorite years ago was sourceforge

But it really depends on what kind of freeware you're looking for. There's good software all over the place. There's also plenty of malware specifically designed for windows, so being non-windows will save you most of the trouble by itself.

where else.

http://ftp.gnu.org/ - tons of good free software.

Maybe i gave too much to consider...

What about the Free games list topic?
That should have a couple of free games in there.

I wont comment on the legality of abandonware. What I will say is that no matter what people tell you, or any other information you get, never trust any website for anything. Even big company websites get hacked and you can get problems from anywhere. Always quarantine downloads and scan them with virus checkers and such like. Also make sure you keep firewall on, virus protection up, security updates installed etc. I.e. Normal security on your machine. Avoid anything looking suspicious, things telling you to disable any protection system, things asking for details etc. And never use same passwords across different pages/systems, and change passwords regularly.
Again, there is no such thing as a safe web site, its all just levels of true.

from [url=https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos_games]Archive.org MS DOS software library. Apparently they applied for and received an exception to certain copyright restrictions in 2003 which, was renewed until the exemption was made permanent in 2010. So... you can apparently play DOS games legally and virus free through your browser.


To my knowledge Gauntlet has never been released as freeware, so the only other place you're likely to find it is on an abandonware or warez site. While there's actually a fair amount of sympathy toward abandonware here, it's still copyright infringement and it's considered poor form to use GOG's forum to direct people toward it.

Wait, isn't sourceforge evil now?
I read that it started adding adware\malware to all downloads. O_o'

News to me. Considering most of the software is open source, often sources are available by themselves, compatible versions for MingW, windows binaries, etc.

You might be thinking of specific higher profile projects. uTorrent for example i think might have added ads and stuff, and a premium/free version, but from my memory the majority of the code/software is free and open source.

It was Sourceforge itself. See for them attempting to revert their actions, and [url=http://www.howtogeek.com/218764/warning-don%E2%80%99t-download-software-from-sourceforge-if-you-can-help-it/]here for a year old story about it.

Ahh i see... Some stuff that just flew by my radar. Then again sometimes i don't touch Sourceforge for months or years at a time, so it's only natural i didn't notice.

In fact, Sourceforge was sold this year and the new owner is removing sponsored 3rd party software bundling entirely. See here

Ah, goo to know!
I'll wait a bit more to trust it again, however.
Even uBlock is still on alert on some pages.

Cool. That'll hopefully make the uBlock gatekeeping appear a bit less often.